Presidency of Andrew Jackson

Election of 1828

The 1828 election was a rematch between Jackson and Adams, who had faced–off against each other four years earlier in the 1824 presidential election. In that election, which was a four–man race, Jackson won a plurality, but not the required majority, of the electoral college vote. As a result (according to the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution), the next president would be elected by the U.S. House of Representatives, which would voting between the top three electoral vote recipients (Jackson, Adams, and William H. Crawford). Adams won the contingent election, a result Jackson denounced as a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House and the fourth man in the original election.

The campaign was marked by large amounts of nasty "mudslinging." Jackson's marriage, for example, came in for vicious attack. When Jackson married his wife Rachel in 1791, the couple believed that she was divorced, however the divorce was not yet finalized, so he had to remarry her once the legal papers were complete. In the Adams campaign's hands, this became a scandal. Charles Hammond, in his Cincinnati Gazette, asked: "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?" Jackson also came under heavy attack as a slave trader who bought and sold slaves and moved them about in defiance of modern standards of morality (he was not attacked for merely owning slaves used in plantation work). The Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his courts-martial, execution of deserters and massacres of Indian villages, and also his habit of dueling.

For his part, Adams did not escape attack, either. It was charged that Adams, while serving as Minister to Russia, had surrendered an American servant girl to the appetites of the Czar. Adams was also accused of using public funds to buy gambling devices for the presidential residence; it turned out that these were a chess set and a pool table.

Adams' praise of internal improvements in Europe, such as "lighthouses of the skies" (observatories), in his first annual message to Congress, and his suggestion that Congress not be "palsied by the will of our constituents" were given attention in and out of the press. John Randolph stated on the floor of the Senate that he "never will be palsied by any power save the constitution, and the will of my constituents." Jackson wrote that a lavish government combined with contempt of the constituents could lead to despotism, if not checked by the "voice of the people."

In the end, Jackson won easily, with 56 percent of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes to Adams's 83. He carried New York and Pennsylvania as well as the entire West and South. He was the first President elected from west of the Appalachians and, at that time, the oldest man to assume the office. But his victory was touched with grief. As if in response to the torrent of abuse, Rachel sickened and died on December 22.

Early administration

Jackson's first inauguration, on March 4, 1829, was the first time in which the ceremony was held on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. Ten thousand people arrived in town for the ceremony, eliciting this response from Francis Scott Key: "It is beautiful; it is sublime!" He was also the first President to invite the public to attend the White House inaugural ball. Many poor people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes and rough-hewn manners. The crowd became so large that the guards could not keep them out of the White House, which became so crowded with people that dishes and decorative pieces inside were broken. Some people stood on good chairs in muddied boots just to get a look at the President. The crowd had become so wild that the attendants poured punch in tubs and put it on the White House lawn to lure people outside. Jackson's raucous populism earned him the nickname "King Mob".

Jackson was a moralist who saw the world in black-and-white. Langston argues that he made himself a sort of high priest or "pontifex maximus" of the American civil religion. He demanded justification by good works. He believed that his presidential authority was derived from the people and the presidential office was above party politics. Instead of choosing party leaders, Jackson chose "plain businessmen" whom he intended to control. Jackson chose Martin Van Buren as Secretary of State, John Eaton as Secretary of War, Samuel Ingham as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch as Secretary of the Navy, John Berrien as Attorney General, and William T. Barry as Postmaster General. Jackson's first choice of cabinet proved to be unsuccessful, full of bitter partisanship and gossip, especially between Eaton, Vice President John C. Calhoun, and Van Buren. By the spring of 1831, all (except Barry) had been forced to resign. Jackson's following cabinet selections worked better together.

