Era of Jackson & Reforms of the 1830’s and 1840’s

1. The spoils system is when a newly elected president allows his party members to have places
within the government. During Jackson’s administration, he often changed out the
government office holders and gave it to those who were in his party, rather than those who
deserved to be there.

2. Democrats:
-Leaders: Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren
– Principles: believed states should be stronger than the government, but not to the point of
nullification
– Programs: Removal Act (1830)
– Support: Jackson had his Kitchen Cabinet, Southerners and Westerners.
Whigs:
- Leaders: Calhoun, Clay, Webster
– Principles: government participation in commercial and industrial development, wanted a
strong Union
– Programs: sponsored road and canal building and maintaining.
- Support: Northeastern states and wealthy land owners in the south

3. Americans wanted to reform schooling, the society, alcohol limits, women’s rights,
rehabilitation, and abolition in the 1830’s and 1840’s.
Schooling – Horace Mann decided to lengthen the school year, pay the teachers better and
enrich the curriculum. Others thought it could be a way to Americanize immigrant children.
Society – Many attempts were brought up to make a utopian community, including Brooks
Farm and Oneida, but all failed.
Temperance – Women were suffering because of their drunk husbands so many women
advocated the abstinence from alcohol.
Women’s Rights – Women such as Susan B. Anthony, the Grimke Sisters, and Harriet
Breecher Stowe wanted equal rights as men had. They held a meeting at Seneca Falls in New
York to lobby interest for the cause.
Rehabilitation – Dorothea Dix helped support the reform of how prisoners were treated if
they were mentally ill. Coming out of depression herself, she wanted to help others.
Abolition – One of the major movements before the war. Fredrick Douglass, William Lloyd
Garrison of The Liberator, and Harriet Breecher Stowe are just some of the powerful names
behind the cause. They were anti-slavery and wanted to help the slaves who they thought
deserved a chance to be free.

4. The second American party system emerged from the Republican-Democrats, which now
because the Democrats while the opposition named themselves the Whigs, like those back in
England who opposed policies of the king. In American, the Whigs believed Andrew Jackson
to be a king and opposed his policies. It differed from the first in that the first political party
system was based on how the two parties viewed the Constitution. The second political party
system was either you liked or disliked the president at the time and what they stood for.

5. Goals:
Temperance Abolition Women’s Rights
 –Stop abuse of families - End slavery - to give women more
through limiting alcohol rights

Tactics:
Temperance Abolition Women’s Rights
– American Society for the - Speeches - Sececa Falls Convention
Promotion of Temperance to discuss women’s rights

Problems:
Temperance Abolition Women’s Rights
– More grain than needed, - Anti-abolitionists -Men didn’t think women
commercial distilleries, were equal
private distilleries, immigrants

6. Jackson opposed the Bank of the US because it seemed the bank was not in favor of those out
west and south, the people Jackson mostly represented. Jackson supported the hard-money
faction that believed that money should be supported by gold and silver, a faction Jackson
normally wouldn’t have supported. The war with the bank led to an economic depression
once Jackson left office, resulting in the Panic of 1837.

7. The major issues of the Webster-Hayne debate included the debate over western lands from
the government. The westerners wanted lands available cheaply while the Northeast believed
that it would only drive up prices. The south supported the west. Hayne hinted at the
possibility of nullification for the west states while Webster started to argue that it was the
government that decided what to do with the land. Hayne debated that it was the states that
had the rights. Jackson ended the debate by siding with the North and keeping the Union
whole.

8. Some causes of the Panic of 1837 include Jackson’s “specie circular” which meant that all
land had to be paid in gold and silver coins. As a result of this, banks had to stop construction
they were doing because they could not pay for the completion. The pet banks had received
their money from the Treasury once it was out of debt, which was a Whig measure and led to
the building of canals and railroads.

9. The Cherokees were removed from their lands in Georgia because the government wanted
more room for white settlers in the region. Jackson’s role in their removal was the passing of
the Removal Act in 1830. He sent out federal officers to start with the new negotiations but
when the Cherokees didn’t move, Jackson sent 7,000 men down to move them out West. This
became known as the Trail of Tears.

10. The Nullification Crisis in South Carolina happened when Jackson supported higher rates of
the Tariff of 1832. Calhoun did not agree with this and resigned from his office. He went
back to South Carolina and wrote the Ordinance of Nullification, which stopped collection at
the port of Charleston. Jackson responded by having troops enforce the collecting of taxes
and though to hang Calhoun. Fortunately, Jackson lowered the percentage and Calhoun
 backed down from the challenge.

11. Southern white supported slavery because it was a way of income for those who owned them
as well as the economy around them. It has made their way of life and made things easier for
the white people. It hadn’t been thought of before that what they were doing to the slaves was
inhumane.