During the rise of democracy in the United States in the early 1800s, a man named "the People's President" came along. His name was Andrew Jackson who currently today is on the 20 dollar bill. Now, the reason why he got his name is because well, he was for the people but just saying that doesn't specifically describe what he did or how he ruled as president. Now, being that democracy is a system where the people vote on laws or elect representatives to vote for them, his policies both made us more and less democratic. Our class broke off into 6 groups. Two groups researched and analyzed the same category to create a presentation on their system. The three categories were the spoils system, Indian removal, and the bank war.
The spoils system was our groups topic. Basically, the spoils system had Jackson taking current people with government positions who were very intelligent and replacing them with people who were loyal to him giving them the positions. He removed 919 people from their current positions to make room for those who had supported him in his campaign. 423 of these people were from the United States Post Office. Another example was Samuel Swartwout; it even sounds like an evil name. Swartwout had a criminal record but supported Jackson in his campaign so he appointed Swartwout to tax collector of the Port of New York. So, like any criminal who takes in money, they don't give it to where it is supposed to go, they just take it for themselves kind of like trickle down economics with the rich. Anyways, Swartwout stole over 1 million dollars from the U.S Government. He also took an additional nine cents. What a blow. So in this case, Jackson only benefited his supported and not all of the people in the United States. There was also the Indian removal system. This was a system he put in place to benefit whites by taking Indians that were in their current tribes and moving them out west of the Mississippi River because whites around them were supposedly "destroying the resources of the savage." However, the natives refused to leave because it was the land of their fathers and it is where they were originally from. They also were there first. So, Jackson forced them to and those who still refused to leave were taken by American soldiers and put in concentration camps. He believed that they did not know what was best for them because if they stayed, whites would wipe them out. So in this case, he was for whites and not for all. Lastly, there was the bank war. Daniel Webster who was a wealthy banker proposed an expansion on the big banks to grow the economy. However, Jackson vetoed because he did not want the banks to be too powerful because the people running the bank would have made policies that benefited themselves when they were already wealthy and this would have happened had it passed. Jackson said they were powerful enough but made them look like the bad guys who were selfish and conceived. He wanted more stable and equal classes and wanted small businesses to stay. However, he wanted to wipe the bank out instead of just putting regulations on it or vetoing expansion. Now, this showed that he was for all of the people and that he wanted equality among them when it came to power of the bank and class size. In this case, he was for the people with the right intentions but again could not execute properly.
Our Groups Google Slides - The Spoils System
"https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LyaQZEBhVqrE0n9zUzzmbAiq5Sk-2akIYKUKycJBXTQ/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000"
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