Was Andrew Jackson Really That Great?

     In class we produced projects in groups in order to learn about president Andrew Jackson. Jackson was the 7th president of the US and served for 8 years from 1829 to 1837. He was known for being strongly against the Second National Bank and vetoed its charter. He thought that only rich people had a say in the bank since they, the stock holders were the ones who chose the directors of the bank. Since the the Second National Bank was the only bank in the US it controlled all international trading, he believed that this concentration of power wasn't good for the economy. He wanted to create a balance of power between the rich and the poor by creating smaller banks to avoid economic collapse and by doing this he is living up to his long standing reputation as "the people's president."
     This reputation isn't lived up to when it comes to the spoil system. Jackson elected voters who supported him to fill government positions. If people knew they had a chance of getting a position it would encourage them to vote a certain way. He wanted to shorten time in office; instead of having fewer people work for a long time who were good at their jobs he would rather a lot of people work for shorter amounts of time. It is clear the corruption can and will occur since people are being elected through loyalty and not by skill. He was also selfish and didn't listen to anyone who didn't support him.
     Lastly, this reputation is complelty destoyed when it comes to indian removal. Five tribes were forced off their home lands and were sent on a fatal march to their new, more concentrated land west of the Mississippi. More than 100,000 indians were moved from their homelands and had to adapt to a new environment and people they were complelty foreign to. This removal was to make room for more white settlements, since Jackson didn't think the indians and whites could live together. Over 10,00 indians died during this journey to their new land and death rituals were not allowed which made this journey even worse. They felt betrayed since indians have fought, and helped whites in the past. To the indians, Jackson is known as the white devil.

Our group's project was on the Bank War Prezi

Rise of Democracy

In class we examined documents that helped us answer the essential question; how should we define democracy, and also shows us how democratic the US was in the early 1800s. One of the sources was a painting that depicts men voting and discussing politics. These men are drunk and this shows how they aren't able to make clear decisions while voting. We also looked at two charts, one of those charts shows that over time more people were able to vote and not just white men who owned land. The other chart shows that over time the nation became more democratic since the president was voted for by the people rather than the legislature. With these documents our group made a video explaining them to further our knowledge.