Andrew Jackson; What Kind of Person was he?

For a few days in history class last week, we learned about the president Andrew Jackson. Jackson was the first president to be elected through a democratic process, and he served his presidency in the years of 1829-1837. He put into act a couple of policies that were not necessarily fair, Indian Removal, Bank War, and Spoils System. In class we got into small groups and each group was assigned one of these three topics. Then we were to analyze the information we were given and to create a project that portrayed our opinion of whether or not Jackson deserved the title “The People’s President”. My group was given the subject of Indian removal. This enactment was an initiative Jackson created to move native american indians west, so that there would be more room for white settlers. He told them that this was their only option if they did not want to abide by the countries laws while they were living in its territory. The indians did not want to leave their home and were quite hesitant of the resources that would be available to the west, but following the countries laws seemed more unfortunate so they went. The long journey they had to endure and the many struggles they happened upon was called the Trail of Tears. All this information and more found here suggests that Andrew Jackson did not deserve his title and was not always looking out for people’s best interests; more like his own.

When watching the other groups presentations they seemed to have the same conclusion. First, Andrew Jackson’s Spoils System was a practice where the elected office would give jobs to its supporters, so when Jackson was voted into office he had to make room for all of his supporters, and he fired 919 government officials to keep his word. When this happened he told people that it was a way of reform, but in reality everyone knew that this occurrence was unjust. Later on Jackson hired a criminal because he was a supporter, but this backfired on him; his system of giving jobs to supporters costed him 1.2 million dollars when Samuel Swartwout robbed him. The Bank war was an effort where Jackson tried to eliminate the second bank of the U.S. This is because he thought it was unfair that unelected officials were running this institution and potentially controlling people’s lives. Jackson thought he was looking out for the middle and lower class, when doing this because if this bank remained they would have less and less say in their economy. This was Jackson protecting the lower classes, but what about the higher classes? There were most definitely people there too, so this created the image that Jackson was abandoning the upper class, which now could go either way as to whether or not he deserved his title based on the Bank War.