Episode 9

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Published on:

1st Aug 2025

S1E9: Democracy in America: Jacksonian Politics & Populism | Star-Spangled Studies

In Episode 9 of Star-Spangled Studies, Dr. G dives into Jacksonian America—how Andrew Jackson and the Age of the Common Man remade U.S. politics and society. Key topics include:

  • “Corrupt Bargain” of 1824 & the rematch of 1828
  • Jackson’s “King Mob” inauguration and the rise of mass democracy
  • Peggy Eaton scandal & Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet
  • Tariff of Abominations, Calhoun’s Nullification & Webster’s “Liberty & Union” speech
  • The Bank War: Jackson’s veto of the Second Bank of the U.S.
  • Indian Removal Act, Cherokee resistance & the Trail of Tears
  • Birth of the Whig Party & the election of 1840
  • Jackson’s legacy: democracy’s gains and its brutal limits

Links & Resources:

– Textbook: The American Yawp – Chapter 9: Jacksonian America

– Instagram: @star_spangled_studies

– Facebook: Star-Spangled Studies

In Episode 9 of Star-Spangled Studies, Dr. G tells the story of Andrew Jackson’s rise and the Age of the Common Man—examining the “Corrupt Bargain,” the explosive rematch of 1828, Jackson’s dramatic use of the veto against the Second Bank, Calhoun’s nullification crisis, and the tragic Trail of Tears under the Indian Removal Act. We trace how mass democracy, populism, and sectional tensions remade the American republic and set the stage for the conflicts to come.

Transcript
Speaker:

Hello y'all.

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It's me.

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It's me.

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It's Dr.

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G.

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And welcome back to Star Spangled Studies.

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The last time we plunged into the market

revolution, the growth of canals and

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factories and cotton gins that utterly

transformed the American economy.

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And the way that people lived and worked.

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It was an era of incredible growth

and boundless on ambition, but it

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also carved deep new divisions in the

nation between north and south, between

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rich and poor, free and enslaved.

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This new dynamic, often chaotic

America needed a new kind of politics.

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The old world of the founding

fathers were gentlemen governed

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with a certain aristocratic

distance was dying, if not dead.

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A new, more boisterous, more

aggressive, a more democratic.

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Was rising from the farms and

the workshops of the nation.

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One man more than any other

came to embody this new age.

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A man born in a log cabin

on the Carolina Frontier.

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Was orphaned by the revolution.

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They celebrated Indian fighter and a hero

of the battle of New Orleans, a man whose

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life was defined by a fierce, unyielding,

and often violent code of honor.

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On May 30th, 1806, this man,

Andrew Jackson stood on a

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dueling ground in Kentucky.

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He took a bullet in the chest

that lodged just shy of his heart,

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but he remains standing bleeding.

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He slowly steadied his pistol, took

aim, and mortally wounded his opponent.

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That same tenacity, toughness,

and Vengefulness would carry

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him one day to the White House.

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To his supporters, he was old

Hickory, the champion of the common

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man against the corrupt elite.

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To his enemies, he was King Andrew.

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A dangerous demagogue,

trampling on the Constitution.

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Today we were gonna dive into the

age of Jackson and we'll explore.

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The raucous rise of mass democracy, the

brutal policy of what has been called

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Indian removal and the epic War of

Jackson versus the Bank of the United

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States and the constitutional crisis

that nearly tore the nation apart.

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So was Andrew Jackson,

the people's president.

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Or a petty tyrant.

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Let's find out.

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Let's go.

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Today we take democracy for granted,

but for many of the founding

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fathers, it was a dirty word.

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They had created a republic,

not a democracy, and they were

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deeply suspicious of what.

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And Alexander Hamilton called The

Vices of Democracy, the Philadelphia

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physician, Benjamin Rush, warned

that the revolution had unleashed a

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wave of popular rebelliousness that

could lead to a new kind of despotism

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quote in our opposition to monarchy.

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He wrote, we forgot that the

Temple of Tyranny has two doors.

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End quote.

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By the 1820s, something

in the nation had changed.

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The old property qualifications for voting

were disappearing, at least for white men.

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Politics was no longer just for the elite.

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It was becoming a mass

spectacle of rallies and

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parades and partisan newspapers.

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This was the dawn of the era of the Common

Man, as historians call it a time when.

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As one historian puts it,

political leaders could no longer

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afford to overlook, quote, the

cultivation of popular favor.