Petticoat affair

Jackson was intensely devoted to upholding his "honor". The crisis came when ugly sexual rumors circulated about the wife of a senior cabinet member, stories that if true would besmirch the honor of his entire administration. Jackson spent half his time on the matter for two years. In the Petticoat affair gossip had long circulated concerning Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John H. Eaton. It was said that Peggy was loose in her morals while working at her father's tavern when her naval officer husband was away at sea. Less than a year after the husband died, men joked, "Eaton has just married his mistress, and the mistress of eleven dozen others!" Allowing a prostitute in the official family was unthinkable—but for Jackson, after losing his own wife to horrible rumors, the rumormongers comprised the guilty party who brought dishonor to his administration. Christopher Bates finds that, "when he defended the honor of Peggy Eaton, Jackson was also defending the honor of his recently deceased wife." Jackson was a patriarch who expected to control his cabinet; he expected his cabinet members would control their wives. It was a matter of authority: Jackson told his cabinet that "She is as chaste as a virgin!" Meanwhile, the cabinet wives insisted that the interests and honor of all women were at stake. They believed a responsible woman should never accord a man sexual favors without the assurance that went with marriage. A woman who broke that code was dishonorable and unacceptable. Howe notes that this was the feminist spirit that in the next decade shaped the woman's rights movement. The aristocratic wives of European diplomats shrugged the matter off; they had their national interest to uphold, and had seen how life worked in Paris and London. Martin Van Buren was already forming a coalition against Calhoun; he could now see his main chance to strike hard.

Both Jackson and Van Buren defended the Eatons. However, Calhoun's wife Floride and the wives of other cabinet members—they were the "petticoats"—publicly shunned both Eatons, giving a visible signal to the nation that he and she were not honorable. Van Buren found the solution in 1831: the entire cabinet had to resign. Jackson concluded Calhoun was responsible for spreading the rumors. Van Buren grew in Jackson's favor and was nominated to be Minister to England. Calhoun's supporters in the Senate blocked the nomination, But that gave Jackson every reason to magnify Van Buren's leading role in the unofficial Kitchen Cabinet. He became Jackson's running mate in 1832. Jackson also acquired the Globe newspaper to have a weapon for fighting the rumor mills.

Indian removal

Throughout his eight years in office, Jackson made about 70 treaties with Native American tribes both in the South and the Northwest. Jackson's presidency marked a new era in Indian-Anglo American relations initiating a policy of Indian removal. Jackson himself sometimes participated in the treaty negotiating process with various Indian tribes, though other times he left the negotiations to his subordinates. The southern tribes included the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole and the Cherokee. The northwest tribes include the Chippewa, Ottawa, and the Potawatomi. Though conflict between Indians and American settlers took place in the North and in the South, the problem was worse in the South where the Indian populations were larger. Indian wars broke out repeatedly, often when native tribes, especially the Muscogee and Seminole Indians, refused to abide by the treaties for various reasons. The Second Seminole War, started in December 1835, lasted over six years finally ending in August 1842 under President John Tyler.

Though relations between Europeans (and later Americans) and Indians were always complicated, they grew increasingly complicated once American settlements began pushing further west in the years after the American Revolution. Often these relations were peaceful, though they increasingly grew tense and sometimes even violent, both on the part of American settlers and the Indians. From George Washington to John Quincy Adams, the problem was typically ignored or dealt with lightly; though by Jackson's time the earlier policy had grown unsustainable. The problem was especially acute in the South (in particular the lands near the state of Georgia), where Indian populations were larger, denser, and more Americanized than those of the North. As such, there had developed a growing popular and political movement to deal with the problem, and out of this developed a policy to relocate certain Indian populations. Jackson, never one known for timidity, became an advocate for this relocation policy in what is considered by some historians to be the most controversial aspect of his presidency. This contrasted from his immediate predecessor, President John Q. Adams, who tended to follow the policy of his own predecessors, that of letting the problem play itself out with minimal intervention. Jackson's presidency thus took place in a new era in Indian-Anglo American relations, in that it marked federal action and a policy of relocation. As such, during Jackson's presidency, Indian relations between the Southern tribes and the state governments had reached a critical juncture.

