Inauguration

Jackson arrived in Washington, D.C., on February 11, and began forming his cabinet.^[190] He chose Van Buren as Secretary of State, John Eaton as Secretary of War, Samuel D. Ingham as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch as Secretary of Navy, John M. Berrien as Attorney General, and William T. Barry as Postmaster General.^[191] Jackson was inaugurated on March 4, 1829; Adams, who was embittered by his defeat, refused to attend.^[192] Jackson was the first president-elect to take the oath of office on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol.^[193] In his inaugural address, he promised to protect the sovereignty of the states, respect the limits of the presidency, reform the government by removing disloyal or incompetent appointees, and observe a fair policy toward Native Americans.^[194] Jackson invited the public to the White House, which was promptly overrun by well-wishers who caused minor damage to its furnishings. The spectacle earned him the nickname "King Mob".^[195]

Reforms and rotation in office

Jackson believed that Adams's administration had been corrupt and he initiated investigations into all executive departments.^[196] These investigations revealed that $280,000 (equivalent to $8,000,000 in 2023) was stolen from the Treasury. They also resulted in a reduction in costs to the Department of the Navy, saving $1 million (equivalent to $28,600,000 in 2023).^[197] Jackson asked Congress to tighten laws on embezzlement and tax evasion, and he pushed for an improved government accounting system.^[198]

Jackson implemented a principle he called "rotation in office". The previous custom had been for the president to leave the existing appointees in office, replacing them through attrition. Jackson enforced the Tenure of Office Act, an 1820 law that limited office tenure, authorized the president to remove current office holders, and appoint new ones.^[199] During his first year in office, he removed about 10% of all federal employees^[199] and replaced them with loyal Democrats.^[200] Jackson argued that rotation in office reduced corruption^[201] by making officeholders responsible to the popular will,^[202] but it functioned as political patronage and became known as the spoils system.^[203]^[201]

Petticoat affair

Jackson spent much of his time during his first two and a half years in office dealing with what came to be known as the "Petticoat affair" or "Eaton affair".^[204]^[205] The affair focused on Secretary of War Eaton's wife, Margaret. She had a reputation for being promiscuous, and like Rachel Jackson, she was accused of adultery. She and Eaton had been close before her first husband John Timberlake died, and they married nine months after his death.^[206] With the exception of Barry's wife Catherine,^[207] the cabinet members' wives followed the lead of Vice-president Calhoun's wife Floride and refused to socialize with the Eatons.^[208] Though Jackson defended Margaret, her presence split the cabinet, which had been so ineffective that he rarely called it into session,^[191] and the ongoing disagreement led to its dissolution.^[209]

In the spring of 1831, Jackson demanded the resignations of all the cabinet members except Barry,^[210] who would resign in 1835 when a Congressional investigation revealed his mismanagement of the Post Office.^[211] Jackson tried to compensate Van Buren by appointing him the Minister to Great Britain, but Calhoun blocked the nomination with a tie-breaking vote against it.^[210] Van Buren—along with newspaper editors Amos Kendall^[212] and Francis Preston Blair^[213]—would become regular participants in Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet, an unofficial, varying group of advisors that Jackson turned to for decision making even after he had formed a new official cabinet.^[214]

Indian Removal Act

Jackson's presidency marked the beginning of a national policy of Native American removal.^[210] Before Jackson took office, the relationship between the southern states and the Native American tribes who lived within their boundaries was strained. The states felt that they had full jurisdiction over their territories; the native tribes saw themselves as autonomous nations that had a right to the land they lived on.^[216] Significant portions of the five major tribes in the area then known as the Southwest—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminoles— began to adopt white culture, including education, agricultural techniques, a road system, and rudimentary manufacturing.^[217] In the case of the tensions between the state of Georgia and the Cherokee, Adams had tried to address the issue encouraging Cherokee emigration west of the Mississippi through financial incentives, but most refused.^[218]

In the first days of Jackson's presidency, some southern states passed legislation extending state jurisdiction to Native American lands.^[219] Jackson supported the states' right to do so.^[220]^[221] His position was later made clear in the 1832 Supreme Court test case of this legislation, Worcester v. Georgia. Georgia had arrested a group of missionaries for entering Cherokee territory without a permit; the Cherokee declared these arrests illegal. The court under Chief Justice John Marshall decided in favor of the Cherokee: imposition of Georgia law on the Cherokee was unconstitutional.^[222] Horace Greeley alleges that when Jackson heard the ruling, he said, "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him enforce it."^[223] Although the quote may be apocryphal, Jackson made it clear he would not use the federal government to enforce the ruling.^[224]^[225]^[226]

