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Age of Jackson
Andrew Jackson was inaugurated o n March 4, 1829. The Age of Jackson marked a
transformation of American politics that extended the right to vote to many new groups.
Before 1820 mainly white males who were property owners or taxpayers were the only
ones that were able to vote. Not long before Jackson's election, things changed and most
adult white males where able to vote and all voters were able to hold public office.
Change led to resistance and at the Massachusetts Constitutional convention, they revised
the Constitution to say that voters must be taxpayers and the governor had to own
considerable real estate. The property qualification in the natural rights was abolished.
There was reform in Rhode Island but in the South voting rights were mainly for planters
and politicians. The number of voters started to increase rapidly. People started to accept
that political parties were not evil and in the 1830s a fully formed two-party system
began to operate nationally. Those against Jackson called themselves the Whigs and his
followers called themselves the Democrats instead of the former Democratic
Republicans. Jackson believed that democracy should offer "equal protection and equal
benefits" to all its white male citizens and favor no region or class over another.
The Spoils System
The Spoils System helped the Jackson administration to "make the right of elected
officials to appoint their own followers to public office an established feature of
American politics." During his eight years in office Jackson only removed less than one-
fifth of the federal officeholders. The Spoils System helped limit the power of permanent
officeholders and the exclusive party caucus although it didn't really transfer power to the
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people. Although it was expanding, political opportunity wasn't expanding as much as
Jacksonian rhetoric suggested because delegates to national conventions were usually
members of local party organizations.
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun was Jackson's vice president and was forty-six years old in 1828.
During this time, many people from his home state, South Carolina, were starting to
believe that the "tariff of abominations" was responsible for the stagnation of their state's
economy.
The stagnation was really a result of the exhaustion of their farmland, which
could not compete with the newly opened farmland in the Southwest. They were starting
to consider secession. Calhoun came up with the theory of nullification as an alternative
and it gained broad support in South Carolina. It didn't have the effect that he had hoped
for which was to help his standing within the new administration because Martin Van
Buren was a rival of his.
Martin Van Buren
Van Buren was about the same age as Calhoun. In 1828 he had won election to the
governorship of New York but later resigned in 1829 when Jackson appointed him
secretary of state. He established himself as a member of the official cabinet as well as in
the "Kitchen Cabinet" which was the president's unofficial circle of political allies. His