In his December 8, 1829, First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson advocated land west of the Mississippi River be set aside for Indian tribes. Congress had been developing its own Indian relocation bill, and Jackson had many supporters in both the Senate and House who agreed with his goal. On May 26, 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, and Jackson signed it into law. The Act authorized the President to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the East in exchange for lands further west, outside of existing U.S. state borders. The passage of the bill was Jackson's first successful legislative triumph and marked the Democratic party's emergence into American political society. The passage of the act was especially popular in the South where population growth and the discovery of gold on Cherokee land had increased pressure on tribal lands.

The state of Georgia became involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokees, culminating in the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Worcester v. Georgia). In that decision, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, in writing for the court, ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. Jackson is frequently, though incorrectly, attributed with the following response: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it". The quote originated in 1863 from Horace Greeley. Jackson used the Georgia crisis to broker an agreement whereby the Cherokee leaders agreed to a removal treaty. A group of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated the Treaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a widely recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by some as illegitimate. A group of Cherokees petitioned in protest of the proposed removal, though this wasn't taken up by the Supreme Court or the U.S. Congress, in part due to delays and timing.

The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren, who sent 7,000 troops to carry out the relocation policy. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered when the relocation began. It was subsequent to this that as many as 4,000 Cherokees died on the "Trail of Tears". By the 1830s, under constant pressure from settlers, each of the five southern tribes had ceded most of its lands, but sizable self-governing groups lived in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. All of these (except the Seminoles) had moved far into coexistence with whites, and they resisted suggestions that they should voluntarily remove themselves. Their methods earned them the title of the "Five Civilized Tribes". More than 45,000 American Indians were relocated to the West during Jackson's administration, though a few Cherokees walked back afterwards or migrated to the high Smoky Mountains along the North Carolina and Tennessee border.

Treaties

Impact on Jackson's reputation

Andrew Jackson's reputation has suffered significantly due to his treatment of the Indians. Political opponents and religious leaders at the time strongly denounced his removal policy. Modern historians who admire Jackson's strong presidential leadership, such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., would skip over the Indian question with a footnote. In 1969 Francis Paul Prucha argued that Jackson's removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the very hostile white environment in the Old South to Oklahoma probably saved their very existence. In the 1970s, however, Jackson came under sharp attack from writers on the left, such as Michael Paul Rogin and Howard Zinn, chiefly on this issue.

In the 21st century, his reputation has become more nuanced and mixed. Paul R. Bartrop and Steven Leonard Jacobs argue that Jackson's policies did not meet the criterion for genocide or cultural genocide. Jackson historian Steve Inskeep reports:

Recent Jackson biographers, such as Jon Meacham and H.W. Brands, candidly described the human cost of Jackson’s policy while keeping it in the perspective of his broader career. Sean Wilentz, in The Rise of American Democracy, observed that while Jackson was a “paternalist,” telling Indians what was best for them, paternalism was not the same as genocide.

In the 2015 debate on removing Jackson from the $20 bill, Indian removal was often mentioned as a good reason for doing that. A writer for Slate said, "The seventh president engineered genocide. He should be vilified, not honored."

Purging corruption

In an effort to purge the government from corruption of previous administrations, Jackson launched presidential investigations into all executive Cabinet offices and departments. During Jackson's tenure in office, large amounts of public money were put in the hands of public officials. Jackson, who believed appointees should be hired by merit, withdrew many candidates he believed were lax in their handling of monies. Jackson asked Congress to reform embezzlement laws, reduce fraudulent applications for federal pensions, and pass laws to prevent evasion of custom duties and improve government accounting. Jackson's Postmaster Barry resigned after a Congressional investigation into the postal service revealed mismanagement of mail services, collusion and favoritism in awarding lucrative contracts, failure to audit accounts and supervise contract performances. Jackson replaced Barry with Amos Kendall, who went on to implement much needed reforms in the Postal Service.

Jackson repeatedly called for the abolition of the Electoral College by constitutional amendment in his annual messages to Congress as President. In his third annual message to Congress, he expressed the view "I have heretofore recommended amendments of the Federal Constitution giving the election of President and Vice-President to the people and limiting the service of the former to a single term. So important do I consider these changes in our fundamental law that I can not, in accordance with my sense of duty, omit to press them upon the consideration of a new Congress."

