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The election of 1828 is commonly regarded as a turning point in the political history of the United States. Jackson was the first president from the area west of the Appalachians, but it was equally significant that the initiative in launching his candidacy and much of the leadership in the organization of his campaign also came from the West. The victory of Jackson indicated a westward movement of the centre of political power. He was also the first man to be elected president through a direct appeal to the mass of the voters rather than through the support of a recognized political organization. Jackson once said: "I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit to be president." Yet today he is regarded as the maker of the modern presidency.

Jackson was the first president born in poverty. In time he became one of the largest landholders in Tennessee, yet he had retained the frontiersmen's prejudice against people of wealth. He had no well-defined program of action when he entered the presidency. He was the beneficiary of a rising tide of democratic sentiment, a trend that was aided by the admission of six new states to the Union, five of which had manhood suffrage, and by the extension of the suffrage laws by many of the older states. As the power of the older political organizations weakened, the way was opened for the rise of new political leaders skilled in appealing to the mass of voters. Not the least remarkable triumph of the Jacksonian organization was its success in picturing its candidate as the embodiment of democracy, despite the fact that Jackson had been aligned with the conservative faction in Tennessee politics for 30 years and that in the financial crisis that swept the West after 1819 he had vigorously opposed legislation for the relief of debtors.

As the victory of Jackson reflected the emergence of new forces in U.S. politics, so Jackson himself brought to the presidency a new set of personal qualifications that were to become the standard by which presidential candidates would be judged for the remainder of the 19th century. He was the first president since George Washington who had not served a long apprenticeship in public life and had no personal experience in the formulation or conduct of foreign policy. His brief periods of service in Congress provided no clue to his stand on the public issues of the day, except perhaps on the tariff.

Jackson approached the problems of the presidency as he had approached all other problems in life. He met each issue as it arose, and he exhibited the same vigour and determination in carrying out decisions that had characterized his conduct as commander of an army. He made it clear from the outset that he would be the master of his own administration, and, at times, he was so strong-willed and decisive that his enemies referred to him as "King Andrew I." In making decisions and policy, Jackson relied on an informal group of newspaper editors and politicians who had helped elect him; they came to be known as his "kitchen cabinet."

The first term

When Jackson was inaugurated on March 4, 1829, it was the first time in more than a quarter of a century that the election of a new president reflected the repudiation of his predecessor. Hundreds who had worked for the election of Jackson hoped this would mean that incumbent officeholders would be replaced by friends of the new president, and within a few weeks the process of removing opponents of Jackson to make way for supporters had begun. Some years later, in the U.S. Senate, William L. Marcy of New York defended the principle of "rotation of office" with the aphorism, "To the victors belong the spoils." The so-called spoils system, however, did not begin with Jackson, nor did he utilize this practice as extensively as was charged. In eight years as president, Jackson removed fewer than one-fifth of all federal officeholders.

Jackson was in poor health when he became president, and few believed that he would have the strength or inclination to seek a second term. The question of the succession was, therefore, certain to attract early attention. One obvious candidate was Vice President John C. Calhoun from Jackson's native state of South Carolina. Another was Martin Van Buren, Jackson's first secretary of state. The harmony of the new administration was marred from the outset by the rivalry between Calhoun and Van Buren. Moreover, Jackson learned in 1830 that during the cabinet debates in 1818 Calhoun had urged that Jackson be censured for his invasion of Florida. In that episode Jackson had captured the Spanish forts at St. Marks, Pensacola, and several other towns, and claimed the surrounding territory for the United States. He had also seized two British subjects, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, and hanged them. Jackson, though considered a hero in many parts of the country for this action, was severely criticized by Congress. Calhoun was the most prominent of these critics, and Jackson concluded that he could no longer trust him. From that time, Van Buren was generally recognized as the probable successor of Jackson as president.

The feud between Jackson and Calhoun assumed momentous importance in 1830 when Calhoun openly espoused the cause of South Carolina in its opposition to a high protective tariff. Feeling in South Carolina was so intense that there were covert threats that the state would attempt to prevent collection of the tariff within its borders. The issue of the tariff drifted unresolved, however, until 1832, when congressional leaders sought a compromise in the form of a moderate reduction of the tariff. South Carolina was not satisfied and in reply adopted a resolution declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void and prohibiting the enforcement of either within its boundaries after February 1, 1833. Jackson accepted the challenge, denounced the theory of nullification, and asked Congress for authority to send troops into South Carolina to enforce the law. The president believed the tariff to be too high, however, and urged Congress to reduce the rates it had enacted a few months earlier. On March 1, 1833, Congress sent to the president two companion bills. One reduced tariff duties on many items. The other, commonly called the Force Bill, empowered the president to use the armed forces to enforce federal laws. South Carolina repealed its nullification ordinance, but at the same time it declared the Force Act null and void.

Whatever the motives, Jackson had preserved the integrity of the Union against the most serious threat it had yet faced. In contrast, he was remarkably complacent when Georgia defied the federal government. In 1829 Georgia extended its jurisdiction to about 9,000,000 acres (4,000,000 hectares) of land that lay within its boundaries but was still occupied by the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees' title to the land, on which gold had been discovered, having been guaranteed by a treaty with the United States, the Indians appealed to the federal courts. In two separate cases, the Supreme Court ruled against Georgia, but Georgia ignored those decisions and continued to enforce its jurisdiction within the territory claimed by the Cherokees. In contrast to his strong reaction against South Carolina's defiance of federal authority, Jackson made no effort to restrain Georgia, and those close to him felt certain that he sympathized with the position taken by that state. He is said to have declared privately, " John Marshall [the chief justice] has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" Jackson's failure to support the Supreme Court remains an indelible stain on his record.

The Cherokee, left without a choice, signed another treaty in 1835 giving up their land in exchange for land in the Indian Territory west of Arkansas. Three years later, having been rounded up by Gen. Winfield Scott, some 15,000 Cherokees were forced to wend their way westward, mostly on foot, on a journey that became known as the Trail of Tears. On the way, during the cold and wet of winter, nearly a quarter of them died of starvation, illness, and exposure.

The plight of the Cherokee was a consequence of the Jackson government's policy toward the Native American peoples who lived east of the Mississippi (especially in the Southeast) on lands that were desired for white settlement. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized Jackson to grant these Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their homelands. When members of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, including the Cherokees, refused to relocate, military coercion was employed to force compliance. Even more reluctant to leave their Florida home were the Seminoles, who would resist resettlement in the Second Seminole War (1835-42)..

In the meantime, Jackson acquiesced to the pressure of friends and sought a second term. As the election of 1832 approached, Jackson's opponents hoped to embarrass him by posing a new dilemma. The charter of the Bank of the United States was due to expire in 1836. The president had not clearly defined his position on the bank, but he was increasingly uneasy about how it was then organized. More significant in an election year was the fact that large blocs of voters who favoured Jackson were openly hostile to the bank. In the summer of 1832, Jackson's opponents rushed through Congress a bill to recharter the bank, thus forcing Jackson either to sign the measure and alienate many of his supporters or to veto it and appear to be a foe of sound banking. Jackson's cabinet was divided between friends and critics of the bank, but the obviously political motives of the recharter bill reconciled all of them to the necessity of a veto. The question before Jackson actually was whether the veto message should leave the door open to future compromise.

Few presidential vetoes have caused as much controversy in their own time or later as the one Jackson sent to Congress on July 10, 1832. The veto of the bill to recharter the bank was the prelude to a conflict over financial policy that continued through Jackson's second term, which he nevertheless won easily. Efforts to persuade Congress to enact legislation limiting the circulation of bank notes failed, but there was one critical point at which Jackson was free to apply his theories. Nearly all purchasers of public lands paid with bank notes, many of which had to be discounted because of doubts as to the continuing solvency of the banks that issued them. Partly to protect federal revenues against loss and partly to advance his concept of a sound currency, Jackson issued the Specie Circular in July 1836, requiring payment in gold or silver for all public lands. This measure created a demand for specie that many of the banks could not meet; banks began to fail, and the effect of bank failures in the West spread to the East. By the spring of 1837 the entire country was gripped by a financial panic. The panic did not come, however, until after Jackson had had the pleasure of seeing Van Buren inaugurated as president on March 4, 1837.

