Jacksonian Democrats and More

Teisha Dukes

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To what extent were the Jacksonian Democrats guardians of the constitution, political democracy, individual liberty and equality of economic opportunity?

The Jacksonian Democrats were not guardians of the constitution. They did not abide by the constitution. When Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Bank of the United States (BUS) with the Acts and Resolutions of South Carolina (1835) because it was “unconstitutional” in Jacksons eyes. This was an example of their refusal to follow the supreme court which showed they were not guardians of the constitution. In that same document, you see Jackson pretty much asking to take away the second amendment, the freedom of the press. And by saying “...they will make it highly penal to print, publish, and distribute newspapers, pamphlets, tracts and pictorial representations calculated and having an obvious tendency to excite the slaves of the southern states to insurrection and revolt” He is trying to take away the freedom of the press who are telling slaves in articles that they can rise up together and take down their masters because they have the right to be free, and by doing that he is actually being unconstitutional and not abiding by or being a guardian of the constitution.

Forcibly moving the indians west with the Indian Removal Act because they were different, because we never actually tried to know them. Englishmen just came to their land and took the indians kindness as weakness and took their land away from them, and now they’re forcing them out of their land. Saying “Our ancestors found them uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain” That was unconstitutional and showed that Jacksonian democrats were not guardians of the constitution.

The Jacksonian Democrats were guardians of political democracy. This was giving the power to the people to the control the government by...