Jackson's time in the presidency as saw various improvements in financial provisions for veterans and their dependents. The Service Pension Act of 1832, for instance, provided pensions to veterans "even where there existed no obvious financial or physical need," while an Act of July 1836 enabled widows of Revolutionary War soldiers who met certain criteria to receive their husband's pensions.

Rotation in office and spoils system

Upon assuming the presidency in 1829 Jackson enforced the Tenure of Office Act that limited appointed office tenure and authorized the president to remove and appoint political party associates. Jackson believed that a rotation in office was actually a democratic reform preventing father-to-son succession of office and made civil service responsible to the popular will. Jackson declared that rotation of appointments in political office was "a leading principle in the republican creed". Jackson told Congress in December 1829, "In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another." Jackson believed that rotating political appointments would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy. Opposed to this view however, were Jackson's supporters who in order to strengthen party loyalty wanted to give the posts to other party members. In practice, this would have meant the continuation of the patronage system by replacing federal employees with friends or party loyalists. The number of federal office holders removed by Jackson were exaggerated by his opponents; Jackson rotated about 20% of federal office holders during his first term, some for dereliction of duty rather than political purposes.

Jackson, however, did use his image and presidential power to award his loyal Democratic Party followers by granting them Federal office appointments. Jackson's democratic approach incorporated patriotism for country as qualification for holding office. Having appointed a soldier who had lost his leg fighting on the battlefield to a postmastership, Jackson stated "If he lost his leg fighting for his country, that is ... enough for me."

The need to energize his nationwide party and reward his supporters, given the political realities of Washington, led Jackson to make partisan appointments despite his personal reservations. Historians believe Jackson's presidency marked the beginning of an era of decline in public ethics. Supervision of bureaus and departments whose operations were outside of Washington (such as the New York Customs House; the Postal Service; the Departments of Navy and War; and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose budget had enormously increased in the past two decades) proved to be difficult. Other aspects of the spoils system including the buying of offices, forced political party campaign participation, and collection of assessments, did not take place until after Jackson's presidency. The Whigs needled Jackson as "King Andrew I" and named their party after the English parliamentary Whigs who opposed eighteenth century British monarchy.

Jackson not only rewarded past supporters; he promised future jobs if local and state politicians joined his team. As Syrett explains: When Jackson became President, he implemented the theory of rotation in office, declaring it "a leading principle in the republican creed." He believed that rotation in office would prevent the development of a corrupt civil service. On the other hand, Jackson's supporters wanted to use the civil service to reward party loyalists to make the party stronger. In practice, this meant replacing civil servants with friends or party loyalists into those offices. The spoils system did not originate with Jackson. It originated under Thomas Jefferson when he removed Federalist office-holders after becoming president. Also, Jackson did not out the entire civil service. At the end of his term, Jackson had only dismissed less than twenty percent of the original civil service. While Jackson did not start the spoils system, he did encourage its growth and it became a central feature of the Second Party System, as well as the Third Party System, until it ended in the 1890s. As one historian explains:

"Although Jackson dismissed far fewer government employees than most of his contemporaries imagined and although he did not originate the spoils system, he made more sweeping changes in the Federal bureaucracy than had any of his predecessors. What is even more significant is that he defended these changes as a positive good. At present when the use of political patronage is generally considered an obstacle to good government, it is worth remembering that Jackson and his followers invariably described rotation in public office as a "reform." In this sense the spoils system was more than a way to reward Jackson's friends and punish his enemies; it was also a device for removing from public office the representatives of minority political groups that Jackson insisted had been made corrupt by their long tenure."

