If you were to ask anyone on the street which president of these United States had the greatest and most lasting legacy in the way it is run today, you would probably hear the same few names. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson. Reading the list of men we carved into a mountain in South Dakota. But few understand the lasting traditions established by a slightly darker president. Not someone who helped write the Declaration of Independence, but who fought the British as a teenager in Carolina. Although he did not attend the court of King Louis to secure French aid nor was he a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Andrew Jackson managed to change the nation so fundamentally during his eight-year tenure as president that it is a shame that what most some people remember it because it's just the short-term effects of his biggest infraction. The lasting effects and traditions of the Jackson administration surpass many of those established by more credited presidents and are still felt in our modern nation today, making him one of the most impactful presidents on our nation. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The United States in the early 19th century was very different from today. The country was much more of a republic than a democracy, and that was on purpose. Candidates were chosen “from among the party elite,” which was “largely composed of landed and educated nobles,” rather than from the people. The popular vote had little say in the election of the president as the number of people allowed to vote was small and voter turnout was even smaller. Unlike the six presidents who came before him, Jackson had gained his notoriety from the recent War of 1812, not the Revolution. General Jackson was popular among the population and firmly believed in the will of the people. He threw his gamble into the 1824 election, hoping to gain office on his fame from the war. America had entered a one-party system after the demise of the Federalist Party, and the Democratic-Republicans governed the country unopposed as the only party nationwide. There were four presidential candidates: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Jackson easily led the popular vote, but no candidate won the Electoral College. The vote then went to the House of Representatives, as decided in the Twelfth Amendment. Clay, knowing that he was a minor candidate and had little chance of winning the election, had his supporters vote for Adams instead, who then promptly won. Just days into Adams' presidency, Clay was controversially named Secretary of State, Adams' old position under the previous president. This infuriated Jackson, who saw it as the political elite rewarding Clay for his support of consolidating power and vowed to take revenge on Adams. Adams's faction appealed to the industrial North, which wanted government interventionism in the economy and foreign tariffs to promote their goods. Jackson's support came primarily from the agricultural South. So, the Jacksonian clique devised a plan to make Adams' presidency look bad and increase their support. Jacksonians in Congress would approve a tariff so high that Adams would be forced to veto it. The North would see this as a retreat by Adams from his promises of protective tariffs, and so Jackson could gain the support of the conflicting Northern countries. This conspiracy was not the first political plan, but it was the largest of its time andit set a precedent for the political maneuvers to come. Then the unthinkable happened, which would precipitate the rest of Jackson's political career: Adams simply signed the tax into law. While this made Adams look better to some of his Northern supporters, it infuriated the rest of the nation and especially the South. He used his newfound popularity to rail against the political establishment, as he saw it as too entrenched and undemocratic, having let the unpopular Adams take office. This political strategy, now known as populism, would become very influential and the traditions of American populism would begin with Jackson's fight against Adams. Jackson's populist appeal and his "anti-establishment" doctrine are exploited even today, by politicians like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders who run campaigns of personality, popularity and anti-elitism. Another precedent set by Jackson was the recreation of the two party system. The 1824 election had only one party: the Democratic-Republicans. This was the result of the collapse of the Federalist Party ten years earlier, after the disastrous Hartford Convention. Under President James Madison, president before Adams, the nation entered the era of good feelings, in which there was only one party nationwide. This was the only time in the nation's history that a two-party system did not actually exist. And party unity would not last long. Due to the controversy between Jackson and Adams following the election, Jackson's supporters left and formed the Democratic Party, while Adams' supporters reorganized into what would become the Whig Party. After a tumultuous couple of decades of shifting power back and forth between these two parties, the Whig Party would dissolve, giving way for the Republican Party to emerge as the Democratic Party's adversary. And so, Jackson's dispute with John Quincy Adams led directly to the creation of the two-party system we have today. Jackson would win the 1828 election in a landslide. He demonstrated his popularity by beating Adams 178-83, more than double his rival's electoral votes. And then, being the ambitious anti-elitist that he was, he did something no president had ever done before: he relieved many members of the previous administration of their roles, to fill them with Jackson supporters. Previously, presidents had often retained those who had previously held the office. But Jackson was determined to unseat the political elite and, as he saw it, return power to the people. After all, the people had wanted him and his policies into power, so ushering in allies was seen as a way to aid their will and bring democracy to more government positions. This brought, among other things, factionalism throughout Washington, as many of those he replaced were highly respected and respectful, and their sudden removal incited opposition, even when it came out that in fact some from Adams' payroll were embezzling money in Washington. the government. In modern days, this so-called 'spoils-system' is an almost universal practice for American presidents to bring in their own cabinet members to replace those of the previous administration, but Jackson was the first to introduce this practice into the federal executive branch. of Abominations was extremely upsetting to Southern farmers, as the immense import tax helped the North at the expense of the South. The South scrambled to find solutions, and one man claimed to have found it: John C. Calhoun. The South Carolina firebrand had previously served as a congressman and secretary of war. He was now Jackson's vice president. And, anywayrunning in the same party, their opinions diverged on one key issue: that of state rights. Calhoun firmly believed in the sovereignty of the states, while Jackson believed that the federal government was a necessary check on their power. So, when their differences in beliefs became unbearable, Calhoun resigned the vice presidency, became senator for his home state the next day, and began working on nullification legislation. This inevitably led to the nullification crisis, when South Carolina courts declared the tariff unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable in the state. Jackson, while opposed to his old tariff and promising a new, less harsh one, was enraged by the actions of his former vice president, predicting that “Cancellation…leads directly to civil war and bloodshed.” Indeed, Calhoun would threaten secession against the Jacksonian government, and Jackson would respond that he had every intention of crushing the state's independence militarily, and that he would have to get to the point. This was a very important precedent because, even if he did not follow through on his threats, as the situation was resolved peacefully, the same cannot be said for a subsequent president. Twenty-eight years after South Carolina threatened the nuclear button, they would finally push it. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, several states seceded before he even took office: South Carolina was the first. Lincoln knew that his presidency would be a defining moment in the nation's history, as never before had secession been addressed so openly. So he looked for a precedent, someone to model his first presidency after who would provide guidance in difficult times. And he used Jackson's policies against seceding South Carolina as a guide. Instead of passively accepting their secession, he decided to fight because, as he said, secession "had been widely discussed in Jackson's day, and denied..." So, although Lincoln was most famous for fighting in the Civil War, he was simply following the precedent set by Jackson. Another way Jackson had an effect on American democracy was the way he changed the electoral college. Nowadays, each state has one vote, and the winning candidate gets the entire state's votes in the Electoral College. But the electoral college has not always functioned as such. It was originally intended that states could vote as they pleased; however, some states have decided to allow their citizens to vote on the destination of their votes. But, during the period of Jacksonian democracy, a number of states amended their constitutions to allow the people to vote for president, thus leading to the Electoral College system we have today due to Jackson's popularity and policies. One of the very first political controversies in the nation's history was that of the national bank. During the first presidencies its constitutionality was heavily discussed. Washington established it; Jefferson abolished it; Madison reestablished it. It was one of the biggest questions of the early republic: Should the country have a government-run banking monopoly? Hamilton, Washington's advisor, was its champion, arguing its necessity for the functioning of a state. However, Jefferson considered it unconstitutional and giving too much power to the federal government. After all, what would stop the federal government from increasing its power by printing more money? Madison, although originally aligned ideologically with Jefferson, ended up refinancing the bank to pay for the War of 1812..