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This new democratic spirit found

its first major flashpoint in the

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Missouri crisis of 18, 19, and 1820.

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When Missouri applied for statehood,

it threatened to upset the delicate

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balance of power between free

and slave states, which had equal

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representation in the Senate.

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The debate over Missouri was fierce.

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Congressman James Talmage of New York

proposed an amendment to ban the further

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introduction of enslaved people into

Missouri and to free the children of those

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already at age 25, arguing that slavery

mocked the Declaration of Independence,

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promise of liberty to all men.

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The crisis eventually was averted, and

this was done by the Missouri Compromise,

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which admitted Missouri as a slave

state only because at the last minute.

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Maine became a state as well being carved

out of Massachusetts as a free state.

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The compromise also drew a line across

the remainder of the Louisiana purchase.

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At the Latitude 36 30, and it prohibited

slavery north of that Missouri line.

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It was a temporary fix, but as Thomas

Jefferson wrote at the time, it was quote,

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A fire, be in the night that awakened

the nation to the terrifying possibility.

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Of Disunion over slavery.

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As Jefferson himself said,

we have the wolf by the ears.

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We can neither hold it nor let it go.

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The political forces unleashed

by the Missouri compromise

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and the fierce battles.

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Over it meant that future elections

would also be very, very contentious.

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The election of 1824 was one of these.

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It was chaotic.

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It was bitter, and it truly

broke the old political order.

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The Democratic Republican Party had

fractured into four regional candidates,

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Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, the

military hero, the legend for the

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Battle of New Orleans, John Quincy Adams

of Massachusetts, the brilliant but

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aloof, secretary of State, William H.

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Crawford of Georgia.

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He was the establishment choice.

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And Henry Clay of Kentucky, the

charismatic speaker of the house.

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Jackson won the popular votes and the most

electoral votes, but no candidate won an

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outright majority as per the Constitution.

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The election was then thrown into the

House of Representatives where each

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state delegation would get one vote.

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Henry Clay, who had come in forth and

was thus really just out of the running.

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Was now the king Maker Clay

despised Andrew Jackson.

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He thought he was a dangerous military

man, a chieftain in his own words,

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who was unfit for the presidency.

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So he threw his sport

behind John Quincy Adams.

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Adams then wins the presidency in the

House of Representatives, and then

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just days later, president-elect Adams.

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Names none other than Henry Clay to

be his Secretary of State, the most

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prestigious cabinet post and the

traditional stepping stone to become the

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President Jackson and his supporters.

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Were enraged by this nomination.

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They immediately cried foul.

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They branded this deal, a corrupt

bargain, and that's how we picture

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and know the election of 1824.

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Today as the election of the corrupt

bargain, Jackson's Fury was palpable and

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he wrote a letter to his friend William

Berkley Lewis, just after the news broke.

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So you see the Judas of the West has

closed the contract and will receive.

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The 30 pieces of silver,

his end will be the same.

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Was there ever witnessed such a bare

faced corruption in any country before?

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End quote.

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The charge of corruption would then

haunt the Adams Presidency and Fuel

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Jackson's campaign over the next four

years, and that's what Jackson did.

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He campaigned for the presidency

for the next four years.

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The election of 1828

was a vicious rematch.

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It was a campaign of mud slinging.

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There was character assassination

and Jackson supporters

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painted Adams as the corrupt.

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Aristocrat and Adam supporters

painted Jackson as a murderous,

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uneducated back woodsman.

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But by this time, the

common man had his revenge.

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Jackson won in 1828 in a landslide in

his inauguration in:

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Anything Washington had ever seen before,

a huge rowdy crowd of his supporters

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descended on the White House, tracking

mud on the carpets, breaking furniture

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in their celebration of their hero.

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Andrew Jackson to the old Guard.

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It was the quote, reign of King

mob to Jackson and his supporters.

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Though it was the dawn

of a new Democratic age,

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Jackson's presidency began

with a social scandal that had

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major political consequences.

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His Secretary of War, John Eaton

had married a woman named Peggy

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O'Neill Timberlake, a woman of

humble origins, but had a reputation

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for being a tad bit flirtatious.

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The other cabinet wives led

by fluoride Calhoun, the wife

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of then Vice President John C.

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Calhoun.

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Snubbed, Peggy Eaton refusing

to socialize with her.

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This is what we call the petty code

affair, and it infuriated Andrew Jackson.

