Year 11, Jacksonian Democracy, 1
Jacksonian Democracy
1) Jackson: the man behind Trump?
Donald J. Trump and Andrew Jackson
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/why-has-trump-turned-flawed-andrew-
jackson-role-model-n733881
When Donald J. Trump became the 45th US president and moved into the White House and the Oval
Office, he had a portrait painting of Andrew Jackson, the 7th US president, put up in prominent
position. President Trump also visited the home and tomb of Jackson in Nashville, TN.
Task: Formulate hypotheses why Trump chose a painting of Jackson as decoration.
3) An extract from a biography of Andrew Jackson by Sean Wilentz dating from 2005
[…] Fearless, principled, and damaged, Andrew Jackson was one of the fiercest and most
controversial men ever to serve as president of the United States. Like few other presidents
until the present era – [Thomas] Jefferson, [Abraham] Lincoln, FDR [= Franklin Delano
Roosevelt] – Jackson inspired love and hatred, with no apparent middle ground. “Talk of him
5 as the second [George] Washington!” the New York patrician Philip Hone wrote with
sarcasm and disgust in 1833. “It won’t do now: Washington was only the first Jackson.”
Hone and his conservative friends in truth thought of Jackson as an American Caesar, who
had stirred up the blockhead masses, seized power, and installed a new despotism.
Jackson’s more radical critics likewise detested him as a dangerous demagogue. But to his
10 admirers, Jackson was the most courageous man in the country, the one leader, a North
Carolina observed, who “could have withstood the overwhelming influence” of the nation’s
“corrupt Aristocracy,” to safeguard equal rights and American democracy.
There are plenty of signals in our culture today that we are supposed to admire Jackson as a
great American. His picture is on the twenty-dollar bill. His plantation home outside
15 Nashville, the Hermitage, is a national historic monument. The imposing statue of Jackson in
his general’s uniform, rearing on horseback, still dominates Lafayette Square Park [in
Washington, D.C.] as it has for more than a century and a half, with Jackson doffing his half-
moon officer’s cap at the White House. Separate polls of historians who vary widely in their
assessments of the presidents consistently rate Jackson near the top, just below
20 Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. Yet apart from Jefferson, no past president has suffered
Year 11, Jacksonian Democracy, 2
harsher criticism from recent historians than has Jackson – no longer a hero, in many circles,
but an ignorant, violent slaveholder who suppressed the abolitionists, ruined the American
economy, and perpetrated genocide on the Indians. The attacks rival in their intensity those
loosed on Jackson from both the Right and the Left in his own time. […]
Source (adapted): Sean Wilentz, Andrew Jackson (New York, NY: Times Books, 2005), pp. 2-3.
Task: Extract from the text the two dominant views about Andrew Jackson.
Annotations:
controversial (adj.) umstritten demagogue (n.) Demagoge,
Volksverführer
patrician (n.) here: honourable imposing (adj.) beeindruckend
politician
stir up (v.) aufhetzen doff (v.) one’s hat seinen Hut ziehen
blockhead stupid person abolitionist (n.) Gegner der Sklaverei
despotism (n.) tyranny perpetrate (v.) verüben (do sth. bad)
3) A brief historical account of Andrew Jackson and his time
Jacksonian Democracy and Modern America
Andrew Jackson rose to national prominance as a General
during the War of 1812.
The presidential election of 1828 brought a great victory for
Andrew Jackson. Not only did he get almost 70 percent of the
votes cast in the electoral college, popular participation in the
election soared to an unheard of 60 percent. This more than
doubled the turnout in 1824; Jackson clearly headed a
sweeping political movement. His central message remained
largely the same from the previous election, but had grown in Andrew Jackson’s portrait by Ralph
intensity. Jackson warned that the nation had been corrupted E. W: Earl, 1837, Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
by "special privilege," characterized especially by the policies of
the Second Bank of the United States. The proper road to
reform, according to Jackson, lay in an absolute acceptance of majority rule as expressed
through the democratic process. Beyond these general principles, however, Jackson's
campaign was notably vague about specific policies. Instead, it stressed Jackson's life story as
a man who had risen from modest origins to become a successful Tennessee planter.
Jackson's claim to distinction lay in a military career that included service as a young man in
the Revolutionary War, several anti-Indian campaigns, and, of course, his crowning moment
in the Battle of New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812.
Jackson's election marked a new direction in American politics. He was the first westerner
elected president, indeed, the first president from a state other than Virginia or
Massachusetts. He boldly proclaimed himself to be the "champion of the common man" and
believed that their interests were ignored by the aggressive national economic plans of
[Henry] Clay and [John] Adams. More than this, however, when Martin Van Buren followed
Jackson as president, it indicated that the Jacksonian movement had long-term significance
that would outlast his own charismatic leadership.
Year 11, Jacksonian Democracy, 3
Andrew Jackson is known to have harbored animosity for Native Americans. During his
administration, many tribes were moved to reservations in the Oklahoma Territory.