Nullification crisis

The American nation was at risk in the most serious crisis of the Jacksonian era. The "Nullification Crisis" of 1828–1832 merged issues of sectional strife with disagreements over tariffs and escalated into threats of secession by one state or military intervention by President Jackson. Southern politicians complained that high tariffs imposed by the new tariff (the "Tariff of Abominations" they called it) on imports of common manufactured goods made in Europe made those goods more expensive than ones from the northern U.S., raising the prices paid by planters in the South. Southern politicians argued that tariffs benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers. The issue escalated to a major crisis when Vice President Calhoun, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, supported the claim of his home state, South Carolina, that it had the right to "nullify"—declare void—the tariff legislation of 1828, and more generally the right of a state to nullify any Federal laws that went against its interests. Although Jackson sympathized with the South in the tariff debate, he also vigorously supported a strong union, with effective powers for the central government. He tried to stare down Calhoun, and found himself trying to stare down the entire state of South Carolina.

Particularly notable was an incident at the April 13, 1830, Jefferson Day dinner, involving after-dinner toasts. Robert Hayne began by toasting to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States". Jackson then rose, and in a booming voice added "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to Calhoun. Calhoun clarified his position by responding "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"

At the first Democratic National Convention, which was privately engineered by members of the Kitchen Cabinet, Calhoun and Jackson broke from each other politically and Van Buren replaced Calhoun as Jackson's running mate in the 1832 presidential election. In December 1832, Calhoun resigned as Vice President to become a U.S. Senator for South Carolina.

In response to South Carolina's nullification claim, Jackson vowed to send troops to South Carolina to enforce the laws. In December 1832, he issued a resounding proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed". South Carolina, the President declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason", and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union for which their ancestors had fought. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution ... forms a government not a league ... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation."

Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" explicitly authorizing the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but its passage was delayed until protectionists led by Clay agreed to a reduced Compromise Tariff. The Force Bill and Compromise Tariff passed on March 1, 1833, and Jackson signed both. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance. The Force Bill became moot because it was no longer needed. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote, "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."

Foreign affairs

Foreign affairs were generally uneventful during Jackson's two terms. The most serious crisis was a debt that France owed for the damage Napoleon had done two decades earlier. France agreed to pay, but kept postponing payment. Jackson made warlike gestures, while the Whigs ridiculed his bellicosity. Jackson's Minister to France William C. Rives finally obtained the ₣ 25,000,000 francs involved (about $5,000,000) in 1836. The Department of State successfully settled smaller spoliation claims with Denmark, Portugal, and Spain.

A major achievement was to reverse the failures of the Adams administration, and negotiate a successful trade agreement with Great Britain. It was possible because the change of leadership in London, as that country started moving toward a free-trade policy. The agreement opened the West Indies colonies to American merchant ships. The State Department also negotiated routine trade agreements with Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Siam. Under the treaty of Great Britain American trade was reopened in the West Indies. American exports (chiefly cotton) increased 75% while imports increased 250%.

Jackson's attempt to purchase Texas from Mexico for $5,000,000 failed. American settlers were pouring into the territory. Jackson rejected the suggestion of his agent in Texas, Colonel Anthony Butler, to take Texas over by force of arms. The people of Texas declared independence and defeated an invasion army to make good their claims. They repeatedly sought annexation to join the United States, but Jackson said no, Realizing the trouble it would bring with Britain, and the divisiveness in American domestic policy. Only on his last day of office did he officially recognize the legal independence of Texas.

Bank War

Jackson considered himself a reformer, but he was committed to the old ideals of Republicanism, and bitterly opposed anything that smacked of special favors for special interests. While Jackson never engaged in a duel as president, he had shot political opponents before and was just as determined to destroy his enemies on the battlefields of politics. The Second Party System came about primarily because of Jackson's determination to destroy the Second Bank of the United States. Headquartered in Philadelphia, with offices in major cities around the country, the federally chartered Bank operated somewhat like a central bank (like the Federal Reserve System a century later). Local bankers and politicians annoyed by the controls exerted by Nicholas Biddle grumbled loudly. Jackson did not like any banks (paper money was anathema to Jackson; he believed only gold and silver ["specie"] should circulate.) After Herculean battles with Henry Clay, his chief antagonist, Jackson finally broke Biddle's bank.

