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How Democratic Was Andrew Jackson Dbq

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Andrew Jackson, born in 1767, was the creator of democracy. A president of America, he won the election in 1828 and was reelected in 1832. He grew up poor, and had to work hard to survive in his younger years. This made him a great democratic candidate, appealing to the common man. Before he was elected, he was also a famous and respected war hero. But was what he did in his presidency really democratic? I think he was democratic for three reasons, the spoils system, the Indian Removal Act, the National Bank situation.
The first problem Jackson caused has to do with the spoils system. This is when a person in a high position, like Andrew Jackson, takes out people more prepared for the job, putting in his supporters instead. This encourages people to support a person for the chance of getting a governmental position. “The duties of all public officers are… so plain and simple that men of …show more content…

Jackson took money away from the National Bank and put it into more state banks, claiming that ‘It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country,’(Document 4). He says that the bank will only send out money to the right and powerful, and that distributing money to the state banks will prevent this. This was very democratic, because by giving money to the state banks, he gives money to the common man. However, Daniel Webster sent this in reply to Jackson's claim. ‘It manifestly seeks to inflame the poor against the right, it wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purposes of turning against them the prejudices and resentments of the other classes.” Jackson, however, took action anyway. This lead to the panic of 1837, where paper money lost almost all value, banks went bankrupt, paper money was suddenly being traded for gold and silver. This was called inflation and depression. This was democratic, but it was just a very poor decision on Jackson’s

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