Jackson used the power of the federal government to enforce the separation of Indigenous tribes and whites.^[227] In May 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which Congress had narrowly passed.^[228] It gave the president the right to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the eastern part of the United States in exchange for lands set aside for Native Americans west of the Mississippi,^[229] as well as broad discretion on how to use the federal funds allocated to the negotiations.^[230] The law was supposed to be a voluntary relocation program, but it was not implemented as one. Jackson's administration often achieved agreement to relocate through bribes, fraud and intimidation,^[231] and the leaders who signed the treaties often did not represent the entire tribe.^[232] The relocations could be a source of misery too: the Choctaw relocation was rife with corruption, theft, and mismanagement that brought great suffering to that people.^[233]

In 1830, Jackson personally negotiated with the Chickasaw, who quickly agreed to move.^[234] In the same year, Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek; the majority did not want the treaty but complied with its terms.^[235] In 1832, Seminole leaders signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, which stipulated that the Seminoles would move west and become part of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy if they found the new land suitable.^[236] Most Seminoles refused to move, leading to the Second Seminole War in 1835 that lasted six years.^[232] Members of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ceded their land to the state of Alabama in the Treaty of Cusseta of 1832. Their private ownership of the land was to be protected, but the federal government did not enforce this. The government did encourage voluntary removal until the Creek War of 1836, after which almost all Creek were removed to Oklahoma territory.^[237] In 1836, Cherokee leaders ceded their land to the government by the Treaty of New Echota.^[238] Their removal, known as the Trail of Tears, was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren.^[239]

Jackson also applied the removal policy in the Northwest. He was not successful in removing the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, but when some members of the Meskwaki (Fox) and the Sauk triggered the Black Hawk War by trying to cross back to the east side of the Mississippi, the peace treaties ratified after their defeat reduced their lands further.^[240]

During his administration, he made about 70 treaties with American Indian tribes. He had removed almost all the Native Americans east of the Mississippi and south of Lake Michigan, about 70,000 people, from the United States;^[241] though it was done at the cost of thousands of Native American lives lost because of the unsanitary conditions and epidemics arising from their dislocation, as well as their resistance to expulsion.^[242] Jackson's implementation of the Indian Removal Act contributed to his popularity with his constituency. He added over 170,000 square miles of land to the public domain, which primarily benefited the United States' agricultural interests. The act also benefited small farmers, as Jackson allowed them to purchase moderate plots at low prices and offered squatters on land formerly belonging to Native Americans the option to purchase it before it was offered for sale to others.^[243]

Nullification crisis

Thumb — A Civil War-era lithograph cartoon of Calhoun bowing before Jackson during the nullification crisis by Pendleton's Lithography and published by L. Prang & Co. in 1864

Jackson had to confront another challenge that had been building up since the beginning of his first term. The Tariff of 1828, which had been passed in the last year of Adams' administration, set a protective tariff at a very high rate to prevent the manufacturing industries in the Northern states from having to compete with lower-priced imports from Britain.^[244] The tariff reduced the income of southern cotton planters: it propped up consumer prices, but not the price of cotton which had severely declined in the previous decade.^[245] Immediately after the tariff's passage, the South Carolina Exposition and Protest was sent to the U.S. Senate.^[246] This document, which had been anonymously written by John C. Calhoun, asserted that the constitution was a compact of individual states^[247] and when the federal government went beyond its delegated duties, such as enacting a protective tariff, a state had a right to declare this action unconstitutional and make the act null and void within the borders of that state.^[248]

Jackson suspected Calhoun of writing the Exposition and Protest and opposed his interpretation. Jackson argued that Congress had full authority to enact tariffs and that a dissenting state was denying the will of the majority.^[249] He also needed the tariff, which generated 90% of the federal revenue,^[250] to achieve another of his presidential goals, eliminating the national debt.^[251] The issue developed into a personal rivalry between the two men. For example, during a celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday on April 13, 1830, the attendees gave after-dinner toasts. Jackson toasted: "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to nullification. Calhoun, whose toast immediately followed, rebutted: "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dear!"^[252]