Van Buren, perhaps even more than Jackson, helped to create the new Democratic party
that centered upon three chief qualities closely linked to Jacksonian Democracy. First, it
declared itself to be the party of ordinary farmers and workers. Second, it opposed the
special privileges of economic elites. Third, to offer affordable western land to ordinary
white Americans, Indians needed to be forced further westward. The Whig party soon arose
to challenge the Democrats with a different policy platform and vision for the nation. Whigs'
favored active government support for economic improvement as the best route to
sustained prosperity. Thus, the Whig-Democrat political contest was in large part a
disagreement about the early Industrial Revolution. Whigs defended economic
development's broad benefits, while Democrats stressed the new forms of dependence that
it created. The fiercely partisan campaigns waged between these parties lasted into the
1850s and are known as the Second Party System, an assuredly modern framework of
political competition that reached ordinary voters as never before with both sides organizing
tirelessly to carry their message directly to the American people.
A "mob" descended upon Andrew Jackson at the White House to celebrate his victory in the
election of 1828. Public parties were regular occurrences during Jackson's administration.
A new era of American politics began with Jackson's election in 1828, but it also completed a
grand social experiment begun by the American Revolution. Although the Founding Fathers
would have been astounded by the new shape of the nation during Jackson's presidency,
just as Jackson himself had served in the American Revolution, its values helped form his
sense of the world. The ideals of the Revolution had, of course, been altered by the new
conditions of the early nineteenth century and would continue to be reworked over time.
Economic, religious, and geographic changes had all reshaped the nation in fundamental
ways and pointed toward still greater opportunities and pitfalls in the future. Nevertheless,
Jacksonian Democracy represented a provocative blending of the best and worst qualities of
American society. On the one hand it was an authentic democratic movement that
contained a principled egalitarian thrust, but this powerful social critique was always cast for
the benefit of white men. This tragic mix of egalitarianism, masculine privilege, and racial
prejudice remains a central quality of American life and to explore their relationship in the
past may help suggest ways of overcoming their haunting limitations in the future.
Source: https://www.ushistory.org/us/23f.asp
Annotations:
electoral college (n.) Wahlmännergremium sustain (v.) erhalten
soar (v.) (schnell) aufsteigen / prosperity (n.) Wohlstand
ansteigen
turnout (n.) Teilnahme, partisan (adj.) parteiisch
Teilnehmerzahl ,
Wahlbeteiligung
bold (adj.) tapfer, kühn pitfall (n.) Falle, Fallgrube
common (adj.) normal, gemein egalitarian (adj.) auf Gleichheit bedacht,
egalitär,
gleichmacherisch
charismatic (adj.) charismatisch, von thrust (n.) Stoß, Stoßrichtung,
einnehmendem Wesen Schubkraft
animosity (n.) Feindseligkeit haunt (adj.) heimsuchen
Year 11, Jacksonian Democracy, 4
Tasks: Extract from the text a) Jackson’s biography, b) Jackson’s policies, c) Jackson’s impact on the
US.
4) The last paragraphs of Andre Jackson’s Farewell Address (1837)
“[…] In presenting to you, my fellow-citizens, these parting counsels, I have brought before you the
leading principles upon which I endeavored to administer the Government in the high office with
which you twice honored me. Knowing that the path of freedom is continually beset by enemies who
often assume the disguise of friends, I have devoted the last hours of my public life to warn you of
the dangers. The progress of the United States under our free and happy institutions has surpassed
the most sanguine hopes of the founders of the Republic. Our growth has been rapid beyond all
former example in numbers, in wealth, in knowledge, and all the useful arts which contribute to the
comforts and convenience of man, and from the earliest ages of history to the present day there
never have been thirteen millions of people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much
freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear
danger from abroad; your strength and power are well known throughout the civilized world, as well
as the high and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from within, among yourselves--from cupidity, from
corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power--that factions will be formed
and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you
have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care.
Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the
guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His
hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable you, with
pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great
charge He has committed to your keeping.
My own race is nearly run; advanced age and failing health warn me that before long I must pass
beyond the reach of human events and cease to feet the vicissitudes of human affairs. I thank God
that my life has been spent in a land of liberty and that He has given me a heart to love my country
with the affection of a son. And filled with gratitude for your constant and unwavering kindness, I bid
you a last and affectionate farewell.”
Source: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-4-1837-farewell-address
Annotations:
endeavour (v.) bestrebt sein, sich inordinate (adj.) zügellos, übermäßig
bemühen
devote (v.) widmen faction (n.) Parteiung, Splittergruppe
surpass (v.) übertreffen bestow (v.) gewähren
sanguine (adj.) optimistisch vigilance (n.) Wachsamkeit
gallant (adj.) edelmütig, ritterlich charge (n.) Verantwortung, Last,
Aufgabe
bearing (n.) Verhalten, Betragen vicissitude (n.) Widrigkeit
cupidity (n.) Gier unwavering (adj.) standhaft, nicht
nachlassend
Task: Analyse this part of the speech and assess it in the context of what you have learned about
Jackson and his time in office in 3).
Concluding task: Compare Andrew Jackson’s and Donald J. Trump’s characters and presidencies.
Erstellt von J. Kulok im Rahmen der staatlichen Lehrkräftefortbildung. Nur für den internen Gebrauch.