During Jackson's time, the President's House underwent noteworthy alterations. The North Portico, which had long been advocated by James Hoban, its architect, was added to the mansion. The appropriation that Jackson obtained for this work included a sum for refurbishing the interior of the building, and the public rooms were refitted on a grand scale. A system of iron pipes was also installed in order to convey water from a well to a small reservoir on the grounds from which it could be pumped to various parts of the building. For the first time, the occupants' needs for water could be met without relying on the time-honoured system of filling pails and carrying them where required.

Jackson retired to his home, the Hermitage. For decades in poor health, he was virtually an invalid during the remaining eight years of his life, but he continued to have a lively interest in public affairs.

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Andrew Jackson - Andrew Jackson - Jacksonian Democracy: The election of 1828 is commonly regarded as a turning point in the political history of the United States. Jackson was the first president from the area west of the Appalachians, but it was equally significant that the initiative in launching his candidacy and much of the leadership in the organization of his campaign also came from the West.

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Top 10 Most Famous Andrew Jackson Quotes to Inspire You

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

After eight years as President I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.

When you get in debt you become a slave.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

One man with courage makes a majority.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

Never take counsel of your fears.

I've got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.

Americans are not a perfect people, but we are called to a perfect mission.

Mr. Van Buren, your friends may be leaving you but my friends never leave me.

To the victors belong the spoils.

But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

The brave man, inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

Further Reading:

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.

(MUST READ) Also read:

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." Andrew Jackson

16 Inspirational Andrew Jackson Quotes to Empower You

"I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life." Andrew Jackson

"I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office." Andrew Jackson

"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending." Andrew Jackson

"Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result." Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson Short Biography

Born 15 March 1767 in the Waxhaws region (exact location unknown), United States, Andrew Jackson was an American soldier and the seventh president of the United States.

Originally hailing from Ireland, Jackson's family migrated to the United States. His father died just before he was born, leaving his mother and two older brothers to raise him.

As a teenager, Jackson and his brothers became soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He and his brother Robert were captured and held as prisoners by the British Army, cementing his hatred for the British.

In 1784 he went on to study law under Spruce Macay, and three years later he joined the North Carolina state bar.

After some time, Jackson continued to practice law and became a landowner. In 1812 Jackson commanded U.S. troops to victory, defeating British-allied Indians claiming the land for America, now known to be Georgia and Alabama. He was appointed a major general for his military success.

Jackson ran for U.S. Senate in 1823, and in 1828 won the presidency over John Quincy Adams in a landslide.

One of his more notable achievements as president was his implementation of veto power, which he used in July 1832 when he vetoed the re-charter of the Second Bank of the United States due to the bank's monopoly of power.

Here are the best Andrew Jackson quotes so you can be inspired to lead with a strong will to accomplish impressive objectives.

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26 Best Andrew Jackson Quotes (DEMOCRATIC)

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Further Reading: (MUST READ) Also read: "Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."

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The Spoils System Explained: US History Review

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On December 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson issued a Proclamation to the People of South Carolina (also known as the "Nullification Proclamation") that disputed a states' right to nullify a federal law. Jackson's proclamation was written in response to an ordinance issued by a South Carolina convention that declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State." Led by John C. Calhoun, Jackson's vice president at the time, the nullifiers felt that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 favored Northern-manufacturing interests at the expense of Southern farmers. After Jackson issued his proclamation, Congress passed the Force Act that authorized the use of military force against any state that resisted the tariff acts. In 1833, Henry Clay helped broker a compromise bill with Calhoun that slowly lowered tariffs over the next decade. The Compromise Tariff of 1833 was eventually accepted by South Carolina and ended the nullification crisis.

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Research Guides: Nullification Proclamation: Primary Documents in American History: Introduction

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On December 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson issued a Proclamation to the People of South Carolina (also known as the "Nullification Proclamation") that disputed a states' right to nullify a federal law.

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Andrew Jackson and Nullification | The Hermitage

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By Marsha Mullin Vice President, Collections & Research/Chief Curator In December 1832, Andrew Jackson issued his Nullification Proclamation, one of the most consequential actions of his presidency. Nullification—the authority for individual states to nullify federal laws they find unconstitutional…

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Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans

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Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans

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Battle of New Orleans 1815 - War of 1812 DOCUMENTARY

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Age of Jackson: Crash Course US History #14

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🐴 SOCRATIC SEMINAR - Andrew Jackson Hero or Villain

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History vs. Andrew Jackson - James Fester

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ANDREW JACKSON
A POLITICAL TESTAMENT

The state of the Nation\ The need for Unity\ Nullification and States Rights\ Limits of Fed'l Power\ Currency and Banking Policy\ Foreign Policy and National Defense|\ Conclusion

Being about to retire finally from public life, I beg leave to offer you my grateful thanks for the many proofs of kindness and confidence which I have received at your hands. It has been my fortune, in the discharge of public duties, civil and military, frequently to have found myself in difficult and trying situations where prompt decision and energetic action were necessary and where the interest of the country required that high responsibilities should be fearlessly encountered; and it is with the deepest emotions of gratitude that I acknowledge the continued and unbroken confidence with which you have sustained me in every trial. My public life has been a long one, and I cannot hope that it has, at all times, been free from errors. But I have the consolation of knowing that, if mistakes have been committed, they have not seriously injured the country I so anxiously endeavored to serve; and, at the moment when I sur render my last public trust, I leave this great people prosperous and happy; in the full enjoyment of liberty and peace; and honored and respected by every nation of the world.

If my humble efforts have, in any degree, contributed to preserve to you these blessings, I have been more than rewarded by the honors you have heaped upon me; and, above all, by the generous confidence with which you have supported me in every peril, and with which you have continued to animate and cheer my path to the closing hour . of my political life. The time has now come when advanced age and a broken frame warn me to retire from public concerns; but the recollection of the many favors you have bestowed upon me is engraven upon my heart, and I have felt that I could not part from your service without making this public acknowledgment of the gratitude I owe you. And if I use the occasion to offer to you the counsels of age and experience, you will, I trust, receive them with the same indulgent kindness which you have so often extended to me; and will, at least, see in them an earnest desire to perpetuate, in this favored land, the blessings of liberty and equal laws.

THE STATE OF THE NATION

We have now lived almost fifty years under the Constitution framed by the sages and patriots of the Revolution. The conflicts in which the nations of Europe were engaged during a great part of this period; the spirit in which they waged war against each other; and our intimate commercial connections with every part of the civilized world, rendered it a time of much difficulty for the Government of the United States. We have had our seasons of peace and of war, with all the evils which precede or follow a state of hostility with powerful nations. We encountered these trials with our Constitution yet in its infancy, and under the disadvantages which a new and untried Government must always feel when it is called upon to put forth its whole strength, without the lights of experience to guide it or the weight of precedents to justify its measures. But we have passed triumphantly through all these difficulties. Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment; and, at the end of nearly half a century, we find that it has preserved unimpaired the liberties of the people, secured the rights of property, and that our country has improved and is flourishing beyond any former example in the history of nations.

In our domestic concerns there is everything to encourage us; and if you are true to yourselves, nothing can impede your march to the highest point of national prosperity. The States which had so long been retarded in their improvement by the Indian tribes residing in the midst of them are at length relieved from the evil; and this unhappy racethe original dwellers in our landare now placed in a situation where we may well hope that they will share in the blessings of civilization and be saved from that degradation and destruction to which they were rapidly hastening while they remained in the States; and while the safety and comfort of our own citizens have been greatly promoted by their removal, the philanthropist will rejoice that the remnant of that ill-fated race has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury or oppression, and that the paternal care of the General Government will hereafter watch over them and protect them.

If we turn to our relations with foreign powers, we find our condition equally gratifying. Actuated by the sincere desire to do justice to every nation and to preserve the blessings of peace, our intercourse with them has been conducted on the part of this Government in the spirit of frankness, and I take pleasure in saying that it has generally been met in a corresponding temper. Difficulties of old standing have been surmounted by friendly discussion and the mutual desire to be just; and the claims of our citizens, which had been long withheld, have at length been acknowledged and adjusted, and satis- factory arrangements made for their final payment; and with a limited and, I trust, a temporary exception, our relations with every foreign power are now of the most friendly character, our commerce continually expanding, and our flag respected in every quarter of the world.