As a compromise, Jackson supported the Tariff of 1832, which reduced the duties from the Tariff of 1828 by almost half. The bill was signed on July 9, but failed to satisfy extremists on either side.^[253] On November 24, South Carolina had passed the Ordinance of Nullification,^[254] declaring both tariffs null and void and threatening to secede from the United States if the federal government tried to use force to collect the duties.^[255]^[256] In response, Jackson sent warships to Charleston harbor, and threatened to hang any man who worked to support nullification or secession.^[257] On December 10, he issued a proclamation against the "nullifiers",^[258] condemning nullification as contrary to the Constitution's letter and spirit, rejecting the right of secession, and declaring that South Carolina stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason".^[259] On December 28, Calhoun, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate, resigned as vice president.^[260]

Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" authorizing the military to enforce the tariff. It was attacked by Calhoun as despotism.^[261] Meanwhile, Calhoun and Clay began to work on a new compromise tariff. Jackson saw it as an effective way to end the confrontation but insisted on the passage of the Force Bill before he signed.^[262] On March 2, he signed into law the Force Bill and the Tariff of 1833. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance but nullified the Force Bill in a final act of defiance.^[263] Two months later, Jackson reflected on South Carolina's nullification: "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question".^[264]

Bank War and Election of 1832

Bank veto

A few weeks after his inauguration, Jackson started looking into how he could replace the Second Bank of the United States.^[265] The Bank had been chartered by President Madison in 1816 to restore the United States economy after the War of 1812. Monroe had appointed Nicholas Biddle as the Bank's executive.^[266] The Bank was a repository for the country's public monies which also serviced the national debt; it was formed as a for-profit entity that looked after the concerns of its shareholders.^[267] In 1828, the country was prosperous^[268] and the currency was stable,^[269] but Jackson saw the Bank as a fourth branch of government run by an elite,^[265] what he called the "money power" that sought to control the labor and earnings of the "real people", who depend on their own efforts to succeed: the planters, farmers, mechanics, and laborers.^[270] Additionally, Jackson's own near bankruptcy in 1804 due to credit-fuelled land speculation had biased him against paper money and toward a policy favorable to hard money.^[271]

In his First Annual Address in December 1829, Jackson openly challenged the Bank by questioning its constitutionality and the soundness of its money.^[272] Jackson's supporters further alleged that it gave preferential loans to speculators and merchants over artisans and farmers, that it used its money to bribe congressmen and the press, and that it had ties with foreign creditors. Biddle responded to Jackson's challenge in early 1830 by using the Bank's vast financial holding to ensure the Bank's reputation, and his supporters argued that the Bank was the key to prosperity and stable commerce. By the time of the 1832 election, Biddle had spent over $250,000 (equivalent to $7,630,000 in 2023) in printing pamphlets, lobbying for pro-Bank legislation, hiring agents and giving loans to editors and congressmen.^[273]

On the surface, Jackson's and Biddle's positions did not appear irreconcilable. Jackson seemed open to keeping the Bank if it could include some degree of Federal oversight, limit its real estate holdings, and have its property subject to taxation by the states.^[274] Many of Jackson's cabinet members thought a compromise was possible. In 1831, Treasury Secretary Louis McLane told Biddle that Jackson was open to chartering a modified version of the Bank, but Biddle did not consult Jackson directly. Privately, Jackson expressed opposition to the Bank;^[275] publicly, he announced that he would leave the decision concerning the Bank in the hands of the people.^[276] Biddle was finally convinced to take open action by Henry Clay, who had decided to run for president against Jackson in the 1832 election. Biddle would agree to seek renewal of the charter two years earlier than scheduled. Clay argued that Jackson was in a bind. If he vetoed the charter, he would lose the votes of his pro-Bank constituents in Pennsylvania; but if he signed the charter, he would lose his anti-Bank constituents. After the recharter bill was passed, Jackson vetoed it on July 10, 1832, arguing that the country should not surrender the will of the majority to the desires of the wealthy.^[277]

Election of 1832

The 1832 presidential election demonstrated the rapid development of political parties during Jackson's presidency. The Democratic Party's first national convention, held in Baltimore, nominated Jackson's choice for vice president, Martin Van Buren. The National Republican Party, which had held its first convention in Baltimore earlier in December 1831, nominated Clay, now a senator from Kentucky, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania.^[278] An Anti-Masonic Party, with a platform built around opposition to Freemasonry,^[279] supported neither Jackson nor Clay, who both were Masons. The party nominated William Wirt of Maryland and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania.^[280]

