Hey there and welcome back to Heimler's History. Now we've been going through Unit 4 of the AP US 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 that 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. By the 1820s and 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, and local rule.
They despised things like corporate monopolies, high tariffs, and that oh so nasty national bank. The Whigs, on the other hand, 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.
Now a tariff, in case you forgot, is a tax on imported goods. And if tariffs are high, that means that people are more likely to purchase domestically made goods. This is 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'administration, and it raised duties on imports by 35 to 45 percent, which if you're keeping track is a lot of duty. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. By raising prices like 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 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 sistren so hated the tariff that they called it the Tariff of Abominations.
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 just argued that if a state judged a federal law to be unconstitutional, then that state could just pretend like it didn't exist. That 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, cause I'm about to wear you out. Thanks grandpappy. Anyway, 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 from their threat to secede from the Union if that tariff could at least be reduced, which eventually it was.
So 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. Apparently the majority of the US citizens agreed with him because they went ahead and re-elected him in the same year by a landslide. The third fight between the two parties over federal power had to do with internal improvement. 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 into rival political camps.
Those with Whig sensibilities thought such expenditures were a necessary part of keeping the nation connected, but those with Jacksonian sensibilities saw this as a federal overreach 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, Now, acquisition of Indian land had always been a big issue before Jackson's administration and would continue to be a big issue after his administration.
But these events came to a head in the Indian Removal Act. 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 that I have met and have had conversations with call themselves Indians and told me that Indian is the preferred term. Okay, we good? Alright, well then let's go 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 houseguests. And then it just so happened that gold was discovered on their lands, and so, houseguests 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 Cherokees actually challenged the constitutionality of their removal in the Supreme Court in a case called Wooster v. Georgia into 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 the lands enjoyed federal protection. However, in 1835, a small delegation of Cherokee Indians met with U.S. officials and they did this with without tribal sanction. And the result of this meeting was the Treaty of Nuichota, which officially exchanged Cherokee lands in the east for reservation territory west of the Mississippi.
So in 1838 the forcible removal of the Cherokees and other tribes began, and they traveled along what became known as the Trail of Tears. It was thus named because of the Great Sickness and dying that occurred along it because they were ill-prepared to make such a long journey. There were some Indians, especially Cherokees, who resisted removal either violently or by hiding.
These folks eventually settled in a reservation on 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 US History Curriculum.
Now, if you need help getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May, then go ahead and click here and grab my review packet. If you do not wish to nullify my efforts here on YouTube, then subscribe and I shall keep making videos for you. Heimler out.