Jacksonian democracy (or Jacksonianism) was a 19th-century American political ideology centered on expanding the political power of the "common man", opposing entrenched elites, and asserting popular control over government. Associated with Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it combined majoritarianism, democratic participation, expansion of the right to vote to non-landowning white men, hostility to certain forms of concentrated economic power (such as national banks), and a strong executive willing to act on behalf of the people. It became the nation's dominant political worldview for a generation during the 1830s. Historians and political scientists sometimes call this era the Jacksonian Era or Second Party System.
Jacksonianism emerged from the factionalization of the long-dominant Democratic-Republican Party around the 1824 presidential election, but it was also part of a broader democratic transformation already underway in American politics. Even before Jackson’s rise, suffrage had been extended to a majority of white male adult citizens, a development Jacksonians celebrated and interpreted as the end of what Jackson called a monopoly of government by elites. Jackson’s supporters organized this democratic spirit into what became the modern Democratic Party, while his political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay formed the National Republican Party, which later combined with other anti-Jackson groups to create the Whig Party. The Jacksonian movement sought to broaden public participation in government by demanding elected rather than appointed judges and by rewriting many state constitutions to reflect these new values. At the same time, it strengthened the presidency and the executive branch at the expense of Congress, presenting the president as the direct representative of the popular will. In national terms, Jacksonian democracy also favored geographical expansionism, justified through the language of manifest destiny.Engerman, pp. 15, 36. "These figures suggest that by 1820 more than half of adult white males were casting votes, except in those states that still retained property requirements or substantial tax requirements for the franchise – Virginia, Rhode Island (the two states that maintained property restrictions through 1840), and New York as well as Louisiana."
Jackson's expansion of democracy was exclusively limited to white men, as well as voting rights in the nation were extended to adult white males only, and, according to historian Edward Pessen, "it is a myth that most obstacles to the suffrage were removed only after the emergence of Andrew Jackson and his party. Well before Jackson's election most states had lifted most restrictions on the suffrage for white male citizens or taxpayers."
There was little to no improvement to, and in many cases a reduction of, the rights of non-white U.S citizens during the extensive period of Jacksonian democracy, spanning from 1829 to 1860. As the nation expanded westward, this racial boundary made the question of slavery increasingly unavoidable, exposing a core tension within Jacksonian politics. Consequently, the Jacksonian Era lasted roughly until the practice of slavery became the dominant issue with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 and the political repercussions of the American Civil War dramatically reshaped American politics.
A number of academics and publications have described Donald Trump as a neo-Jacksonian populist, in relation to an absence of traditional conservative Republican principles and his executive-driven populist approach.
Etymology In its earliest usage, the phrase "Jacksonian democracy" had a narrower meaning referring to the Democratic Party, particularly as led by Andrew Jackson, who was president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. American historian James Schouler called Jackson's political alliance "the Jackson Democracy" in his 1889 History of the United States Under the Constitution, and in 1890 future president Theodore Roosevelt called the antebellum Democratic Party "the Jacksonian Democracy". Later historians, including Frederick Jackson Turner and William MacDonald, generalized the phrase "Jacksonian democracy" to describe democracy writ large in the United States and what they saw as the influence of the American frontier on the character of American political culture. In the 1945 book The Age of Jackson, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. influentially reinterpreted "Jacksonian Democracy" as a phenomenon of labor struggle against business power rather than of frontier regional influence.
General principles In 1999, historian Robert V. Remini stated that Jacksonian Democracy involved the belief that the people are sovereign, that their will is absolute and that the majority rules.
