Age of Jackson 1

Running head: AGE OF JACKSON

Age of Jackson

Márcio Padilha

College of Southern Idaho

HITS 111 – Tremayne

Fall/2009
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Age of Jackson

The Jacksonian Age was an era which, encompassing the resulting

dynamics of its preceding historical process, served as a catalyst for the

beginning equalization of several dissonant political ideologies.

Initially grabbing the national attention as the “architect of the great

victory over the British at New Orleans during the War of 1812”, () Jackson’s

appeal to the American public was solidified with “his glory in an expedition

against the Seminoles in Spanish Florida” () and “his execution of two British

subjects” (), which gives a somewhat populist tone to this moment of

American history.

A boy of humble beginnings, orphaned at approximately the age of 14,

which, forcing him to face an uncertain future from an early age, caused

Jackson to grow “angry and frustrated… developing a lifelong anger and

dogged insisting on the unquestioning devotion of friends and relatives,”

which would eventually affect his political demeanor and all the subsequent

dynamics arising thereof insomuch as to create a unilaterally self-righteous

magisterial attitude that opposition, representing corruption, must be fought

at all times as means to narcissistically maintain, whether consciously or not,

the fluidity of purity and fidelity ascribed to an utopian political system().

Despite his “unknown political views”, Jackson articulated his

biography and previous political experiences, which placed him at ease

among the frontier men, the aristocracy and all of those in between who
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exalted his military hero figure, running for the United States presidency in

1824().

Regardless of leading in both electoral and popular votes, Jackson lost

the final race to Adams as the result of a coalition between Henry Clay and

John Quincy Adams, which, in turn, lead to the Jacksonian denunciation of the

election as a “corrupt bargain.” This unilaterally self-righteous contention

further propelled Jackson’s supporters, fearing governmental concentration

of economic and political power, to sabotage Adams’ administration at every

presented opportunity as means to promote the restoration of individualism,

the end of corporativism support and the restriction of paper currency().

Sociopolitical attitudes such as those of the Jacksonians, however,

proved incapable of stopping the economic wheel which had been set in

motion by his antecessors. The then visionary Erie Canal, linking Buffalo to

New York City, would ultimately “demonstrate that trade and commerce are

the keys to the expansion of prosperity and freedom itself.” Further than

that, the laborsaving developments created by those doing the hard work on

the job would prove to have favorable collateral effects in the United States

society and its economy (), both assertions contrary to those of Jackson’s

and his supporters.

Furthermore, in visiting Lowell, Massachusetts in 1833, the mere

presence of President Jackson and Vice-president Van Buren in America’s

first planned industrial community appeared to be a countersense as, by

merely acknowledging the existence of industrial capitalism practices within

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the United States territory seemed to contradictory to their utopian

philosophical lines of promoting the restoration of individualism, the end of

corporativism support and the restriction of paper currency ().

Taking office in a post American Revolution social construct where

ideological tensions between abolitionists, slave owners and Indians

progressively increased, Jackson, a slave owner himself, faced a conundrum

as his microsphere promoted that traditional republican values could only be

achieved via social devolution; an oppositional antagonism as to the socio-

evolutionary macro-sphere doctrine that “all men are created equal” in a

society where Anglo, afro and native individuals were forced into

coexistence().

As such, in strengthening the executive branch and weakening federal

role, Jackson unprecedentedly centralized power in the White House ().

Jackson, who never hesitated to confront opponents with all the weapons at

his disposal, disregarded the Supreme Court’s ruling on Cherokee rights and

held on to his slaves in a historical moment when slaves and Indians, in

reasserting themselves within this volatile status quo, concomitantly started

to idealize a manifest destiny of their own().

In order to bring conformity to the divergent socio-political and

economical points of view existing within the social fabric of the United

States, as conceptualized in the construct of the Jacksonian Era, strong

action was needed and, in this case, no other alternative than of

overpowering one perspective of the dichotomized social strata was feasible.

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Hence, the underlying components of what would become the American Civil

War had been laid out and were at unstoppable play.

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Bibliography

Norton, M. B., Katzman, D. M., Blight, D. W., Chudacoff, H. P., Logevall, F.,
Bailey, B., et al. (2005). A People and a Nation: A Hostory of the United
States, Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Oates, S. B., & Errico, C. J. (2007). Portrait of America, Vol. 1. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company.