Andrew Jackson was in office during crucial events in our nation’s history. He created many conflicts but also resolved many issues. During his presidency, he had to deal with the major differences of the North and South in both economy and society.
The North consisted of the rocky shores of Maine to the rolling plains of Iowa. Beginning in the late 1700's an industrial shift began, known as the industrial revolution. During this time inventors started making machines that produced products faster and cheaper. But to operate the machinery they needed many laborers who were overworked and underpaid. By 1860, 20,000 miles of rail linked northern factories to cities hundreds of miles away, making it double the amount of rail in the south. The majority of the people in the North were neither wealthy nor poor; they were mostly middle-class. After the American Revolution, slavery in the North began to slowly die away. Although African Americans were not treated as slaves, they were still not considered equal to whites. They could not vote, serve in juries or attend white churches and schools.
The Southern states extended from Maryland south to the tip of Florida and from the Atlantic coast to Louisiana and Texas. Their long summers and mild winters made these states perfect for agriculture. In 1793, Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. The “cotton gin” was a hand-operated machine that cleans seeds and unwanted material from cotton. Within ten years it was the South's most important crop. Because agriculture was the base of the south's economy and with the rise in cotton, the number of slaves between 1790-1850 rose from 500,000 to more then 3 million. The highest ranking southerners were plantation owners and the lowest ranking were enslaved African Americans. These wealthy white southerners lived in large mansions and owned many slaves. However, 10% of white southerners were too poor to own land and only one in four owned even one slave. A small minority of African Americans were free from slavery but not from discriminatory treatment. They were forced to wear special badges and had to pay extra taxes. Although the steamboat was invented in the North, it was used mostly in the south due to the flat rivers dispersed between states.
The conflict between the United States and the Native Americans began after the election of 1828 when Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States. Andrew Jackson was a loyal democrat who was popular amongst farmers and middle class citizens. But was disliked by the wealthy and educated because he believed in equal rights for all. He was born in 1767 in South Carolina and was the first frontier president. He also created the spoils system was the practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs.
Nullification is adding extra taxes or tarrifs on imported goods. The Nullification crisis was a conflict between the supporters and the opponents of the extra taxing. Because the South relied on imported goods for their economy to function they opposed the new law. Most remember Jackson because of his involvement with the battle with bank of the U.S. The bank was a private business and the government owned one fifth of it. Jackson distrusted the bank he called it “an unconstitutional monopoly that only makes the rich richer.”
Most of the eastern Indians lived in the South, including the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole. They called these tribes the five civilized tribes because they modeled their society based on the U.S. Although Native Americans tried to be accepted by whites, they were treated poorly. In 1830, President Jackson urged Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. This law allowed the president to make treaties in which the Native Americans in the East traded their land for territory in the Great Plains. Some groups agreed to move, while others resisted. Jackson didn’t approve of their unwillingness to move and forced them to go by either taking off in chains or slaughtering them. More then 17,000 Cherokee were taken out of their homes in Georgia and headed west. They were treated like animals and four thousand Native Americans died on the way to the new Indian Territory. We refer to this tragic journey as the Trail of Tears.
These years in history greatly affected the westward expansion and the future of the United States. Without the actions made by President Jackson, we would be a different country today.
