The 7th President of the United States: Andrew Jackson
The 7th president of the United States was Andrew Jackson. He was called after his father because he was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaw settlement, which was on the border of South and North Carolina.
He resided with extended family and attended neighborhood schools for his elementary and some of his higher schooling. Jackson and his siblings fought in the revolutionary war that invaded the Carolinas in 1778, which left all but one of his brothers dead.
When Jackson was imprisoned in 1781, a British soldier allegedly struck him because Jackson wouldn't polish his boots, leaving Jackson with scars on one hand and his face. Vallant and Daniel (335) posit that this lead to Jackson's hatred for the British all through his life.
Jackson's mother Elizabeth died while he was only 14 thus he briefly lived with his extended family in Waxhaw before going to Charleston for completion of school. Later he studied law in North Carolina.
In 1787, he chose to work as public prosecutor in North Carolina, New Mero District. He was involved in trading ventures, started acquiring slaves and land and built a legal practice thus thriving in the new frontier town.
Marriage and Political Career
In 1794, he officially married Rachel after her husband sued for divorce on the grounds of bigamy, a situation that haunted him in his presidential campaigns as Johnson notes. In 1796 he was elected in Tennessee as the first U.S. representative and later us senator where he worked for only eight months before resigning.
In 1824, he ran for president against Quincy Adams, and after winning the popular votes, it was decided that Adams takes office thus catapulting Jackson to 1828 presidency.
The 1832 election used National Party Conventions, and Jackson ran again against Henry Clay. He won 55% of the popular vote.
Jackson's Impact on the U.S.
The impact of Jackson on the U.S. was profoundly felt since he left a legacy on the American presidency as well as politics. Within eight years his questionable behavior while in office enthused adversaries to mobilize the Whig party.
His Democratic party and the Whig party formed the national two-party system. His political philosophy thrived with only the Bank and the Maysville Road bans. He created a strong bond with the voters against the Congress and addressed them plainly using a dominant language (Vallant and Daniel 339).
He also defended the people against particular interest and their followers in the Congress.
Increase in Presidential Authority
Jackson impacted the presidential authority by increasing its scope. He exercised power over his cabinet members forcing them to work failure to which would result in termination from office a case wherein two terms he had four secretaries of state and five secretaries of the treasury.
Out of his belief that republican government should be frugal, accessible and straightforward during his administration. Sim and Mackie found out that he embraced laissez-faire to ensure social equality and political liberty got fostered.
Jackson's Accomplishments
Jackson was a great and a good president in America as he did numerous great things. First, he expanded voting rights since he was for the common man. This gave women the right to vote as suffrage ended as noted by Evett et al. (22).
Additionally, he passed the Indian revolt act of 1830 which successfully forced the Cherokee off of their Georgian lands. In spite of the Americanization of Cherokee to the extent of owning slaves and support from the Supreme Court for their stay, they had to leave the land.
Likewise, his goodness got extended to his attempts to strangle the United States bank by preventing its re-charter. Sim and Mackie support his advocacy for hard currency in terms of silver and gold and opposed paper money.
Jacksonian Democracy
Successfully, Jackson inspired widespread interest in politics and encouraged participation in white men government thus initiating Jacksonian democracy. This got him the popularity of the lower socioeconomic class people regardless of his slaves and land ownership as cited by Johnson.
Similarly, he succeeded in asserting the collection of an unpopular tariff by the federal government's authority. He did so by threatening that the duties would be collected by the army so that South Carolina would take it as constitutional and pay.
He managed to suppress any secession threats from South Carolina leading to the ultimate resignation of John C. Calhoun, the vice president. Being a spokesman of the common man, Jackson got concerned with issues like mechanical advancement, farming and farming all which brought his familiarity with the common man coins farmed most farmers at the expense of credit.
Jackson's Legacy
Everyone expected Jackson not to influence change while in office since he got viewed as less powerful and a leader from a poor background. Initially, he got faced with numerous challenges case of being orphan at 14, risking death in a military career, marriage stained with chatters of bigamy and bankruptcy as noted by Bradbury.
Out of all these, people expected no progress in his leadership. On the contrary, he came out as prosperous and the most powerful leader in the country.
In Conclusion
To sum up, Jackson's election as an American president signaled a change in America regardless of the fact that he was an ordinary man. His actions not only transformed the state of the commoners but also the presidency at large.
As he marketed himself as an average man, he ensured the office of the president was the most powerful in all the branches of the government. While some praise his audacity and strength, still others see him as self-obsessed and vengeful thus appearing as an incipient tyrant.
To commoners, he is a symbol of American accomplishment as Bradbury comments.
Works Cited
Bradbury, Bruce, et al. Too many children left behind: The US achievement gap in comparative
perspective. Russell Sage Foundation, 2015. Print.
Evett, I. W., et al. "Finding the way forward for forensic science in the US-A commentary on
the PCAST report." Forensic Science International 278 (2017): 16-23
Johnson, Robert. Do you mind the market who wins the US presidency? New York: Routledge,
2016. Print.
Sim, F., and P. Mackie. "Presidency and precedence." Public Health 146 (2017): A1-A2.
Valant, Jon, and Daniel A. Newark. "The politics of achievement gaps: US public opinion on
race-based and wealth-based differences in test scores." Educational Researcher 45.6 (2016): 331-346.