Jackson continued to attack the banking system. His Specie Circular of July 1836 rejected paper money issued by banks (it could no longer be used to buy federal land), insisting on gold and silver coins. Most businessmen and bankers (but not all) went over to the Whig party, and the commercial and industrial cities became Whig strongholds. Jackson meanwhile became even more popular with the subsistence farmers and day laborers who distrusted bankers and finance.

In 1816 the Second Bank of the United States was charted by President James Madison to restore the United States economy devastated by the War of 1812. In 1823 President James Monroe appointed Nicholas Biddle, the Bank's third and last executive, to run the bank. In January 1832 Biddle, on advice from his friends, submitted to Congress a renewal of the Bank's charter four years before the original 20 year charter was to end. Biddle's recharter bill passed the Senate on June 11 and the House on July 3, 1832. Jackson, believing that Bank was fundamentally a corrupt monopoly whose stock was mostly held by foreigners, vetoed the bill. Jackson used the issue to promote his democratic values believing the Bank was being run exclusively for the wealthy. Jackson stated the Bank made "the rich richer and the potent more powerful." The National Republican Party immediately made Jackson's veto of the Bank a political issue attempting to undermine Jackson's popularity.Jackson's political opponents castigated Jackson's veto as "the very slang of the leveller and demagogue" believing Jackson was using class warfare to gain support from the common man.

Election of 1832

During the 1832 Presidential Election the rechartering of the Second Bank Of the United States became the primary issue. The business community nationwide mobilized its support against Jackson. The election also demonstrated the rapid development and organization of political parties during this time period. The Democratic Party's first national convention, held in Baltimore, in May 1832 nominated Jackson and Van Buren. The National Republican Party, had held their first convention in Baltimore earlier in December 1831, nominated Clay and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. The Anti-Mason party, had earlier held their convention in Baltimore in September 1831. They nominated William Wirt of Maryland and Amos Elmaker of Pennsylvania; both Jackson and Clay were masons. The two rival parties, however, proved to be no match for Jackson's popularity and the Democratic Party's strong political networks known as Hickory Clubs in state and local organization. Democratic newspapers, parades, barbecues, and rallies increased Jackson's popularity. Jackson himself made numerous popular public appearances on his return trip from Tennessee to Washington D.C. Jackson won the election decisively by a landslide receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and 219 electoral votes. Clay received 37 percent of the popular vote and 49 electoral votes. Wirt received only 8 percent of the popular vote and 7 electoral votes while the Anti-Masonic Party folded. Jackson believed the solid victory was a popular mandate for his veto of the Bank's recharter and his continued warfare on the Bank's control over the national economy.

Removal of deposits and censure

In 1833, Jackson removed federal deposits from the bank, whose money-lending functions were taken over by the legions of local and state banks that materialized across America, thus drastically increasing credit and speculation. Three years later, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, an executive order that required buyers of government lands to pay in "specie" (gold or silver coins). The result was a great demand for specie, which many banks did not have enough of to exchange for their notes, causing the Panic of 1837, which threw the national economy into a deep depression. It took years for the economy to recover from the damage, however the bulk of the damage was blamed on Martin Van Buren, who took office in 1837.

The U.S. Senate censured Jackson on March 28, 1834, for his action in removing U.S. funds from the Bank of the United States. The censure was a political maneuver spearheaded by Jackson-rival Senator Henry Clay, which served only to perpetuate the animosity between him and Jackson. During the proceedings preceding the censure, Jackson called Clay "reckless and as full of fury as a drunken man in a brothel", and the issue was highly divisive within the Senate, however the censure was approved 26–20 on March 28. When the Jacksonians had a majority in the Senate, the censure was expunged after years of effort by Jackson supporters, led by Thomas Hart Benton, who though he had once shot Jackson in a street fight, eventually became an ardent supporter of the president.