William S. Belko, in 2015, summarized "the core concepts underlying Jacksonian Democracy" as:
Historian and social critic Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. argued in 1945 that Jacksonian democracy was built on the following:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (1945)
Expanded suffrage – The Jacksonians believed that voting rights should be extended to all white men. By the end of the 1820s, attitudes and state laws had shifted in favor of universal white male suffrageEngerman, p. 14. "Property- or tax-based qualifications were most strongly entrenched in the original thirteen states, and dramatic political battles took place at a series of prominent state constitutional conventions held during the late 1810s and 1820s." and by 1856 all requirements to own property and nearly all requirements to pay taxes had been dropped.Engerman, pp. 16, 35. "By 1840, only three states retained a property qualification, North Carolina (for some state-wide offices only), Rhode Island, and Virginia. In 1856 North Carolina was the last state to end the practice. Tax-paying qualifications were also gone in all but a few states by the Civil War, but they survived into the 20th century in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island."Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (2nd ed. 2009) p 29 Manifest destiny – This was the belief that Americans had a destiny to settle the American West and to expand control from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and that the West should be settled by yeoman farmers. However, the Free Soil movement, originally an offshoot of Jacksonianism, argued for limitations on slavery in the new areas to enable the poor white man to flourish — they split with the main party briefly in 1848 when nominated former President Martin Van Buren . The Whigs generally opposed Manifest Destiny and expansion, saying the nation should build up its cities.David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, Manifest Destiny (Greenwood Press, 2003). Patronage – Also known as the spoils system, patronage was the policy of placing political supporters into appointed offices. Many Jacksonians held the view that rotating political appointees in and out of office was not only the right, but also the duty of winners in political contests. Patronage was theorized to be good because it would encourage political participation by the common man and because it would make a politician more accountable for poor government service by his appointees. Jacksonians also held that long tenure in the civil service was corrupting, so civil servants should be rotated out of office at regular intervals. However, patronage often led to the hiring of incompetent and sometimes corrupt officials due to the emphasis on party loyalty above any other qualifications.M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Party System in the United States (1910) Strict constructionism – Like the Jeffersonians who strongly believed in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, Jacksonians initially favored a federal government of limited powers. Jackson said that he would guard against "all encroachments upon the legitimate sphere of State sovereignty". However, he was not a states' rights extremist—indeed, the nullification crisis would find Jackson fighting against what he perceived as state encroachments on the proper sphere of federal influence. This position was one basis for the Jacksonians' opposition to the Second Bank of the United States. As the Jacksonians consolidated power, they more often advocated expanding federal power, presidential power in particular.Forrest McDonald, States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776–1876 (2002) pp 97-120 Laissez-faire – Complementing a strict construction of the Constitution, the Jacksonians generally favored a hands-off approach to the economy as opposed to the Whig program sponsoring modernization, railroads, banking, and economic growth.William Trimble, "The social philosophy of the Loco-Foco democracy." American Journal of Sociology 26.6 (1921): 705-715. in JSTOR Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776–1860 (1948) The chief spokesman amongst laissez-faire advocates was William Leggett of the Locofocos in New York City.Richard Hofstadter, "William Leggett, Spokesman of Jacksonian Democracy." Political Science Quarterly 58.4 (1943): 581-594. in JSTOR .Lawrence H. White, "William Leggett: Jacksonian editorialist as classical liberal political economist." History of Political Economy 18.2 (1986): 307-324. Jackson "placed most of the American economy off limits to government regulation. Only paper money bankers faced whatever (slim) interference his bias against governmental regulation allowed. No inequality of wages, prices, profits, inheritanceof the basic structure of American capitalismhad to fear Jackson's egalitarian scorn." Opposition to banking – In particular, the Jacksonians opposed government-granted monopolies to banks, especially the national bank, a central bank known as the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson said: "The bank is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!" and he did so. The Whigs, who strongly supported the Bank, were led by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Nicholas Biddle, the bank chairman.Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, From the Revolution to the Civil War (1957) Jackson himself was opposed to all banks because he believed they were devices to cheat common people—he and many followers believed that only gold and silver should be used to back currency, rather than the integrity of a bank.
Election by "the common man"
An important movement in the period from 1800 to 1830the era immediately before the election of Jacksonwas the gradual expansion of the right to vote from only property owning men to include all white men over 21.Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (2009) ch 2 Older states with property restrictions dropped them, namely all but Rhode Island, Virginia, and North Carolina by the mid-1820s. No new states had property qualifications although three had adopted tax-paying qualifications—Ohio, Louisiana, and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long lasting.Engerman, p. 8–9 The process was peaceful and widely supported, except in the state of Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, the Dorr Rebellion of the 1840s demonstrated that the demand for equal suffrage was broad and strong, although the subsequent reform included a significant property requirement for any resident born outside of the United States. However, free black men lost voting rights in several states during this period.