In addition to the votes Jackson would lose because of the bank veto, Clay hoped that Jackson's Indian Removal Act would alienate voters in the East; but Jackson's losses were offset by the Act's popularity in the West and Southwest. Clay had also expected that Jackson would lose votes because of his stand on internal improvements.^[281] Jackson had vetoed the Maysville Road bill, which funded an upgrade of a section of the National Road in Clay's state of Kentucky; Jackson had argued it was unconstitutional to fund internal improvements using national funds for local projects.^[282]

Clay's strategy failed. Jackson was able to mobilize the Democratic Party's strong political networks.^[283] The Northeast supported Jackson because he was in favor of maintaining a stiff tariff; the West supported him because the Indian Removal Act reduced the number of Native Americans in the region and made available more public land.^[284] Except for South Carolina, which passed the Ordinance of Nullification during the election month and refused to support any party by giving its votes to the future Governor of Virginia John B. Floyd,^[285] the South supported Jackson for implementing the Indian Removal Act, as well as for his willingness to compromise by signing the Tariff of 1832.^[286] Jackson won the election by a landslide, receiving 55 percent of the popular vote and 219 electoral votes.^[283]

Removal of deposits and censure

Jackson saw his victory as a mandate to continue his war on the Bank's control over the national economy.^[287] In 1833, Jackson signed an executive order ending the deposit of Treasury receipts in the bank.^[288] When Secretary of the Treasury McLane refused to execute the order, Jackson replaced him with William J. Duane, who also refused. Jackson then appointed Roger B. Taney as acting secretary, who implemented Jackson's policy.^[289] With the loss of federal deposits, the Bank had to contract its credit.^[290] Biddle used this contraction to create an economic downturn in an attempt to get Jackson to compromise. Biddle wrote, "Nothing but the evidence of suffering abroad will produce any effect in Congress."^[291] The attempt did not succeed: the economy recovered and Biddle was blamed for the recession.^[292]

Jackson's actions led those who disagreed with him to form the Whig Party. They claimed to oppose Jackson's expansion of executive power, calling him "King Andrew the First", and naming their party after the English Whigs who opposed the British monarchy in the 17th century.^[293] In March 1834, the Senate censured Jackson for inappropriately taking authority for the Treasury Department when it was the responsibility of Congress and refused to confirm Taney's appointment as secretary of the treasury.^[294] In April, however, the House declared that the bank should not be rechartered. By July 1836, the Bank no longer held any federal deposits.^[295]

Jackson had Federal funds deposited into state banks friendly to the administration's policies, which critics called pet banks.^[296] The number of these state banks more than doubled during Jackson's administration,^[289] and investment patterns changed. The Bank, which had been the federal government's fiscal agent, invested heavily in trade and financed interregional and international trade. State banks were more responsive to state governments and invested heavily in land development, land speculation, and state public works projects.^[297] In spite of the efforts of Taney's successor, Levi Woodbury, to control them, the pet banks expanded their loans, helping to create a speculative boom in the final years of Jackson's administration.^[298]

In January 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that it had been accomplished.^[299]^[300] It was paid down through tariff revenues,^[283] carefully managing federal funding of internal improvements like roads and canals,^[301] and the sale of public lands.^[302] Between 1834 and 1836, the government had an unprecedented spike in land sales:^[303] At its peak in 1836, the profits from land sales were eight to twelve times higher than a typical year.^[304] During Jackson's presidency, 63 million acres of public land—about the size of the state of Oklahoma—was sold.^[305] After Jackson's term expired in 1837, a Democrat-majority Senate expunged Jackson's censure.^[306]^[307]

Panic of 1837

Despite the economic boom following Jackson's victory in the Bank War, land speculation in the west caused the Panic of 1837.^[308] Jackson's transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 caused western banks to relax their lending standards;^[309] the Indian Removal Act made large amounts of former Native American lands available for purchase and speculation.^[310] Two of Jackson's acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837. One was the Specie Circular, which mandated western lands only be purchased by money backed by specie. The act was intended to stabilize the economy by reducing speculation on credit, but it caused a drain of gold and silver from the Eastern banks to the Western banks to address the needs of financing land transactions.^[311] The other was the Deposit and Distribution Act, which transferred federal monies from eastern to western state banks. Together, they left Eastern banks unable to pay specie to the British when they recalled their loans to address their economic problems in international trade.^[312] The panic drove the U.S. economy into a depression that lasted until 1841.^[308]