THE NEED FOR UNITY IN THE UNION

These cheering and grateful prospects and these multiplied favors we owe, under Providence, to the adoption of the Federal Constitu- tion. It is no longer a question whether this great country can remain happily united and flourish under our present form of government.Experience, the unerring test of all human undertakings, has shown the wisdom and foresight of those who formed it; and has proved that in the union of these States there is a sure foundation for the brightest hopes of freedom and for the happiness of the people. At every hazard and by every sacrifice, this Union must be preserved.

The necessity of watching with jealous anxiety for the preservation of the Union was earnestly pressed upon his fellow citizens by the Father of his country in his farewell address. He has there told us ... . that "while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to weaken its bonds"; and he has cautioned us, in the strongest terms, against the formation of parties on geographical discriminations, as one of the means which might disturb our union, and to which designing men would be likely to the resort.

The lessons contained in this invaluable legacy of Washington to his countrymen should be cherished in the heart of every citizen to the latest generation; and, perhaps, at no period of time could they be more usefully remembered than at the present moment. For when we look upon the scenes that are passing around us, and dwell upon the pages of his parting address, his paternal counsels would seem to be not merely the offspring of wisdom and foresight, but the voice of prophecy foretelling events and warning us of the evil to come. Forty years have passed since this imperishable document was given to his countrymen. The Federal Constitution was then regarded by him as an experiment, and he so speaks of it in his address; but an experiment upon the success of which the best hopes of his country depended, and we all know that he was prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to secure to it a full and a fair trial. The trial has been made. It has succeeded beyond the proudest hopes of those who framed it. Every quarter of this widely extended nation has felt its blessings and shared in the general prosperity produced by its adoption. But amid this general prosperity and splendid success, the dangers of which he warned us are becoming every day more evident and the signs of evil are sufficiently apparent to awaken the deepest anxiety in the bosom of the patriot. We behold systematic efforts publicly made to sow the seeds of discord between different parts of the United States and to place party divisions directly upon geographical distinctions; to excite the south against the north and the north against the south; and to force into the controversy the most delicate and exciting topics, topics upon which it is impossible that a large portion of the Union can ever speak without strong emotion. Appeals, too, are constantly made to sectional interests in order to influence the election of the Chief Magistrate, as if it were desired that he should favor a particular quarter of the country instead of fulfilling the duties of his station with impartial justice to all; and the possible dissolution of the Union has at length become an ordinary and familiar subject of discussion. Has the warning voice of Washington been forgotten? or have designs already been formed to sever the Union? Let it not be supposed that I impute to all of those who have taken an active part in these unwise and unprofitable discussions a want of patriotism or of public virtue. The honorable feeling of State pride and local attachments find a place in the bosoms of the most enlightened and pure. But while such men are conscious of their own integrity and honesty of purpose, they ought never to forget that the citizens of other States are their political brethren; and that, however mistaken they may be in their views, the great body of them are equally honest and upright with themselves. Mutual suspicions and reproaches may in time create mutual hostility, and artful and designing men will always be found, who are ready to to foment these fatal divisions and to inlame the natural jealousies of different sections of the country. The history of the world is full of such examples and especially the history of republics.

What have you to gain by division and dissension? Delude not yourselves with the belief that a breach once made may be after wards repaired. If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword. Neither should you deceive yourselves with the hope that the first line of separation would be the permanent one, and that nothing but harmony and concord would be found in the new associations formed upon the dissolution of this Union. Local interests would still be found there, and unchas tened ambition. And if the recollection of common dangers in which the people of these United States stood side by side against the com mon foe; the memory of victories won by their united valor; the prosperity and happiness they have enjoyed under the present Con stitution; the proud name they bear as citizens of this great republic; if all these recollections and proofs of common interest are not strong enough to bind us together as one people, what tie will hold united the new divisions of empire, when these bonds have been broken and this Union dissevered? The first line of separation would not last for a single generation; new fragments would be torn off; new leaders would spring up; and this great and glorious republic would soon be broken into a multitude of petty states, without commerce, without credit; jealous of one another; armed for mutual aggression; loaded with taxes to pay armies and leaders; seeking aid against each other from foreign powers; insulted and trampled upon by the nations of Europe, until, harassed with conflicts and humbled and debased in I spirit, they would be ready to submit to the absolute dominion of any military adventurer and to surrender their liberty for the sake of repose. It is impossible to look on the consequences that would | inevitably follow the destruction of this Government and not feel indignant when we hear cold calculations about the value of the Union and have so constantly before us a line of conduct so well cal culated to weaken its ties.

There is too much at stake to allow pride or passion to influence unless he clearly saw that the time had come when a freeman should prefer death to submission; for if such a struggle is once begun and the citizens of any State or States can deliberately intend to do wrong. They may, under the influence of temporary excitement or misguided opinions, commit mistakes; they may be misled for a time by the suggestions of self-interest; but in a community so enlightened and patriotic as the people of the United States, argument will soon make them sensible of their errors; and, when convinced, they will be ready to repair them. If they have no higher or better motives to govern them, they will at least perceive that their own interest requires them to be just to others as they hope to receive justice at their hands.

NULLIFICATION AND STATES' RIGHTS

But in order to maintain the Union unimpaired, it is absolutely necessary that the laws passed by the constituted authorities should be faithfully executed in every part of the country, and that every good citizen should, at all times, stand ready to put down, with the combined force of the nation, every attempt at unlawful resistance, under whatever pretext it may be made or whatever shape it may assume. Unconstitutional or oppressive laws may no doubt be passed by Congress, either from erroneous views or the want of due consideration; if they are within the reach of judicial authority, the remedy is easy and peaceful; and if, from the character of the law, it is an abuse of power not within the control of the judiciary, then free discussion and calm appeals to reason and to the justice of the people will not fail to redress the wrong. But until the law shall be declared void by the courts or repealed by Congress, no individual or combination of individuals can be justified in forcibly resisting its execution. It is impossible that any Government can continue to exist upon any other principles. It would cease to be a Government and be unworthy of the name if it had not the power to enforce the exe cution of its own laws within its own sphere of action.

It is true that cases may be imagined disclosing such a settled purpose of usurpation and oppression on the part of the Government as would justify an appeal to arms. These, however, are extreme cases, which we have no reason to apprehend in a Government where the power is in the hands of a patriotic people; and no citizen who loves his country would in any case whatever resort to forcible resistance, unless he clearly saw that the time had come when a freeman should prefer death to submission; for if such a struggle is once begun and the citizens of one section of the country arrayed in arms against those of another in doubtful conflict, let the battle result as it may, there will be an end of the Union and, with it, an end to the hopes of freedom. The victory of the injured would not secure to them the blessings of liberty; it would avenge their wrongs, but they would themselves share in the common ruin.

But the Constitution cannot be maintained nor the Union preserved in opposition to public feeling by the mere exertion of the coercive powers confided to the General Government. The foundations must be laid in the affections of the people; in the security it gives to life, liberty, character, and property, in every quarter of the country; and in the fraternal attachment which the citizens of the several States bear to one another as members of one political family, mutually contributing to promote the happiness of each other. Hence the citizens of every State should studiously avoid everything calculated to wound the sensibility or offend the just pride of the people of other States; and they should frown upon any proceedings within their own borders likely to disturb the tranquillity of their political bretheren in other portions of the Union. In a country so extensive as the United States and with pursuits so varied, the internal regulations of the several States must frequently differ from one another in important particulars; and this difference is unavoidably increased by the vary ing principles upon which the American colonies were originally planted; principles which had taken deep root in their social relations before the Revolution, and, therefore, of necessity influencing their policy since they became free and independent States. But each State has the unquestionable right to regulate its own internal con cerns according to its own pleasure; and while it does not interfere; with the rights of the people of other States or the rights of the Union, every State must be the sole judge of the measures proper to secure the safety of its citizens and promote their happiness; and all efforts on the part of people of other States to cast odium upon their institu tions, and all measures calculated to disturb their rights of property or to put in jeopardy their peace and internal tranquility are in direct opposition to the spirit in which the Union was formed, and must endanger its safety. Motives of philanthropy may be assigned for this unwarrantable interference; and weak men may persuade them selves for a moment that they are laboring in the cause of humanity and asserting the rights of the human race; but everyone, upon sober reflection, will see that nothing but mischief can come from these improper assaults upon the feelings and rights of others. Rest assured that the men found busy in this work of discord are not worthy of your confidence and deserve your strongest reprobation.

