Jacksonian's Viewed Themselves as Guardians of the Constitution, Political Democracy, Individual Liberties, and Equality of Economic Opportunity
Jacksonian's viewed themselves as guardians of the constitution, political democracy, individual liberties, and equality of economic opportunity. Many of his followers from that time tended to agree but a lot of people today look back and disagree with each of these assumptions. I believe that he was a keeper of the constitution and political democracy. Depending upon your outlook, Jackson was a guardian of individual liberties, even with his oppression of African American slaves, Indians, and women. His equality of economic opportunity was more towards the common man that the elite but gave that common man a larger chance for equality with the elites without allowing the elites a greater chance to increase their wealth. Jackson had many similar views of the constitution as Thomas Jefferson when he became president. None of this was more apparent than with his feud with Nicholas Biddle and the national bank. He believed that there shouldn't be a national bank only state banks, or as his opponents called them “pet banks”. He said that the bank wasn't in the constitution itself and therefor would veto the recharter of the bank in 1832. He then withdrew all of the government deposits from the 2nd national bank and deposited them into the state banks. Although the national bank wasn't in the constitution, his opponents believe that his personal hatred toward the bank drove his reasoning, not the constitutionality of the bank itself. The requirement to vote had already begun it's expansion throughout the states prior to Andrew Jackson's presidency but hadn't quite shown itself yet. From the 1824 election to the 1828 election that Jackson won, there was over a 30 percent increase in participation with the presidential election, the greatest increase between election years. By his re-election year in 1832 there was a now fully formed two party system operating at a national level. Jackson's follower were now only called Democrats and his opposition called themselves