Physical assault and assassination attempt

Jackson was the first president to be subjected to both a physical assault and an assassination attempt.^[313] On May 6, 1833, Robert B. Randolph struck Jackson in the face with his hand because Jackson had ordered Randolph's dismissal from the navy for embezzlement. Jackson declined to press charges.^[314] While Jackson was leaving the United States Capitol on January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at him, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane until others intervened to restrain Lawrence, who was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and institutionalized.^[315]^[316]

Slavery

During Jackson's presidency, slavery remained a minor political issue.^[317] Though federal troops were used to crush Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831,^[318] Jackson ordered them withdrawn immediately afterwards despite the petition of local citizens for them to remain for protection.^[319] Jackson considered the issue too divisive to the nation and to the delicate alliances of the Democratic Party.^[320]

Jackson's view was challenged when the American Anti-Slavery Society agitated for abolition^[321] by sending anti-slavery tracts through the postal system into the South in 1835.^[320] Jackson condemned these agitators as "monsters"^[322] who should atone with their lives^[323] because they were attempting to destroy the Union by encouraging sectionalism.^[324] The act provoked riots in Charleston, and pro-slavery Southerners demanded that the postal service ban distribution of the materials. To address the issue, Jackson authorized that the tracts could be sent only to subscribers, whose names could be made publicly accountable.^[325] That December, Jackson called on Congress to prohibit the circulation through the South of "incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection".^[326]

Foreign affairs

Engraved portrait of Jackson as president by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This portrait has appeared on the $20 bill since 1929.^[327]

The Jackson administration successfully negotiated a trade agreement with Siam, the first Asian country to form a trade agreement with the U.S. The administration also made trade agreements with Great Britain, Spain, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire.^[328]

In his First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson addressed the issues of spoliation claims, demands of compensation for the capture of American ships and sailors by foreign nations during the Napoleonic Wars.^[329] Using a combination of bluster and tact, he successfully settled these claims with Denmark, Portugal, and Spain,^[328] but he had difficulty collecting spoliation claims from France, which was unwilling to pay an indemnity agreed to in an earlier treaty. Jackson asked Congress in 1834 to authorize reprisals against French property if the country failed to make payment, as well as to arm for defense.^[329] In response, France put its Caribbean fleet on a wartime footing.^[330] Both sides wanted to avoid a conflict, but the French wanted an apology for Jackson's belligerence. In his 1835 Annual Message to the Congress, Jackson asserted that he refused to apologize, but stated that he did not intend to "menace or insult the Government of France".^[331] The French were assuaged and agreed to pay $5,000,000 (equivalent to $147,677,400 in 2023) to settle the claims.^[332]

Since the early 1820s, large numbers of Americans had been immigrating into Texas, a territory of the newly independent nation of Mexico.^[333] As early as 1824, Jackson had supported acquiring the region for the United States.^[334] In 1829, he attempted to purchase it, but Mexico did not want to sell. By 1830, there were twice as many settlers from the United States as from Mexico, leading to tensions with the Mexican government that started the Texas Revolution. During the conflict, Jackson covertly allowed the settlers to obtain weapons and money from the United States.^[335] They defeated the Mexican military in April 1836 and declared the region an independent country, the Republic of Texas. The new Republic asked Jackson to recognize and annex it. Although Jackson wanted to do so, he was hesitant because he was unsure it could maintain independence from Mexico.^[328] He also was concerned because Texas had legalized slavery, which was an issue that could divide the Democrats during the 1836 election. Jackson recognized the Republic of Texas on the last full day of his presidency, March 3, 1837.^[336]

Judiciary

Jackson appointed six justices to the Supreme Court.^[337] Most were undistinguished. Jackson nominated Roger B. Taney in January 1835 to the Court in reward for his services, but the nomination failed to win Senate approval.^[338]

When Chief Justice Marshall died in 1835, Jackson again nominated Taney for Chief Justice; he was confirmed by the new Senate,^[339] serving as Chief Justice until 1864.^[340] He was regarded with respect during his career on the bench, but he is most remembered for his widely condemned decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford.^[341] On the last day of his presidency, Jackson signed the Judiciary Act of 1837,^[342] which created two new Supreme Court seats and reorganized the federal circuit courts.^[343]

States admitted to the Union

Two new states were admitted into the Union during Jackson's presidency: Arkansas (June 15, 1836) and Michigan (January 26, 1837). Both states increased Democratic power in Congress and helped Van Buren win the presidency in 1836, as new states tended to support the party that had done the most to admit them.^[344]