Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s
History. We’ve been going through Unit 4 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and in this
video it’s time to talk about Andrew Jackson and his relationship to federal power. So if
you can already taste the sauce like I can, let’s get to it. So in the last video I mentioned that with
the Federalist Party basically defunct, the Democratic Republicans were the only major
political party in America. And within that party, two rival factions began to form: the
National Republicans and the Democrats. Well, by the 1820s to the 1830s, those rival factions
hardened up into proper political parties, which were as follows: the
Democrats and the Whigs. The Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson
and they drew their values from the old Democratic Republicans in the image of
THomas Jefferson. And not surprisingly, they valued limited power in the federal
government, free trade, local rule. They despised things like corporate monopolies, high
tariffs, and that OH so nasty national bank. The Whigs were led by Henry Clay and they
smelled more like the Federalist Party in the image of Alexander Hamilton. They valued a
more vigorous and involved central government, which is plain when you look at the set of
policies in Henry Clay’s American System, policies like a provision for a national bank,
protective tariffs, and federally funded internal improvements. And one of their main beefs was
with crimes being committed by immigrants. But all in all, the most contentious debate
between these two parties was the argument over the role of federal power. And if you
want to get specific, and I know you do, they debated the role of federal
power with respect to tariffs, the national bank, and internal improvements.
So let’s look at each of those in turn. First, tariffs. A tariff, in case you forgot, is
a tax on imported goods. And if tariffs are high, that means people are more likely to purchase
domestically made goods. So if you hear these taxes called a protective tariff that’s what
it means: it raises prices on foreign made goods so that domestically made goods and
industries are more desirable, and thus, protected. Now you’d think that tariffs
wouldn’t be that divisive of an issue, but you’d be wrong. Case in point: the Tariff of
1828. Now this tariff was passed during the final months of John Quincy Adams’s administration
and it raised duties on imports by 35-45%, which, if you’re keeping track is a lot
of duty. Sorry. By raising prices 40% on imported goods, that was really beneficial
to northern manufacturers and western farmers, but Southerners who relied more
heavily on imported goods suffered. Now Andrew Jackson went ahead and got
himself elected president in 1828, and while he wasn’t a big fan of the tariff,
apparently it didn’t bother him enough to really do anything about it. But not so with
Jackson’s vice president John C. Calhoun who was from South Carolina. In fact he and the
rest of his southern brethren and sistern SO hated this tariff that they called it the Tariff
of Abominations. And because this tariff severely disadvantaged the south economically and thus
felt like an unjust overreach of federal power, Calhoun went ahead and developed what’s called
the doctrine of nullification. Essentially, Calhoun argued that if a state judged a
federal law to be unconstitutional, that state could just pretend like it didn’t exist—it was
non-binding, and therefore they could nullify it. Now Jackson did not take this kind of challenge
lightly. He looked at Calhoun and said, as my grandpappy always used to say, “Son, go
outside and pick your switch, cuz I’m bout to wear you out.” In 1833 Jackson persuaded Congress to
pass a Force Bill which gave him authority to respond to South Carolina’s insolence with
military action. Now at the news of this, Calhoun and the rest of his South Carolina
cohort decided to back off of their threat to secede from the Union if the tariff could at
least be reduced, which it was. And in the end, South Carolina submitted to federal authority,
but they went ahead and nullified the Force Bill. The second big argument over federal power was
with respect to the national bank. So the Second Bank of the United States was established
in 1816 and throughout the 1820s it did the country some good by stabilizing the economy.
But in the 1830s several state banks had to close their doors because they were unable to
make payments to the national bank and that act left a bunch of average citizens with worthless
paper money. For his part, Jackson believed that the bank itself was unconstitutional and that it
served to prop up the wealthy and do great harm to the lower classes. And so in 1832, Henry
Clay persuaded Congress to pass a bill that rechartered the bank. And when that bill reached
the desk of Andrew Jackson to be signed into law he went ahead and vetoed it calling it a “hydra of
corruption.” And apparently the majority of U.S. citizens agreed with him on this because they
reelected him in that same year by a landslide. And the third fight between the two
parties over federal power had to do with internal improvements. And this one
was pretty simple. Since Henry Clay’s American System had authorized roads and
canals to be built with federal authority, it divided those in the rival political camps.
Those with Whig sensibilities thought such expenditures were a necessary part of keeping
the nation connected. Those with Jacksonian sensibilities saw this as federal over reach and
that such expenditures were unconstitutional. Now with all those fights going on, it’s
going to be important to deal with one last event in Jackson’s administration that
illustrates his relationship to federal power, namely, the policy of Indian Removal. Now
acquisition of Indian land had been a big issue before Jackson’s administration
and would continue to be an issue after his administration but these events came
to a head in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Okay, pause for a second. Not a few people in my
comments get upset with me because I call these people “Indians” and not Native Americans. So let
me just say it now: I call them Indians because the Indians I have met and had conversations
with call themselves Indians and they told me that Indian is the preferred term. Okay, we
good? Okay, back to the Indian Removal Act. So the Cherokee nation in Georgia had declared
itself a sovereign nation within the bounds of the state, but Georgia didn’t really see it
that way. Instead, the Georgian government saw the Cherokees more like house guests. And then
it just so happened that gold was discovered in their lands. And so house guests or not, it
was time for them to go. That’s when the Indian Removal Act was passed and it mandated that all
Indians be relocated west of the Mississippi River in the Oklahoma Territory where encroaching
Americans would never bother them again—YEAH RIGHT. Anyway, the Cherokee actually challenged
the constitutionality of their removal in the Supreme Court in a case called Worcester v
Georgia. And to everyone’s great surprise, the Supreme Court actually sided with the
Cherokees arguing that Georgia had no right to impose state laws within Cherokee boundaries
because those lands enjoyed federal protection. However, in 1835, a small delegation of Cherokee
Indians met with U.S. officials, and they did this without tribal sanction. And the result
of this meeting was the Treaty of New Echota which officially exchanged Cherokee lands in
the east for reservation territory west of the Mississippi. And so in 1838 the forcible removal
of the Cherokees and other tribes began. They travelled along what became known as the Trail of
Tears, and it was thus named because of the great sickness and dying that occurred along it because
they were ill prepared to make such a journey. Now there were some Indians, especially Cherokees, who resisted removal either violently
or by hiding. And eventually these folks settled on a reservation in the western
portion of North Carolina and became known as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.
And due to the increasing complexity of removal, they eventually became citizens of North
Carolina, and later of the United States. Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit
4 topic 8 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. If you need help getting an A in your
class and a five on your exam in May, efforts here on youtube, then subscribe and I
shall keep making videos for you. Heimler out.