In the legislation of Congress, also, and in every measure of the General Government, justice to every portion of the United States should be faithfully observed. No free Government can stand without virtue in the people, and a lofty spirit of patriotism; and if the sordid feelings of mere selfishness shall usurp the place which ought to be filled by public spirit, the legislation of Congress will soon be con- verted into a scramble for personal and sectional advantages. Under our free institutions, the citizens of every quarter of our country are capable of attaining a high degree of prosperity and happiness without seeking to profit themselves at the expense of others; and every such attempt must in the end fail to succeed, for the people in every part of the United States are too enlightened not to understand their own rights and interests and to detect and defeat every effort to gain undue advantages over them; and when such designs are discovered, it naturally provokes resentments which cannot always be easily allayed. Justice, full and ample justice, to every portion of the United States should be the ruling principle of every freeman and should guide the deliberations of every public body, whether it be State or national.

Limits of Federal Powers

It is well known that there have always been those amongst us who wish to enlarge the powers of the General Government; and experience would seem to indicate that there is a tendency on the part of this Government to overstep the boundaries marked out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for which it was created; and its powers being expressly enumerated, there can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them. Every attempt to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and firmly opposed. For one evil example will lead to other measures still more mischievous; and if the principle of construc tive powers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, shall ever be permitted to justify the assumption of a power not given by the Constitution, the General Government will before long absorb all the powers of legislation, and you will have, in effect, but one consolidated Government. From the extent of our country, its diversi fied interests, different pursuits, and different habits, it is too obvious for argument that a single consolidated Government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unim- paired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States and to confine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.

There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the Federal Government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most pro ductive and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it; and the taxes which it lays upon commerce being concealed from the real payer in the price of the article, they do not so readily attract the attention of the people as smaller sums demanded from them directly by the tax gatherer. But the tax imposed on goods enhances by so much the price of the commodity to the consumer, and, as many of these duties are imposed on articles of necessity which are daily used by the great body of the people, the money raised by these imposts is drawn from their pockets. Congress has no right, under the Constitution, to take money from the people unless it is required to execute some one of the specific powers intrusted o the Government; and if they raise more than is necessary for such purposes, it is an abuse of the power of taxation and unjust and I oppressive. It may, indeed, happen that the revenue will sometimes exceed the amount anticipated when the taxes were laid. When, however, this is ascertained, it is easy to reduce them; and, in such a case, it is unquestionably the duty of the Government to reduce them, for no circumstances can justify it in assuming a power not given to it by the Constitution nor in taking away the money of the people when it is not needed for the legitimate wants of the Government.

Plain as these principles appear to be, you will yet find that there is a constant effort to induce the General Government to go beyond the limits of its taxing power and to impose unnecessary burdens upon the people. Many powerful interests are continually at work to procure heavy duties on commerce and to swell the revenue beyond the real necessities of the public service; and the country has already felt the injurious effects of their combined influence. They succeeded in obtaining a tariff of duties bearing most oppressively on the agri cultural and laboring classes of society and producing a revenue that could not be usefully employed within the range of the powers con ferred upon Congress; and, in order to fasten upon the people this unjust and unequal system of taxation, extravagant schemes of internal improvement were got up in various quarters to squander the money and to purchase support. Thus, one unconstitutional measure was intended to be upheld by another, and the abuse of the power of taxation was to be maintained by usurping the power of expending the money in internal improvements. You cannot have forgotten the severe and doubtful struggle through which we passed When the Executive Department of the Government, by its veto, endeavored to arrest this prodigal scheme of injustice, and to bring back the legislation of Congress to the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution. The good sense and practical judgment of the people, when the subject was brought before them, sustained the course of the Executive; and this plan of unconstitutional expenditure for the purpose of corrupt influence is, I trust, finally overthrown.

The result of this decision has been felt in the rapid extinguishment of the public debt and the large accumulation of a surplus in the treas ury, notwithstanding the tariff was reduced and is now very far below the amount originally contemplated by its advocates. But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to burden you with taxes beyond the economical wants of the Govern ment is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have com bined together to impose a heavy tariff and to produce an overflowing treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest. The corporations and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the Federal Government cannot be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several States by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the General Government and annually divided among the States. And if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the States should disregard the principles of economy which ought to charac- terize every republican Government and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their resources, they will, before long, find themselves oppressed with debts which they are unable to pay, and the temptation will become irresistible to support a high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution. Do not allow yourselves, my fellow citizens, to be misled on this subject. The Federal Government cannot collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the prin- ciples of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and, if persisted in, uill inevitably lead to corruption and must end in ruin. The surplus revenue will be draun from the pockets of the people, from the farmer, the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society; but who will receive it when distributed among the States, where it is to be disposed of bv leading State politicians who have friends to favor and political partisans to gratify? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Govern- ment rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enu- merated in the Constitution; and if its income is found to exceed these wants, it should be forthwith reduced, and the burdens of the people so far lightened.

CURRENCY AND BANKING POLICY

In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued since the adop tion of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of issuing paper money receivable m the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several States upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the con stitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place.

It was not easy for men engaged in the ordinary pursuits of busi- ness, whose attention had not been particularly drawn to the subject, to foresee all the consequences of a currency exclusively of paper; and we ought not, on that account, to be surprised at the facility with which laws were obtained to carry into effect the paper system. Honest and even enlightened men are sometimes misled by the spe- cious and plausible statements of the designing. But experience has now proved the mischiefs and dangers of a paper currency, and it rests with you to determine whether the proper remedy shall be applied.

The paper system being founded on public confidence and having of itself no intrinsic value, it is liable to great and sudden fluctuations; thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain. The corporations which create the paper money can- not be relied upon to keep the circulating medium uniform in amount. In times of prosperity when confidence is high, they are tempted by the prospect of gain, or by the influence of those who hope to profit by it to extend their issues of paper beyond the bounds of discretion and the reasonable demands of business. And when these issues have been pushed on from day to day until public confidence is at length shaken, then a reaction takes place, and they immediately withdraw the credits they have given; suddenly curtail their issues; and produce an unexpected and ruinous contraction of the circulating medium which is felt by the whole community. The banks by this means save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon the public. Nor does the evil stop here. These ebbs and flows in the currency and these indiscreet extensions of credit naturally engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people. We have already seen its effects in the wild spirit of speculation in the public lands and various kinds of stock which, within the last year or two, seized upon such a multi- tude of our citizens and threatened to pervade all classes of society and to withdraw their attention from the sober pursuits of honest industry. It is not by encouraging this spirit that we shall best pre- serve public virtue and promote the true interests of our country. But if your currency continues as exclusively paper as it now is, it will foster this eager desire to amass wealth without labor; it will multiply the number of dependents on bank accommodations and bank favors; the temptation to obtain money at any sacrifice will become stronger and stronger, and inevitably lead to corruption which will find its way into your public councils and destroy, at no distant day, the purity of your Government. Some of the evils which arise from this system of paper press with peculiar hardship upon the class of society least able to bear it. A portion of this currency frequently becomes depreciated or worthless, and all of it is easily counterfeited in such I a manner as to require peculiar skill and much experience to dis- tinguish the counterfeit from the genuine note. These frauds are most generally perpetrated in the smaller notes, which are used in the daily transactions of ordinary business; and the losses occasioned by them are commonly thrown upon the laboring classes of society whose I situation and pursuits put it out of their power to guard themselves from these impositions and whose daily wages are necessary for their subsistence. It is the duty of every Government so to regulate its currency as to protect this numerous class as far as practicable from the impositions of avarice and fraud. It is more especially the duty of the United States where the Government is emphatically the Government of the people, and where this respectable portion of our citizens are so proudly distinguished from the laboring classes of all other nations by their independent spirit, their love of liberty, their intelligence, and their high tone of moral character. Their industry in peace is the source of our wealth; and their bravery in war has covered us with glory; and the Government of the United States will but ill discharge its duties if it leaves them a prey to such dishonest impositions. Yet it is evident that their interests cannot be effectu ally protected unless silver and gold are restored to circulation.