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He saw this as a parallel between the

attacks on Peggy Eaton and the vicious

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slanders against his own late wife Rachel.

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During the 1828 campaign, he

defended Peggy declaring quote.

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I had rather live vermin on my back

than the tongue of one of these

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Washington women on my reputation.

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End quote.

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The scandal paralyzed

his official cabinet.

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Jackson increasingly turned for

advice to an informal group of

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friends and newspaper editors.

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Not his traditional cabinet,

and this group of friends became

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known as his kitchen cabinet.

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The affair also drove a wedge between

Jackson and his Vice President John C.

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Calhoun, and elevated the standing

of Secretary of State Martin Van

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Buren, a widower himself who had

shrewdly sided with the Eatons

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in the whole Pedic Code affair.

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This personal drama would soon merge

with a much larger constitutional crisis.

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So in 1828, a crisis erupted

over of all things tariffs.

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Congress passed a high protective

terrorist that Southerners, who

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relied on imported goods dubbed

the tariff of abominations.

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They argued that it favored northern

manufacturing at the expense of the South.

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In response, John C.

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Calhoun, drawing on the precedent

of Virginia and Kentucky

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resolutions that we talked about.

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In a previous episode, anonymously

authored, uh, a paper called quote,

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South Carolina Exposition and Protest.

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In it, he laid out the doctrine of

nullification, the idea that a state

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had a right to declare a federal law

unconstitutional and therefore null and

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void within the borders of that state.

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Quote, we then hold it unquestionable

that on the separation from the

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Crown of Great Britain, the people

of the several colonies became

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free and independent states.

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We also hold it as equally questionable

that the Constitution of the United

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States is a compact between the people

of the several states, and that the

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government it created was formed.

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And appointed to execute the powers

which the states had delegated to it.

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Calhoun argued that the

tariff was just the pretext.

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His real fear was that the power of a

federal government was going to expand and

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then be dominated by a northern majority,

and that northern majority might one

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day come after you guessed it, slavery.

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He wrote that the tariff was, quote, a

vastly inferior importance to the great

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question to which it has given rise.

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The right of a state to interpose

in the last resort in order

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to arrest an unconstitutional

act of the general government.

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End quote.

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The debate came to the head on the

floor of the US Senate in:

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legendary exchange between Senator

Robert Hane of South Carolina and

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Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts.

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Hain defended nullification.

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Webster responded with one of the most

famous speeches in American history,

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A powerful defense of the union.

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Quote, I have not allowed myself, sir, to

look beyond the union to see what might

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lie hidden in the dark recess behind.

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I have not cool weighed the

chances of preserving liberty

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when the bonds that unite us.

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Shall be broken while the union lasts.

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We have high, exciting, gratifying

prospects spread out before us

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and for us and our children.

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Beyond that, I seek not

to penetrate the veil.

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God Grant that in my day at least

that curtain may not rise when my

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eyes shall be turned to be whole.

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For the last time the sun in heaven,

may I not see him shining on the

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broken and dishonored fragments of a

once glorious union that their last

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feeble in lingering glance rather

behold, the gorgeous and sign of

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the republic bearing for its motto.

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That other sentiment dear to every true

American heart, liberty, and union now

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and forever won an inseparable end quote.

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In 1832, South Carolina passed

an ordinance of nullification

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declaring the tell the tariffs of

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threatened to secede from the union.

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If the government tried to collect

the tariffs by force, Jackson

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was furious to say the least.

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His response.

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Was Swift.

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He issued a proclamation to

the people of South Carolina

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denouncing the nullification and

as a quote, impractical absurdity.

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And he said that it was a direct

threat to the union, quote.

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I consider then the power to annu a law

of the United States assumed by one state.

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Incompatible with the existence of

the union, contradicted expressly

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by the letter of the constitution,

unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent

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with every principle on which it

was founded and destructive of the

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great object for which it was formed.

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To say that any state may at pleasure

secede from the union is to say that

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the United States is not a nation.

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Disunion by armed force is treason.

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Are you really ready to incur its guilt?

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End quote.

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Jackson prepared to use military force,

but at the same time a compromised

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tariff engineered by Henry Clay was

passed lowering the duties over time.

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South Carolina backed down and the

overall the crisis was averted.

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But the fundamental questions about

state's rights and the nature of the union

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remained simmering just below the surface.