Assassination attempt

On January 30, 1835, Jackson became the first U.S. president to be targeted by an assassin. When Jackson was leaving the U.S. Capitol through the East Portico after attending the funeral of Representative Warren Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed English-born house painter, aimed a pistol at him. It misfired; the percussion cap exploded, but the bullet did not discharge.

A furious 67-year-old Jackson confronted his attacker, clubbing Lawrence several times with his walking cane. During the scuffle, Lawrence managed to pull out a second loaded pistol and pulled the trigger, but it also misfired. Jackson’s aides then wrestled Lawrence away from the president, leaving Jackson unharmed but angry and, as it turned out, paranoid. Lawrence believed the U.S. government owed him a large sum that Jackson was keeping from him. Release of the funds, he thought, would allow him to take his rightful place as the deposed King Richard III of England—who had been dead since 1485—and that Jackson was his clerk. He was deemed to be insane and was institutionalized. Jackson however, was convinced that his enemies had set up the assassination attempt; an investigation disproved this. At the time, Jackson’s Democrats and the Whigs were locked in battle over Jackson’s attempt to dismantle the Bank of the United States.

Slavery controversies

The issue of slavery was not a major theme during Jackson's presidency. He was a slaveowner himself, having approved the expansion of slavery to the territories, while disapproving anti-slavery agitation. Even so, two notable controversies related to the issue of slavery arose while he was in the White house.

In 1835, the American Anti-Slavery Society launched a mail campaign against the peculiar institution. Tens of thousands of antislavery pamphlets and tracts were sent to southern destinations through the U.S. mail. Across the South, reaction to the abolition mail campaign bordered on apoplexy. In Congress, Southerners demanded that none of the tracts should be delivered. Jackson, who wanted sectional peace after the turmoil of the Nullification crisis, placated Southerners. His Postmaster General Amos Kendall gave Southern postmasters discretionary powers to discard the tracts. Abolitionists and their supporters then denounced the suppression of free speech.

That same year another conflict unfolded, when abolitionists sent the U.S. House of Representatives petitions to end the slave trade and slavery in Washington, D.C. This infuriated pro-slavery Southerners, who attempted to prevent acknowledgement or discussion of the petitions. On December 18, 1835 South Carolina congressman James H. Hammond strongly denounced abolitionists as "ignorant fanatics". Northern Whigs objected that anti-slavery petitions were constitutional and should not be forbidden. Jackson wanted the issue of these petitions resolved quickly. South Carolina Representative Henry L. Pinckney introduced a resolution that denounced the petitions as "sickly sentimentality", declared that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, and tabled all further anti-slavery petitions. Southerners in Congress, including many of Jackson's supporters, favored the measure (the 21st Rule, commonly called the "gag rule"), which was passed quickly and without any debate; temporarily suppressing abolitionist activities in Congress.

Recognition of Republic of Texas

In 1835, American settlers along with local Tejanos in Texas fought a war for independence. By May 1836, they had routed the Mexican military, establishing an independent Republic of Texas. The new Texas government sought recognition from President Jackson and annexation into the United States. Antislavery elements in the U.S. strongly opposed annexation because slavery was fourishing there in the virgion cotton lands. Jackson was hesitant with recognizing Texas, unconvinced that the new republic could maintain independence from Mexico, and not wanting to make Texas an anti-slavery issue during the 1836 election. The strategy worked; the Democratic Party and national loyalties were held intact, while Democratic candidate Van Buren was elected President. Jackson formally recognized the Republic of Texas, and nominated Alcée Louis la Branche as chargé d'affaires on the last day of his Presidency, March 3, 1837.

U.S. Exploring Expedition

Jackson opposed any federal exploration scientific expeditions during his first term in office. He finally sponsored scientific exploration during his second term.On May 18, 1836 Jackson signed a law creating and funding the oceanic United States Exploring Expedition. Preparations stalled, however, and the expedition was not launched until 1838, under the next President, Martin Van Buren.