These views alone of the paper currency are sufficient to care for immediate reform; but there is another consideration which should still more strongly press it upon your attention.

Recent events have proved that the paper money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions; and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption or force are aware of its power and prepared to employ it. Your banks now furnish your only circulating medium, and money is plenty or scarce according to the quantity of notes issued by them. While they have capitals not greatly dispro- portioned to each other, they are competitors in business, and no one of them can exercise dominion over the rest; and although, in the present state of the currency, these banks may and do operate injuri- ously upon the habits of business, the pecuniary concerns, and the moral tone of society; yet, from their number and dispersed situation, they cannot combine for the purpose of political influence; and what- ever may be the dispositions of some of them, their power of mischief must necessarily be confined to a narrow space and felt only in their immediate neighborhoods.

But when the charter for the Bank of the United States was obtained from Congress, it perfected the schemes of the paper system and gave to its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain from the commencement of the Federal Government down to the present hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce, at its pleasure, at any time, and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks and per- mitting an expansion or compelling a general contraction of the circu lating medium according to its own will. The other banking institu tions were sensible of its strength, and they soon generally became its obedient instruments, ready, at all times, to execute its mandates; and with the banks necessarily went, also, that numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether on bank credits for their solvency and means of business; and who are, there fore, obliged for their own safety to propitiate the favor of the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service. The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head; thus organ izing this particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United States and enabling it to bring forward, upon any occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the Government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount of the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the Union and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport with its own interest or policy.

We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organ ized and with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to use it. The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole coun try when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people in order to compel them to submit to its demands cannot yet be for gotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency ought to be indelibly impressed on the mem- ory of the people of the United States. If such was its power in a time of peace, what would it not have been in a season of war with an enemy at your doors? No nation but the freemen of the United States could have come out victorious from such a contest; yet, if you had not conquered, the Government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands of the few; and this organized money power, from its secret conclave, would have dictated the choice of your highest officers and compelled you to make peace or war as best suited their own wishes. The forms of your government might, for a time, have remained; but its living spirit would have departed from it.

The distress and sufferings inflicted on the people by the bank are some of the fruits of that system of policy which is continually striving to enlarge the authority of the Federal Government beyond the limits fixed by the Constitution. The powers enumerated in that instrument do not confer on Congress the right to establish such a corporation as the Bank of the United States; and the evil conse- quences which followed may warn us of the danger of departing from the true rule of construction and of permitting temporary circum stances or the hope of better promoting the public welfare to influ ence, in any degree, our decisions upon the extent of the authority of the General Government. Let us abide by the Constitution as it is written or amend it in the constitutional mode if it is found to be defective.

The severe lessons of experience will, I doubt not, be sufficient to prevent Congress from again chartering such a monopoly, even if the Constitution did not present an insuperable objection to it. But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty; and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchfu in your States as well as in the Federal Government. The power which the moneyed interest can exercise, when concentrated under a single head, and with our present system of currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by the Bank of the United States. Defeated in the General Government, the same class of intriguers and politicians will now resort to the States and endeavor to obtain there the same organization which they failed to perpetuate in the Union; and with specious and deceitful plans of public advantages and State interests and State pride they will endeavor to establish, in the dif ferent States, one moneyed institution with overgrown capital and exclusive privileges sufficient to enable it to control the operations of the other banks. Such an institution will be pregnant with the same evils produced by the Bank of the United States, although its sphere of action is more confined; and in the State in which it is chartered the money power will be able to embody its whole strength and to move together with undivided force to accomplish any object it may wish to attain. You have already had abundant evidence of its power to inflict injury upon the agricultural, mechanical, and laboring classes of society; and over those whose engagements in trade or speculation render them dependent on bank facilities, the dominion of the State monopoly will be absolute, and their obedience unlimited. With such a bank and a paper currency, the money power would, in a few years, govern the State and control its measures; and if a sufficient number of States can be induced to create such establishments, the time will soon come when it will again take the field against the United States and succeed in perfecting and perpetuating its organization by a charter from Congress.

It is one of the serious evils of our present system of banking that it enables one class of society, and that by no means a numerous one, by its control over the currency to act injuriously upon the interests of all the others and to exercise more than its just proportion of influ ence in political affairs. The agricultural, the mechanical, and the laboring classes have little or no share in the direction of the great moneyed corporations; and from their habits and the nature of their pursuits, they are incapable of forming extensive combinations to act together with united force. Such concert of action may sometimes be produced in a single city or in a small district of country by means of personal communications with each other; but they have no regular or active correspondence with those who are engaged in similar pur suits in distant places; they have but little patronage to give to the press and exercise but a small share of influence over it; they have no crowd of dependents above them who hope to grow rich without labor by their countenance and favor and who are, therefore, always ready to exercise their wishes. The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer all know that their success depends upon their own industry and economy and that they must not expect to become sud denly rich by the fruits of their toil. Yet these classes of society form the great body of the people of the United States; they are the bone and sinew of the country; men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws and who, moreover, hold the great mass of our national wealth, although it is distributed in moderate amounts among the millions of freemen who possess it. But, with overwhelming numbers and wealth on their side, they are in constant danger of losing their fair influence in the Government and with dif- ficulty maintain their just rights against the incessant efforts daily made to encroach upon them. The mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control; from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining in the different States and which are employed altogether for their benefit; and unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will, in the end, find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

The paper money system and its natural associates, monopoly and exclusive privileges, have already struck their roots deep in the soil; and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the General Government as well as in the States and will seek, by every artifice, to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetu- ating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed the sovereignty of the country and to you every one placed in authority is ultimately responsible. It is always in your power to see that the wishes of the people are carried into faithful execution, and their will, when once made known, must sooner or later be obeyed. And while the people remain, as I trust they ever will, uncorrupted and incor- ruptible and continue watchful and jealous of their rights, the Govern- ment is safe, and the cause of freedom will continue to riumph over all its enemies.

But it will require steady and persevering exertions on your part to rid yourselves of the iniquities and mischiefs of the paper system and to check the spirit of monopoly and other abuses which have sprung up with it and of which it is the main support. So many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject that you must not hope the conflict will be a short one nor success easy. My humble efforts have not been spared, during my administration of the Govern ment, to restore the constitutional currency of gold and silver; and something, I trust, has been done towards the accomplishment of this most desirable object. But enough yet remains to require all your energy and perseverance. The power, however, is in your hands, and the remedy must and will be applied, if you determine upon it.

THOUGHTS ON FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL DEFENSE

While I am thus endeavoring to press upon your attention the principles which I deem of vital importance in the domestic concerns of the country, I ought not to pass over, without notice, the important considerations which should govern your policy toward foreign powers. It is, unquestionably, our true interest to cultivate the most friendly understanding with every nation and to avoid by every - honorable means the calamities of war; and we shall best attain object by frankness and sincerity in our foreign intercourse, by prompt and faithful execution of treaties, and by justice and tialitv in our conduct to all. But no nation, however desirous of can hope to escape occasional collisions with other powers; and soundest dictates of policy require that we should place a condition to assert our rights if a resort to force should necessary. Our local situation, our long line of seacoast, numerous bays, with deep rivers opening into the interior, as our extended and still increasing commerce, point to the natural means of defense. It will, in the end, be found to be the cheap est and most effectual; and now is the time, in a season of peace, and with an overflowing revenue, that we can, year after year, add to its strength without increasing the burdens of the people. It is your true policy. For your navy will not only protect your rich and flour- ishing commerce in distant seas, but will enable you to reach and annoy the enemy and will give to defense its greatest efficiency by meeting danger at a distance from home. It is impossible by any line of fortifications to guard every point from attack against a hostile force advancing from the ocean and selecting its object; but they are indispensable to protect cities from bombardment, dock yards and naval arsenals from destruction; to give shelter to merchant vessels in time of war, and to single ships or weaker squadrons when pressed by superior force. Fortifications of this description cannot be too soon completed and armed and placed in a condition of the most perfect preparation. The abundant means we now possess cannot be applied in any manner more useful to the country; and when this is done and our naval force sufficiently strengthened and our militia armed, we need not fear that any nation will wantonly insult us or needlessly provoke hostilities. We shall more certainly preserve peace when it is well understood that we are prepared for war.