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If the nullification crisis was a

battle over states' rights and in more

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ways than won a battle over slavery.

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The bank war was a battle over economic

power and the soul of American capitalism.

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The second bank of the United States was

chartered in:

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private corporation that acted as the

federal government's financial agent.

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Its president, the brilliant but very

arrogant man named Nicholas Biddle,

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wielded immense power over the nation's

economy to Jackson, the bank, and Biddle.

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Were monsters.

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He called them, quote, a hydra of

corruption and they concentrated

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too much power in the hands of

the wealthy, the unelected elite,

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and it favored northern merchants

over southern and western farmers.

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When the bank came up to be Rechartered

in:

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out it in a populous sort of cause.

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It is to be regretted that the rich

and powerful too often bend the acts of

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government to their selfish purposes.

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Every monopoly and all excessive

privileges are granted at the

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expense of the public, which ought

to receive a fair equivalent.

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Many of our rich men have not been

content with equal protection and equal

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benefits, but have be sought to us to

make them richer by act of Congress,

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by attempting to gratify their desires.

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We have in the results of our legislation.

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A raid section against section.

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Interest against interest in man, against

man in a fearful commotion that threatens

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to shake the foundations of our union.

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End quote, Jackson's Veto was

a political master stroke.

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It framed the issue as a battle

between common people and the

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corrupt moneyed interests.

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The bank war became a central

issue of the:

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Jackson again won in a landslide.

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He saw his second victory as a

mandate to destroy the bank itself.

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He ordered the removal of federal

deposits from the bank and placed

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them in state chartered what he

called pet banks bid retaliated by

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contracting credit, causing a brief

financial panic, but it was too late.

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By this point, the bank was dead.

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The bank war had profound

consequences for the future.

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It led to the formation of a new

political party, the wigs who coalesced

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around their opposition to King Andrew.

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The wigs were led by Henry Clay and

they championed his American system of

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a national bank protective tariffs, and

federally funded internal improvements.

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More importantly.

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The destruction of the bank also

contributed to the wild speculation

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and financial instability.

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That led to the devastating panic of 1837,

which crippled the economy For years,

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for all the talk of the common

man, Jacksonian democracy

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had sharp, brutal limits.

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It was a democracy for white men only.

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Nowhere was this clear that in Jackson's

policy towards Native Americans for

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decades, the five civilized tribes of the

Southeast, these included the Cherokee,

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Choctaw, Chickasaw Creek, and Seminole.

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Had adopted many aspects

of American culture.

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They created written languages, they

adopted constitutions and became

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successful farmers and planters.

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The Cherokee in particular had made

remarkable strides as their leader,

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Elias Buddha described in 1826 quote.

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The rise of these people in their

movement towards civilization,

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maybe trace as far back as the first

settlement of the whites among them.

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Game has since become so scarce

that little dependence for

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subsistence can be placed upon it.

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They have gradually, and I could

almost say universally forsaken

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their ancient employment.

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In fact, there is not a single family

in the nation that can be said to

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subsist on the slender support,

which the wilderness could afford.

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Despite the major successes of the

Cherokee people, there was no protection

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against the relentless pressure of

land hungry white settlers, especially

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when the state was against them.

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Gold had been discovered on

Cherokee lands in Georgia.

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The state of Georgia passed laws

stripping the Cherokee of their

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rights and claimed their land.

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The Cherokee fought back not

with weapons, but in the courts.

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In fact, in two landmark cases, the

okee Nation versus Georgia in:

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and Warchester versus Georgia in 1832,

the Supreme Court under Chief Justice

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John Marshall sided with the Cherokee

ruling that they were a quote, distinct

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political entity and that Georgia

laws had no force in their territory.

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Jackson's response was open defiance.

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He reportedly said, quote,

John Marshall has made his

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decision now let him enforce it.

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He refused to protect the Cherokee

and instead pushed through Congress

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the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which

authorized the federal government

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to forcibly remove the southeastern

tribes to territories west of the

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Mississippi and is addressed to Congress.

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Jackson framed this brutal policy

as an act of humanitarianism.

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Quote, it will separate the Indians

from immediate contact with settlements

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of whites, free them from the power

of the states, enable them to pursue

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happiness in their own way and under

their own rude institutions, and

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perhaps cause them gradually under

the protection of the government and

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through the influence of good councils

to cast off their savage habits and

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become an interesting, civilized

and Christian community End quote.