Panic of 1837

The national economy during the 1830s was booming and the federal government through duty revenues and sale of public lands was able to pay all bills. In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished. However, reckless speculation in land and railroads caused what became known as the Panic of 1837. Contributing factors included Jackson's veto of the Second National Bank renewal charter in 1832 and subsequent transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 that caused Western Banks to relax their lending standards. Two other Jacksonian acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837, the Specie Circular, that mandated Western lands only be purchased by money backed by gold and silver, and the Deposit and Distribution Act, that transferred federal monies from Eastern to western state banks which in turn led to a speculation frenzy by banks. Jackson's Specie Circular, although designed to reduce speculation and stabilize the economy, led many investors unable to afford to pay loans backed by gold and silver. The same year there was a downturn in Great Britain's economy that stopped investment in the United States. As a result, the U.S. economy went into a depression, banks became insolvent, the national debt (previously paid off) increased, business failures rose, cotton prices dropped, and unemployment dramatically increased. The depression that followed lasted for four years until 1841 when the economy began to rebound.

Economic historians have explored the high degree of financial and economic instability in the Jacksonian era. For the most part, they follow the conclusions of Peter Temin, who absolved Jackson's policies, and blamed international events beyond American control, such as conditions in Mexico, China and Britain. A survey of economic historians in 1995 show that the vast majority concur with Temin's conclusion that "the inflation and financial crisis of the 1830s had their origin in events largely beyond President Jackson's control and would have taken place whether or not he had acted as he did vis-a-vis the Second Bank of the U.S."

Judicial appointments

In total Jackson appointed 24 federal judges: six Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States and eighteen judges to the United States district courts.

Supreme Court appointments

Jackson appointed seven persons to the Supreme Court:

Major Supreme Court cases

States admitted to the Union

Two new states were admitted to the Union while Jackson was in office:

Legacy

Andrew Jackson left a powerful imprint on American history. He forged a political movement, Jacksonian democracy, which dominated American politics for a quarter century. Often called the "Age of Jackson" or the "Jacksonian Era," it was a time of contested manhood, turbulence and disorder, as exemplified in Jackson's own powerful and violent personality. Jackson was not personally responsible for the new laws that opened up the vote to practically all white men, but once that barrier had fallen, he opened the locked doors of the citadels of privilege using the force of the new democracy. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 proclaimed that the frontier had given America:

that fierce Tennessee spirit who broke down the traditions of conservative rule, swept away the privacies and privileges of officialdom, and, like a Gothic leader, opened the temple of the nation to the populace.

Jacksonian themes dominated American public discourse into the 1850s, when they were supplanted by discussions about Sectionalism and slavery. His Whig opponants defined themselves in how effectively they fought against his aggrandizement of presidential powers. Liberal historians, such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., have hailed him as the founder of modern American liberalism, and the inspiration for the powerful presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conservative historians, on the other hand, complained about his failed economic policies, such as hard money and opposition to banking, noting that the economy fell into a deep depression as he left office in 1837. Bray Hammond, an official of the Federal Reserve System, reversed historiographical opinion by demonstrating the fallacies of Jackson's banking policies.

Jackson's biographer Robert V. Remini argues that Jacksonian democracy:

stretches the concept of democracy about as far as it can go and still remain workable....As such it has inspired much of the dynamic and dramatic events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in American history—Populism, Progressivism, the New and Fair Deals, and the programs of the New Frontier and Great Society.

Jackson continued to serve as an iconic figure of American democracy, and American nationalism through the 20th century. For decades, state affiliates of the Democratic Party across the country have held Jefferson–Jackson Day dinners to provide their annual funding (though many are renaming their events to align with the values of the modern–day Democratic Party).

Jackson's reputation among historians has declined in the 21st century, primarily because of the Indian removal issue. In most polls of experts, Jackson typically ranks sixth or seventh, behind Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt and ahead of Harry S. Truman. A C-SPAN poll of historians conducted in 1999 dropped him to thirteenth place. A Wall Street Journal poll of “conservative” historians in 2000 ranked Jackson sixth.