CONCLUSION

In presenting to you, my fellow citizens, these parting counsels, I have brought before you the leading principles upon which I endeav- ored to administer the Government in the high office with which you twice honored me. Knowing that the path of freedom is con tinually beset by enemies who often assume the disguise of friends, I have devoted the last hours of my public life to warn you of the danger. The progress of the United States under our free and happy institutions has surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the founders of the Republic. Our growth has been rapid beyond all former example, in numbers, in wealth, in knowledge, and all the useful arts which contribute to the comforts and convenience of man; and from the earliest ages of history to the present day, there never have been thirteen millions of people associated together in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad; your strength and power are well known throughout the civilized world, as well as the high and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from within, among yourselves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition, and inordinate thirst for power, that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trust committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number and has chosen you as the guardian of freedom to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in his hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed and enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to to the end of time the great charge he has committed to your keeping.

My own race is nearly run; advanced age and failing health warn me that before long I must pass beyond the reach of human event and cease to feel the vicissitudes of human affairs. I thank God that my life has been spent in a land of liberty and that He has given me a heart to love my country with the affection of a son. And, filled with gratitude for your constant and unwavering kindness, I bid you a last and affectionate farewell.

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Jackson's letter to the Cherokee tribe, 1835

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Jackson's letter to the Cherokee tribe, 1835

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Cite as "Jackson's letter to the Cherokee tribe"

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Elected president in 1828, Andrew Jackson supported the removal of American Indians from their homelands, arguing that the American Indians' survival depended on separation from whites. In this 1835 circular to the Cherokee people, Jackson lays out his case for removal. Using paternalistic and threatening language, Jackson urges the Cherokee to accept removal from Georgia and relocate westward peacefully. "I have no motive, my friends, to deceive you," Jackson writes. He continues, "Circumstances that cannot be controlled, and which are beyond the reach of human laws, render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community . . . You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is, to remove to the west." Jackson closes with an ominous tone and these threatening sentences: "The fate of your women and children, the fate of your people, to the remotest generation, depend on the issue." Later that same year, a small group of 100 Cherokee delegates signed the Treaty of New Echota, paving the way for the Cherokee Nation's removal to Oklahoma in 1838.

Excerpt

I have no motive, my friends, to deceive you. I am sincerely desirous to promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you cannot remain where you now are. Circumstances that cannot be controlled, and which are beyond the reach of human laws, render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is, to remove to the West and join your countrymen, who are already established there. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity. . . .

As certain as the sun shines to guide you in your path, so certain is it that you cannot drive back the laws of Georgia from among you. Every year will increase your difficulties. Look at the condition of the Creeks. See the collisions which are taking place with them. See how their young men are committing depredations upon the property of our citizens, and are shedding their blood. This cannot and will not be allowed. Punishment will follow, and all who are engaged in these offences must suffer.

Questions for Discussion

Read the document introduction, examine the excerpt and if possible the entire transcript, and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the questions that follow.

1. Explain what Andrew Jackson meant when he told the Cherokees that "Circumstances . . . render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community."

2. American Indians correctly claimed that prior treaties with the US government were violated by Andrew Jackson. Why then, did they sign the Treaty of New Echota?

3. When Jackson referred to the Cherokees as "my friends," why did they have serious concerns about his sincerity?

A printer-friendly version is available here.

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Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Tribe, 1835

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Elected president in 1828, Andrew Jackson supported the removal of American Indians from their homelands, arguing that the American Indians' survival depended on separation from whites. In this 1835 circular to the Cherokee people, Jackson lays out his case for removal.

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Q1. Can we use other sources besides the ones provided?
A1: For this assignment, no.
Q2: Should I put forth my best effort on this assignment?
A2: Absolutely!

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Cite as "our old history textbook"

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Cite as "hero or villain cartoons"

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Cite as "Smithsonian Magazine"

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John Ross and Major Ridge tried diplomatic and legal strategies to maintain autonomy, but the new president had other plans

John Ross made an unlikely looking Cherokee chief. Born in 1790 to a Scottish trader and a woman of Indian and European heritage, he was only one-eighth Cherokee by blood. Short, slight and reserved, he wore a suit and tie instead of deerskin leggings and a beaver-skin hat. His trading post made him more prosperous than most Indians-or white men. But his mother and grandmother raised him in a traditional household, teaching him the tribe's customs and legends. When the Cherokees embraced formal education-they were adapting quickly to a world they knew was changing-he attended school with their children. After his mother died, in 1808, Ross worked at his grandfather's trading post near present-day Chattanooga, an important way station on the road to the West. There he encountered white settlers moving onto Cherokee land.

To a degree unique among the five major tribes in the South, the Cherokees used diplomacy and legal argument to protect their interests. With the help of a forward-looking warrior named Major Ridge, Ross became the tribe's primary negotiator with officials in Washington, D.C., adept at citing both federal law and details from a dozen treaties the Cherokees signed with the federal government between 1785 and 1819. In the 1820s, as they enjoyed one of the most promising periods in their history-developing a written language, adopting a constitution and building a capital city-Ross became the Cherokees' principal chief, and Ridge was named his counselor.

All the while, white settlers kept coming.

The state governments did little to discourage them, ignoring federal treaties and even abetting the taking of Indian land through bribery, fraud and coercion. When the tribes turned to Washington for redress, federal officials proved ineffectual or hostile, depending on the administration. One by one the other major Southern tribes-the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, the Creeks and the Seminoles-signed treaties that required them to uproot to the far side of the Mississippi River. But the Cherokees held out.

They finally succumbed in 1838, when they were marched 800 miles into an extremely bitter winter. The survivors of the journey to what is now Oklahoma would call it the Trail of Tears. The exodus was a communal tragedy, as it had been for the other tribes. But in the case of the Cherokees, their resistance and defeat were reflected as well in the rise and collapse of the extraordinary partnership between Ross and Ridge.

The two had met in 1813, the year Ross had a political awakening while on a trading trip through what would become Alabama. A Creek chief named Big Warrior told him a faction of his tribe had become openly hostile to European customs and settlers. These Red Sticks, as the faction called itself, were threatening civil war. Ross, only 22, recognized a hazard to the Cherokees: such a war would likely endanger white settlers, and given that whites scarcely distinguished between tribes, any retaliatory move they made would threaten every Indian. So he wrote an urgent note to the local U.S. Indian agent: "The intelligence received from the Creek Nation at this present crisis is very serious. The hostile party is said to be numerous and if assistance is not given to the Big Warrior and his party by the U.S. it is apprehensive that they will be conquered from the Superior force of the rebels."

When Tennessee militiamen intervened that fall, the Cherokees joined them, both to protect their own interests and to curry favor with whites. Ross, whose early record shows not even a fistfight, was among the 500 Cherokees who enlisted. So was Ridge, already a renowned warrior.

The Cherokees called him "the man who walks on the mountaintop," for his preferred means of traversing the woods; white men interpreted that as "ridge." He would appropriate the rank he was given during the Creek War as a first name. Born in 1770 or 1771, Ridge straddled two generations: in his youth he had fought white settlers, but as a man he welcomed European traditions. "He appears very anxious that all his people should receive instruction, and come into the customs of the whites," the missionary William Chamberlin would write in 1822. Indeed, Ridge was one of the first Cherokees to send his children to missionary schools.

