JACKSON and Federal Power [APUSH Review Unit 4 Topic 8] Period 4: 1800-1848

Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s  History. We’ve been going through Unit 4 of the AP U. S.

History curriculum and in this  video it’s time to talk about Andrew Jackson and his relationship to federal power. So if  you can already taste the sauce like I can, let’s get to it. So in the last video I mentioned that with  the Federalist Party basically defunct, the Democratic Republicans were the only major  political party in America.

And within that party, two rival factions began to form: the  National Republicans and the Democrats. Well, by the 1820s to the 1830s, those rival factions  hardened up into proper political parties, which were as follows: the  Democrats and the Whigs. The Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson  and they drew their values from the old Democratic Republicans in the image of  THomas Jefferson.

And not surprisingly, they valued limited power in the federal  government, free trade, local rule. They despised things like corporate monopolies, high  tariffs, and that OH so nasty national bank. The Whigs were led by Henry Clay and they  smelled more like the Federalist Party in the image of Alexander Hamilton.

They valued a  more vigorous and involved central government, which is plain when you look at the set of  policies in Henry Clay’s American System, policies like a provision for a national bank,  protective tariffs, and federally funded internal improvements. And one of their main beefs was  with crimes being committed by immigrants. But all in all, the most contentious debate  between these two parties was the argument over the role of federal power.

And if you  want to get specific, and I know you do, they debated the role of federal  power with respect to tariffs, the national bank, and internal improvements.  So let’s look at each of those in turn. First, tariffs.

A tariff, in case you forgot, is  a tax on imported goods. And if tariffs are high, that means people are more likely to purchase  domestically made goods. So if you hear these taxes called a protective tariff that’s what  it means: it raises prices on foreign made goods so that domestically made goods and  industries are more desirable, and thus, protected.

Now you’d think that tariffs  wouldn’t be that divisive of an issue, but you’d be wrong. Case in point: the Tariff of  1828. Now this tariff was passed during the final months of John Quincy Adams’s administration  and it raised duties on imports by 35-45%, which, if you’re keeping track is a lot  of duty.

Sorry. By raising prices 40% on imported goods, that was really beneficial  to northern manufacturers and western farmers, but Southerners who relied more  heavily on imported goods suffered. Now Andrew Jackson went ahead and got  himself elected president in 1828, and while he wasn’t a big fan of the tariff,  apparently it didn’t bother him enough to really do anything about it.

But not so with  Jackson’s vice president John C. Calhoun who was from South Carolina. In fact he and the  rest of his southern brethren and sistern SO hated this tariff that they called it the Tariff  of Abominations.

And because this tariff severely disadvantaged the south economically and thus  felt like an unjust overreach of federal power, Calhoun went ahead and developed what’s called  the doctrine of nullification. Essentially, Calhoun argued that if a state judged a  federal law to be unconstitutional, that state could just pretend like it didn’t exist—it was  non-binding, and therefore they could nullify it. Now Jackson did not take this kind of challenge  lightly.

He looked at Calhoun and said, as my grandpappy always used to say, “Son, go  outside and pick your switch, cuz I’m bout to wear you out. ” In 1833 Jackson persuaded Congress to  pass a Force Bill which gave him authority to respond to South Carolina’s insolence with  military action. Now at the news of this, Calhoun and the rest of his South Carolina  cohort decided to back off of their threat to secede from the Union if the tariff could at  least be reduced, which it was.

And in the end, South Carolina submitted to federal authority,  but they went ahead and nullified the Force Bill. The second big argument over federal power was  with respect to the national bank. So the Second Bank of the United States was established  in 1816 and throughout the 1820s it did the country some good by stabilizing the economy. 

But in the 1830s several state banks had to close their doors because they were unable to  make payments to the national bank and that act left a bunch of average citizens with worthless  paper money. For his part, Jackson believed that the bank itself was unconstitutional and that it  served to prop up the wealthy and do great harm to the lower classes. And so in 1832, Henry  Clay persuaded Congress to pass a bill that rechartered the bank.

And when that bill reached  the desk of Andrew Jackson to be signed into law he went ahead and vetoed it calling it a “hydra of  corruption. ” And apparently the majority of U. S.

citizens agreed with him on this because they  reelected him in that same year by a landslide. And the third fight between the two  parties over federal power had to do with internal improvements. And this one  was pretty simple.

Since Henry Clay’s American System had authorized roads and  canals to be built with federal authority, it divided those in the rival political camps.  Those with Whig sensibilities thought such expenditures were a necessary part of keeping  the nation connected. Those with Jacksonian sensibilities saw this as federal over reach and  that such expenditures were unconstitutional.

Now with all those fights going on, it’s  going to be important to deal with one last event in Jackson’s administration that  illustrates his relationship to federal power, namely, the policy of Indian Removal. Now  acquisition of Indian land had been a big issue before Jackson’s administration  and would continue to be an issue after his administration but these events came  to a head in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Okay, pause for a second.

Not a few people in my  comments get upset with me because I call these people “Indians” and not Native Americans. So let  me just say it now: I call them Indians because the Indians I have met and had conversations  with call themselves Indians and they told me that Indian is the preferred term. Okay, we  good?

Okay, back to the Indian Removal Act. So the Cherokee nation in Georgia had declared  itself a sovereign nation within the bounds of the state, but Georgia didn’t really see it  that way. Instead, the Georgian government saw the Cherokees more like house guests.

And then  it just so happened that gold was discovered in their lands. And so house guests or not, it  was time for them to go. That’s when the Indian Removal Act was passed and it mandated that all  Indians be relocated west of the Mississippi River in the Oklahoma Territory where encroaching  Americans would never bother them again—YEAH RIGHT.

Anyway, the Cherokee actually challenged  the constitutionality of their removal in the Supreme Court in a case called Worcester v  Georgia. And to everyone’s great surprise, the Supreme Court actually sided with the  Cherokees arguing that Georgia had no right to impose state laws within Cherokee boundaries  because those lands enjoyed federal protection. However, in 1835, a small delegation of Cherokee  Indians met with U.

S. officials, and they did this without tribal sanction. And the result  of this meeting was the Treaty of New Echota which officially exchanged Cherokee lands in  the east for reservation territory west of the Mississippi.

And so in 1838 the forcible removal  of the Cherokees and other tribes began. They travelled along what became known as the Trail of  Tears, and it was thus named because of the great sickness and dying that occurred along it because  they were ill prepared to make such a journey. Now there were some Indians, especially Cherokees, who resisted removal either violently  or by hiding.

And eventually these folks settled on a reservation in the western  portion of North Carolina and became known as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.  And due to the increasing complexity of removal, they eventually became citizens of North  Carolina, and later of the United States. Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit  4 topic 8 of the AP U.

S. History curriculum. If you need help getting an A in your  class and a five on your exam in May, efforts here on youtube, then subscribe and I  shall keep making videos for you.

Heimler out.