The Age of Jackson, from the 1820's to the 1830's, was a period of American history full of contradictions, especially in regard to democracy. The period saw an increase in voter participation, nominating committees replaced caucuses, and electors began to be popularly elected.

Yet, all of these voting changes affected only a minority of the American people; White, Anglo-Saxon males. So, though one can easily tell that these males were gaining true liberty and equality, the millions of women, blacks, Native Americans, immigrants, and other minorities in America continued to languish in a society that limited their rights.During the Age of Jackson, a southern plantation owner himself, enslavement of Blacks was at a new high in America. At the same time, enormous disparities of wealth existed between rich merchants, industrialists and planters, and their lowly workers, immigrants, blacks, and women. While these contradictions typified America, Jacksonian democrats viewed themselves as guardians of the Constitution, political democracy, individual liberty, and equality of opportunity.

While the Jacksonian Democrats were guardians of the Constitution, political democracy, individual liberty, and equality of economic opportunity for the important majority of eligible white voters, they went overwhelmingly against these very ideals they claimed to stand for because of the treatment of minorities like Native Americans, blacks, and women. It can be argued the common working people were satisfied with Jackson's attempts to protect their equality of economic opportunity from the rich with his extremely public battle with the National Bank.They believed that Jackson was a true champion of the common man which is seen in the document 'The Working Men's Declaration of Independence" of 1829 (Doc. A). In a document the author states, "prudence, as well as the claims of self defiance, dictates the necessity of the organization of a party of the Democrat, who by their representatives, prevent dangerous combinations to subvert these indefeasible and fundamental privileges.

” Workingmen did view Jackson as true to his ideals. The National Bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle, typified all that many Americans despised in Northern businessmen.Being that the Bank represented a true defiance of equality of economic opportunity, according to his ideals, Jackson should have fought the Bank passionately. And, he did.

In 1832, Jackson vetoed the bank's charter (Doc. B) saying in reference to the bank, “It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, of the richest class. " Clearly, Jackson was willing to fight the bank as an anti-democratic institution to protect white men in America.This one facet of Jackson however, does not show the side of Jackson that discriminated and took advantage of the vast majority of Americans. The fact is that Jackson was not responsible for all the equality in America during his presidency.

What's more is that Jackson was not even completely true to his ideals. Jackson defied his democratic ideals so much that he gained the nickname King Andrew I from his political opponents. They called him hypocritical, and for good reason. In Daniel Webster's answer to Jackson's bank veto message (Doc.

C), Webster claims that the message "raises a cry that liberty is in danger, at the very moment when it puts forth claims to powers heretofore unknown and unheard of. ” However, it is very true that Jackson expanded his power radically while supposedly protecting democracy and equality. Jackson instated the spoils system to get his supporters into as many governmental positions as possible. He consistently used his unauthorized "Kitchen Cabinet" for advice instead of his real cabinet. Jackson’s worst injustices of liberties were by far done to the Natives when he ignored the Supreme Court in their decision about the Cherokees.In 1830, the Indian Removal Act called for removal of resisting Southern Native American tribes from their homelands.

The tribes maintained resistance. In 1831 and 1832, the Cherokees went to the courts. And in the 1832 decision Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the Cherokees had their own land and that they did not need to follow Georgia law in their own territory. Jackson ignored the ruling and sent no force to prevent Southerners from forcing Indians westward anyway. uring the 1830's, thousands of Native Americans were forced to march along the infamous Trail of Tears to poor, unfamiliar terrain in the West.

The sad journey made by the Native Americans is portrayed well in a painting found in the Woolaroc Museum (Doc. G). Besides ignoring his duty as the leader of one of three supposedly co-equal branches of government, Jackson defied the rights of the Native Americans in allowing the Trail of Tears to happen. And this was typical of Jackson's policy.

Not only were Native Americans mistreated under Jackson but also free blacks, women, immigrants, and slaves.The inferiority of women during Jackson's presidency is typified by his ignorance of their emerging Women's Rights movement and the popular support for the "cult of domesticity" (demanding that women's sole job is to be good wives and mothers) during his presidency. The plight of free Blacks and immigrants during the Age of Jackson is demonstrated by their tendency to riot. Commenting on the constant riots in the cities caused by prejudice and jealousy, Philip Hone wrote in his diary (Doc. E) that "dreadful riots between the Irish and the Americans have again disturbed the public peace. Some time later, in 1834, he wrote "The spirit of riot and insubordination.

.. has made its appearance in...

Philadelphia, and appears to have been produced by causes equally insignificant—hostility to the blacks and an indiscriminate persecution of all whose skins were darker than those of their enlightened fellow citizens. "This document clearly points out the obvious lack of equality, liberty and democracy in Jacksonian America. Yet it doesn't even mention slavery. Jackson, a slaveholder himself, was no abolitionist.

Jackson even supported the 1836 "Gag Rule" which automatically tabled abolitionist petitions to Congress. In 1831, Nat Turner's famous Rebellion, one of many slave rebellions of the period, struck Virginia. Jacksonians claimed that they were champions of the people, defenders of democracy, the Constitution, liberty, and equality. And for the white Anglo-Saxon males they were.

But in other ways, especially when dealing with the minorities of women, Native Americans, and slaves, they were the opposite. Women would continue to have unequal rights for another hundred years after Jackson leaves office. Native Americans to this day will not accept money with Jackson’s face on it because the damage he caused them was so devastating and lasting.To what extent Jackson was true to his rhetoric cannot be objectively stated but he was certainly not close to what he said he was.

The legacy of Jackson had profound historical implications. Jackson's failure to live up to his democratic and libertarian ideals over the issue of slavery kept the nation on a route to war from which it would soon be unable to turn back. And thus, only about twenty years after Jackson retired from public office, America would face the bloodiest battle ever fought on her soil, The Civil War.