Ridge's embrace of change was initially unpopular among his tribesmen, but few questioned his loyalty. In 1807 he had helped kill the powerful Cherokee chief Doublehead for selling tribal hunting grounds for personal profit. And in 1808, when white U.S. Indian agents enticed principal chief Black Fox into proposing that the tribe move west, Ridge had been the first to protest. "As a man he has a right to give his opinion," Ridge declared before the Cherokees' ruling council, "but the opinion he has given as the chief of this nation is not binding; it was not formed in council in the light of day, but was made up in a corner-to drag this people, without their consent, from their own country, to the dark land of the setting sun."

By 1813, Ridge had seen enough of politics to understand the diplomatic advantage to be gained from joining the Tennesseans against the Red Sticks. The Cherokees might even have realized that advantage had it not been for the militia leader they fought under: Andrew Jackson.

As a boy in the 1770s, Jackson had listened to stories of Indian violence toward settlers, and with no apparent understanding of their motives, he developed prejudices that he-like many Americans of his day-held throughout his life. He routinely called Indians "savages" and people of mixed heritage "half-breeds," and he was unshakable in his conviction that Indians should be removed from the South. When news that the Red Sticks were attacking settlers reached him in Nashville, he asked: "Is a citizen of the United States, to remain under the barbarous lash of cruel and unrelenting savages?"

In March 1814, Jackson tracked the Red Sticks to Horseshoe Bend, a peninsula formed by the Tallapoosa River in what is now Alabama, and launched a frontal assault on their breastworks. His troops might have been repulsed had the Cherokees not crossed the river and attacked from the rear. Caught between two attacking forces, the Red Sticks lost nearly 900 warriors in what proved to be the decisive battle of the war.

That day, a Cherokee named Junaluska saved Jackson from an attacker, prompting the Tennessean to declare, "As long as the sun shines and the grass grows, there shall be friendship between us." But in the peace treaty he negotiated with the Creeks, Jackson confiscated 23 million acres of land in Alabama and Georgia-some of which belonged to the Cherokees.

In 1816, the Cherokees' principal chief, Pathkiller, sent a delegation to Washington to reclaim that land. The delegates, who included Ross and Ridge, made quite an impression while mingling with the city's elite. Ridge sang a Cherokee song so raunchy his interpreter declined to translate it. ("It's just like a white man's song," Ridge joked in his limited English, "all about love and whiskey.") Even so, a reporter from one newspaper, the National Intelligencer, wrote that "their appearance and deportment are such to entitle them to respect and attention."

Because of his fluency in English, Ross became one of the Cherokees' lead negotiators, and he proved more than a match for Secretary of War William Crawford. "It is foreign to the Cherokee principle to feign friendship where it does not exist," Ross said, implying a contrast with Washington bureaucrats. "You have told us that your Government is determined to do justice to our nation and will never use oppressive means to make us act contrary to our welfare and free will." The treaties the Cherokees had signed generally required them to give up large tracts of land but guaranteed their rights to whatever remained. Now they wanted those rights enforced.

After more than a month of back-and-forth debate, Crawford finally relented: the United States would restore the bulk of the land the Cherokees claimed. In return, the Cherokees agreed to sell a small tract in South Carolina for $5,000 (the 2011 equivalent of $78,800) to the state government.

In a move intended to prevent local chiefs from accepting bribes to sell off Cherokee land, the Cherokee council in 1817 established a national committee to handle all tribal business. When Ross arrived at the council meeting as a spectator, Ridge led him into a private conference and told him that he would be one of 13 members of the committee. Ross was only 26-a young man in a community where leadership traditionally came with age. Just a month later, he would have to confront Andrew Jackson directly.

Jackson had been serving as a federal Indian commissioner when he launched his first effort to remove the Cherokees en masse. In 1817, he appeared with two other agents at the Cherokees' council in Calhoun, just northeast of what is now Cleveland, Tennessee, to inform the tribe that if it refused to move west, it would have to submit to white men's laws, no matter what any treaties might say. The chiefs dismissed the agents without hesitation. "Brothers, we wish to remain on our land, and hold it fast," their signed statement said. "We appeal to our father the president of the United States to do us justice. We look to him for protection in the hour of distress."

Through threats and bribery, Jackson eventually persuaded a few thousand Cherokees to leave Tennessee; Ross became the spokesman of those who remained-some 16,000 resolved to hold their ground. After years of trading land for peace, the council in 1822 passed a resolution vowing never to cede a single acre more. "If we had but one square mile left they would not be satisfied unless they could get it," Ross wrote to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun that October, referring to state Indian commissioners who regularly tried to buy out the tribe. "But we hope that the United States will never forget her obligation to our nation."

In 1823, Georgia officials, recognizing Ross' growing power, dispatched a Creek chief to personally offer him $2,000 (about $42,300 today) to persuade the Cherokees to move. Ross asked for the offer in writing-then took it to Ridge. Together they exposed the bribery attempt in front of the tribal council and sent the emissary packing.

At the same time, what historians would call the Cherokee Renaissance was bringing the tribe more fully into the 19th century. Sequoyah, a mixed-blood Cherokee, distilled the Cherokee oral language into a set of 86 symbols; soon, the tribe enjoyed a higher rate of literacy than the settlers who called them savages. They started a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. In 1825-after new president John Quincy Adams promised to honor the federal government's obligations to Indians-the Cherokees began their largest public works project, building a council house, courthouse and public square in northwestern Georgia, near present-day Calhoun. They named it New Echota, in honor of a village lost to settlers years earlier.

Ridge could not hide his pride. "It's like Baltimore," he told a visiting missionary, comparing it to the largest city he'd ever seen.

In 1827, the Cherokees adopted a written constitution that defined a government with executive, legislative and judicial branches. That same year, they acquired new leadership: Pathkiller died, and Charles Hicks, his assistant and logical successor, followed him two weeks later. The council appointed an interim chief, but Ross and Ridge were making the decisions-when to hold council, how to handle law enforcement, whether to allow roads to be built through tribal land. The two men so relied on each other that locals called the three-mile trail between their homes the Ross Ridge Road.

If Ross aspired to be principal chief, he never spoke of it. But Ridge promoted his protégé's candidacy without naming him, dictating an essay to the Cherokee Phoenix that described removal as the tribe's most pressing issue and warning against electing leaders who could be manipulated by white men. Until then, every principal chief had been nearly full-blooded Cherokee. When the council voted in the fall of 1828, Ross-who was only 38-was elected principal chief by a vote of 34 to 6. The council named Ridge his counselor.

A month later, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States. He would test the Cherokees' leadership soon enough, but even before Jackson was inaugurated, Georgia presented a more immediate threat, passing laws that annexed Cherokee land and extended state laws to that territory. Within two years, the state would require any whites living among the Indians-such as missionaries-to sign an oath of allegiance to the state or get out.

Ross spent much of those two years in Washington, trying to overturn the new laws. Jackson's secretary of war, John Eaton, told Ross the tribe's troubles had been self-inflicted: by adopting a constitution, it had insulted Georgia's sovereignty. As the months passed and Georgia's deadline loomed, some 500 Cherokees abandoned their homes and headed west to join earlier emigrants. Major Ridge grew alarmed: the fewer Cherokees who remained, the easier they would be to displace. He set out on a speaking tour intended to calm tribe members inclined to flee. He told large crowds that they had been targeted not because they were weak, but because they were strong and had "unexpectedly become civilized."

"It is too much for us now to be honest, and virtuous, and industrious," he noted sarcastically, "because then are we capable of aspiring to the rank of Christians and Politicians, which renders our attachment to the soil more strong."

When Ross returned from Washington, he joined Ridge's campaign, rousing crowds with his defiant oratory. He told a missionary friend that his "hopes of success were never greater."

But more trouble was on the way: gold had been discovered on tribal land in Georgia, drawing a new wave of settlers, and President Jackson was not about to stop them. In February 1830, the tribe exercised its legal right to evict squatters; Ridge, then 60, led a two-day raid in which Cherokees burned settlers' houses and outbuildings. After Georgia authorities sent a posse after the Cherokees, gunfire rang out through northern Georgia.

