![]() The Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. Commenting on the horrors unleashed against Native Americans by Jackson, Alexis de Tocqueville, who watched as the defeated tribal members were force-marched through Memphis, would write in his diary, “In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu one couldn’t watch without feeling one’s heart wrung. While Jackson’s populism helped break elite control of democratic institutions, it was built, as most populisms are, on a narrowly circumscribed definition of “the people.” Ethnic whites supported Jackson in no small part because of his ethnic cleansing of the nation. American democracy had a core principle: keep the important parts away from the meddling influence of relatively unenlightened citizens. ![]() Senators only began being directly elected after the passage of the 17th Amendment, in 1913. The Supreme Court has never been elected by the populace. The Electoral College ensured that the president would not be directly elected. Our political institutions were designed to be insulated from popular democracy. Jackson’s ascension to power represented a fundamental challenge to the republic. Today we look back and view this popular mobilization as breaking the aristocratic elite’s domination of American politics, shepherding in the first modern American president, and auguring a newly democratic sensibility in the rapidly growing country. He would mobilize twice as many voters as had ever gone to the polls in the brief history of the young republic, silencing the power of the elites with the voices of the people. The House of Representatives denied Jackson the presidency and elevated John Quincy Adams instead, a man who, as the son of a former president and heir to an elite political legacy, represented just what Jackson was fighting against.įour years later Jackson would reap his revenge, running a starkly populist campaign. ![]() The Tennessean’s crass demeanor, uneducated manner, and disconnection from the dominant elite strongholds of Massachusetts and Virginia-all previous presidents had hailed from one place or the other-made him anathema to the gentry who had run the country since its founding a half century earlier. ![]() Jackson was hated by elite political players. He had won the popular vote but not an Electoral College majority. Andrew Jackson had good reason to believe that his first presidential election, of 1824, had been rigged. ![]()
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