President Andrew Jackson should be removed completely from the twenty dollar bill. Jackson created disorder in the economy and government. Who wants a man that forces natives out of their homeland because he believes they are the ones bothering him? Jackson thinks only for himself and not others. The bank was not closing when he wanted it to close, so he took it into his own hands to close it himself. In result, the economy was destroyed for many years until it began to recover. Jackson is the type of president who does whatever he wants.
His logic is that if a state is not doing what he wants, it is okay to invade and kill them all just so he can get his way. He may have helped the United States get some control of Florida, but Jackson was unfit to be president, after executing British men in Florida and the way he handled the election of 1824, he was showing signs of being unsuitable for the job. The Tariff of Abominations was passed to place a high tax on foreign imports to protect American manufacturers from the competition of other countries.
The high tax on the goods raised the cost of living in the south. Many southerners were furious with the tariff. They did not have any protection from the tariff since the south did not have as many manufacturing industries as the north. The south was still forced into paying for the manufacturers of the north by the tariff. Many southerners sold cotton and farm produce in world markets that were not protected by the tariff. Yet, they were still forced to purchase manufactured goods in American markets that were protected by the tariff.
The south was not protected from the foreign competition like the north because the tariff only protected manufactured goods, not raw materials like what the southerners were selling. South Carolina was one of the southern states that disagreed with the tariff. They believed that “the New England… imitates the Old. ” South Carolina wanted to nullify the tariff in order to save themselves from falling further into poverty. The Exposition declared that the tariff was “unjust and unconstitutional. ” The Tariff of Abominations hurt the south’s economy.
With the cost of living up, more people were forced into poverty. The north had an advantage over the south with the protection of the tariff, the north’s industries were able to prosper and grow far more than the farms of the south, who produced raw materials such as cotton and farm produce. Many may argue that Congress was the one to pass the bill, but Jackson did allow it to pass. He could have vetoed the bill and the south would have been saved from struggle. The tariff also divided the north and the south even more than it already was.
This was another major contributor to the civil war. The south’s economy was left in a worse condition and the poverty levels were up. Jackson may have thought that he was helping the country, but he was only helping the north and hurting the south. He did not seem to care though, because it was not hurting him and he was getting what he wanted. The Nullification Crisis is the result of the Tariff of Abominations. It was a big fight between Jackson and the South Carolina legislature. South Carolina wanted to nullify the tariff and have it set aside in the state.
They also warned of secession if the federal government used force to collect any tariffs. In response, Jackson privately threatened that he would invade South Carolina and hang anyone who supported the nullification of the Tariff of Abominations. He soon sent naval and military forces to South Carolina, while privately getting a larger army ready to follow suit. The governor of South Carolina, Robert Y. Hayne answered with a counter proclamation; one would have to surrender or they would both have to reach a compromise in order to avoid a civil war.
Henry Clay stepped in and created a compromise bill; the Compromise Tariff of 1833. The compromise was able to lower the Tariff of 1832 by ten percent over eight years. The Force Bill extended the powers of the executive branch by allowing the president to use any military forces against each state that refused to abide by the protective tariff laws. The Columbia Convention of South Carolina repealed its ordinance of nullification to avoid invasion and war. He wanted to go to war with states because they would not pay their tariff taxes. This is outrageous.
If he had the urge to invade and kill citizens of a state because they were not paying their tariff, then he should have reevaluated the tariff so it would please him and the state. What kind of president wants to go to “war” with one of the states he should be protecting? After Jackson lost the election for president in the House of Representatives in 1824, he immediately began campaigning again so he could win four years later in 1828. Jackson accused John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay of working together to keep him out of the White House.
He thought that Adams had bribed Clay with the position of Secretary of State in order to win. Jackson argued that the popular vote, which he had won, had been ignored so he believed that the people’s voice had been pushed to the side. The purpose of the popular that he did not acknowledge is that those votes select the number of electors. Jackson did not see that only a few states had all four presidential candidates on the ballot and many states did not even have three. Also, six states did not have any popular vote, the state legislatures decided who won.
Even though Jackson did describe the election as a “corrupt bargain”, it thoroughly carried out all of the constitutional procedures for electing a president. Jackson criticized the constitutional practices that the country he oversee, lived and ran by. He believed that the procedures were not followed because he had lost. Jackson practically claimed that the election was rigged only because he had lost. If he had won, then nothing would have been manipulated in his point of view.
The President of the United States should only denounce the Constitution if he or she believes that a part of it is truly unconstitutional. Jackson created the Indian Removal Act, that was passed in Congress, which ordered all Native American tribes to evacuate all land that was of the Mississippi River. Jackson thought that the Native Americans could better preserve their native cultures in the west than they were in the east. About 100,000 Native Americans left the east and headed west.
The Native Americans were forced to march west and because of the sickness, suffering, and death that happened on the journey, the Cherokees names it the Trail of Tears. Hundreds of innocent Native Americans died, and hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their native land. In the 1790’s the Native American tribes were declared as being separate nations from the United States and the U. S. could only get land from them through a treaty. Jackson, like always, did not respect their rights. He was only thinking about how he could benefit from it.
He was more interested in the possible new land than in the wealthfare of the native people. Although Jackson was the first and only president to pay off all of the United States’s debt, he ruined that accomplishment by putting the country back into debt and destroyed the economy while he was at it. The Panic of 1837 was a huge economic crisis in the United States. Hundreds of banks collapsed, there was an increase in grain prices, and failed and damaged wheat crops. The Bank of the United States was set to close in 1836, but Jackson was not happy with that.
Since he always has to get his way, he figured out how to close the Bank of the United States sooner than it was planned. In order to disassemble the Bank, Jackson withdrew about ten million dollars in federal government funds from the Bank of the United States in 1832. He deposited this money into state banks and privately-owned financial institutions or “pet banks. ” In 1836, Jackson created the Specie Circular. This act declared that the government would only accept gold or silver for federal land. The United States had to receive loans from other countries and many citizens were left in debt.
Americans withdrew the correct amount of money from the bank to pay off their debts. But, the United States had loaned out too much money and did not have any good reserves to meet the needs. In 1837, roughly eight hundred banks shut down, which slowed economic growth and left many businesses bankrupt, including banks. During the Panic of 1832, about ten percent of American citizens were unemployed. There were mobs in New York that raided warehouses for food, businessmen lost everything, churches created soup kitchens and breadlines, and people lost all their savings when banks closed.
It was not until 1843 when the United States began to recover from this economic down spiral. Jackson should have never ended up on the twenty dollar bill. He created more trouble for this country than he created success. Who cares if Jackson was the “father” of the Democratic Party when he pushed the United States deeper into an inevitable civil war, created economic ruin, and became a Native American homewrecker. I am wondering how and why he was even elected for a second term.