The timing could hardly have been worse: at that very moment, Congress was hotly debating the Indian removal bill, a measure Jackson had introduced to establish an "ample district" west of the Mississippi to which the Indians of the South could move. On one hand, he had said in his inaugural address, Indian emigration "should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land." On the other, he made it clear that Indians could not live as independent peoples within the United States: "surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization" they would be doomed "to weakness and decay." They had either to submit to state laws or go.

Congress passed the removal bill that May, and by September Jackson had begun negotiating with the Chickasaws, the Choctaws and the remaining Creeks to move west. Within four years they would be under land cession treaties or on the move. Some Seminoles also left in the early 1830s, and others fought the Army in Florida for several years. But Ross refused even to meet with Jackson. Instead, he turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to invalidate Georgia's removal law.

As the court's spring session opened in March 1831, Georgia officials roamed the Capitol to rally states' rights advocates to the idea of stripping the justices of their power to review the acts of state governments. The justices-in an act that historians would say reflected their worry over the talk coming out of Congress-ruled that they lacked jurisdiction over the Cherokees' claims against Georgia. Chief Justice John Marshall offered their only hope when he wrote that "the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable...right to the lands they occupy."

Ross used that opinion to bring another suit, this time challenging the arrests of white missionaries who had refused to swear allegiance to Georgia. Now faced with a case involving U.S. citizens, the court was forced to act. On March 3, 1832, the justices declared the arrests unconstitutional and said Georgia could not extend its laws to Cherokee land. They also ruled that the federal government, by treaty, had the authority to protect Indian tribes from state intrusions. Taking aim at removal, Marshall wrote, "Protection does not imply the destruction of the protected."

Ross wrote to some Cherokee delegates in Washington, "[T]here are great rejoicings throughout the [Cherokee] nation."

But Jackson declared the ruling "stillborn."

A month later, Major Ridge's son John and two other Cherokees were in Washington, trying to determine whether the federal government would enforce the court's decision. Jackson met with them only to send them home to tell their people "that their only hope of relief was in abandoning their country and removing to the West."

Jackson's resolve unnerved the younger Ridge. Gradually, he realized that court victory or not, his people were losing ground. But he could not relay that message to the tribe for fear of being branded a traitor, or killed. He was even hesitant to confide in his father, believing Major Ridge would be ashamed of him.

But the son underestimated his father. Major Ridge judged his people's prospects by their suffering, and he knew the situation was far worse than anyone had dared to admit. Forbidden to meet by Georgia law, the Cherokees had abandoned New Echota in 1831. Settlers were confiscating their homesteads and livestock. By sharing his thoughts on Jackson, John Ridge helped his father come to the conclusion that the tribe had to at least consider going west.

But Major Ridge kept his feelings private, believing he needed to buy time to persuade his people to think about uprooting. At the same time, he began to wonder how Ross could remain so strident in his resistance. Couldn't he see that his strategy was bearing no fruit?

Ross met twice with Jackson at the White House, to no avail. When Jackson offered $3 million to move the Cherokees west, arguing that Georgia would not give up its claims to Cherokee land, Ross suggested he use the money to buy off the Georgia settlers.

By spring 1833, the Cherokees were split between a National Party, opposed to removal, and a Treaty Party, in favor of it. As factional violence flared, some of the most influential Cherokees signed a letter to Ross saying their ongoing "course of policy" would "not result in the restoration of those rights" that had been taken from them. In signing the letter, Ridge acknowledged that he had softened on removal. In a closed meeting, the chiefs gave Ross until fall to resolve the impasse with the government before they made the letter public.

Under so much pressure-from the state of Georgia, the federal government and a stream of settlers-the tribe began to disintegrate. Some Cherokees-including Ross' brother Andrew-set out for Washington to broker their own deals. John Ridge quietly continued to recruit members to the Treaty Party and make overtures to Jackson. When Ross learned of these efforts, he tried to pre-empt them, proposing to cede Cherokee land in Georgia and to have Cherokees in other states become U.S. citizens.

By then, the rift between Ross and Major Ridge was widening: when Ridge heard of the chief's offer, he saw it not just as a bargaining ploy but as an abuse of power. Without the blessing of the other chiefs, Ridge said, Ross had no more power to make a treaty than his traitorous brother.

The majority of the tribe members remained opposed to removal, but the Ridges began advocating the idea more openly-and when they broached it at a council meeting in Red Clay, Tennessee, in August 1834, one Cherokee spoke of shooting them. Father and son slipped away unharmed, but by the end of the summer the Cherokees were trading rumors-false-that Ross and Major Ridge had each hired someone to kill the other.

In September 1834, Ridge visited Ross at his home to put the rumors to rest. They tried to talk as they once had, but the only thing they could agree on was that all talk of murder had to stop. Ridge believed Ross' intransigence was leading the Cherokees to destruction. Ross thought his oldest friend had become soft, unduly influenced by his son.

By January 1835, the council had sent Ross back to Washington with instructions to again seek federal protection, and the Treaty Party had sent John Ridge to broker a deal. Afraid of being outflanked by the Treaty Party, Ross told Jackson the Cherokees would leave their land for $20 million. He was stalling; he knew the federal government would never pay that much. When Jackson rejected him, Ross proposed that the Senate come up with an offer. When the Senate named its price as $5 million, Ross said he would take the offer to the council but wouldn't be bound by that figure. By then Jackson had lost his patience. In late 1835, he dispatched a commissioner to Georgia to seal an agreement with the Treaty Party leaders.

They met in New Echota, the deserted Cherokee capital. The terms were simple: the Cherokees would receive $5 million for all their land east of the Mississippi. The government would help them move and promise never to take their new land or incorporate it into the United States. The Cherokees would have two years to leave.

It was Major Ridge who outlined the final argument to those present. "They are strong and we are weak," he said. "We are few, they are many....We can never forget these homes, I know, but an unbending, iron necessity tells us we must leave them. I would willingly die to preserve them, but any forcible effort to keep them will cost us our lands, our lives and the lives of our children. There is but one path to safety, one road to future existence as a Nation."

On December 29, a small group of Cherokees gathered at the home of Ridge's nephew Elias Boudinot to sign the Treaty of New Echota. After Ridge made his mark, he paused and said, "I have signed my death warrant."

John Ross tried to overturn the treaty for two years but failed. In May 1838, U.S. troops herded more than 16,000 Cherokees into holding camps to await removal to present-day Oklahoma. Indians who tried to flee were shot, while those who waited in the camps suffered from malnutrition, dysentery and even sexual assault by the troops guarding them. Within a month, the first Cherokees were moved out in detachments of around a thousand, with the first groups leaving in the summer heat and a severe drought. So many died that the Army delayed further removal until the fall, which meant the Cherokees would be on the trail in winter. At least a quarter of them-4,000-would perish during the relocation.

Ridge headed west ahead of his tribesmen and survived the journey, but on the morning of June 22, 1839, separate groups of vengeful Cherokees murdered him, John Ridge and Boudinot. Ross, appalled, publicly mourned the deaths. "Once I saved Major Ridge at Red Clay, and would have done so again had I known of the plot," he told friends.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story referred erroneously to events having taken place in the Alabama Territory in 1813 and 1814. The territory was not organized until 1817
John Ross served as principal chief for 27 more years. He oversaw the construction of schools and a courthouse for the new capital, and spent years petitioning the federal government to pay the $5 million it owed his people. (It wasn't fully paid until 1852.) Even as his health failed, Ross would not quit. In 1866, he was in Washington to sign yet another treaty-one that would extend Cherokee citizenship to freed Cherokee slaves-when he died on August 1, two months shy of his 76th birthday. More than three decades later, the federal government appropriated Indian property in the West and forced the tribes to accept land reservations. Today, many of the country's 300,000 Cherokees still live in Oklahoma.

Adapted from Toward the Setting Sun: John Ross, the Cherokees, and the Trail of Tears, by Brian Hicks. Copyright © 2011. With the permission of the Atlantic Monthly Press.

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John Ross made an unlikely looking Cherokee chief. Born in 1790 to a Scottish trader and a woman of Indian and European heritage, he was only one-eighth Cherokee by blood. Short, slight and reserved, he wore a suit and tie instead of deerskin leggings and a beaver-skin hat.

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