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The Cherokee under their principle

chief John Ross continued to resist.

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In an 1836 letter to Congress, Ross

pleaded for justice appealing to the very

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principle the Americans claim to cherish,

but in this case had trampled on quote

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by the stipulations of this instrument.

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We are depoed of our private possessions.

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We are stripped of every

attribute of freedom.

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We are nationalized, we are

disenfranchised, we are deprived

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of membership in the human.

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Family.

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Our hearts are sickened.

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In truth, our cause is your own.

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It is the cause of liberty and of justice.

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It is based upon your own principles,

which we have learned from yourselves

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for we have gloried the to court.

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Your Washington and your

Jefferson, our great teachers end

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quote, their pleas were ignored.

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In 1838, the US Army

began the forced removal.

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The journey became known

as the Trail of Tears.

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It was a death march.

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A private soldier named John G.

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Burnett, who served as an interpreter.

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Recalled the horror.

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I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested

and dragged from their homes and driven

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at the bayonet point into the stockades.

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I saw them loaded like

cattle or sheep into 600.

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And 45 wagons and started toward the west.

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On the morning of November 17th,

we encountered a terrific sleet and

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snowstorm with freezing temperatures.

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And from that day until we reached

the end of the fateful journey on

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March the 26th, 1839, the sufferings

of the Cherokees were awful.

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The trail of the exiles

was a trail of death.

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They had to sleep in the wagons and

on the ground without fire, and I have

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known as many as 22 of them die in one

night of pneumonia due to ill treatment.

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Cold and exposure.

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End quote.

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Of the 16,000 Cherokee who were forced

to march, over 4,000 died, the policy

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of Indian removal stands as one of the

darkest chapters in American history.

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It is a brutal testament to the

racial limits of Jacksonian democracy.

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The backlash against King Andrew

and his policies led to the

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formation of a new political party.

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The Wigs.

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The Wigs were a diverse coalition of

former National Republicans, anti Masons

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and disaffected Democrats, all united

by their opposition to Jackson, led

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by figures like Henry Clay and Daniel

Webster, the Wigs Champion Clay's

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American system, a strong national bank.

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Protective tariffs and federally

funded internal improvements.

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They believed that an act of

government that would promote

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economic growth and moral progress.

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After Jackson's handpicked successor,

Martin Van Buren was blamed for

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the devastating panic of 1837.

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The wings saw their chance

in the election of:

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They beat the Democrats at their own game.

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They nominated William Henry Harrison,

the hero of the Battle of Tippy Canoe, and

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they ran a brilliant populous campaign.

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They portrayed Harrison, who was actually

a wealthy Virginia planter as a humble.

377

:

Cider sipping log cabin dwelling

frontiers, man, their slogan

378

:

was Tippy canoe and Tyler, too.

379

:

Tippy canoe being Harrison and Tyler being

his vice president, and it became one

380

:

of the most famous in American history.

381

:

The log cabin cider campaign, as we call

it, was a triumph of image over substance,

382

:

and Harrison won in a landslide, but

the wig victory was short-lived just

383

:

one month after his inauguration.

384

:

Harrison died of a pneumonia.

385

:

His vice President, John Tyler, a

former Democrat who had been put

386

:

on the ticket to attract southern

voters, ascended to the presidency.

387

:

Tyler himself was a staunch state's rights

advocate, and he promptly vetoed the wigs.

388

:

Entire legislative program, including

their bills to recharter a national bank.

389

:

This threw the wig party into disarray

and a deep sectional division that would

390

:

now eventually tear the nation apart.

391

:

Once again, came to the forefront.

392

:

So this age of Jackson was a

period of profound transformation,

393

:

but it was also very violent.

394

:

It was an era that saw the

expansion of political democracy

395

:

for white men, but it was also a.

396

:

Populist uprising against the perceived

power of the moneyed aristocracy, the

397

:

creation of a stable two party system

that we have to this day, but it was

398

:

also an era of deep contradictions.

399

:

The champion of the common man

was also a wealthy slave order

400

:

who presided over the brutal

dispossession of Native American lands.

401

:

The celebration of liberty for

some was built on the denial

402

:

once again of liberty for others.

403

:

The political battles of this era

over the Amer, the Second American

404

:

bank, the tariff, the proper role of

the federal government were at their

405

:

core battles, again, over the very

meaning of the American Republic.

406

:

And as the nation pushed westward,

these conflicts would only intensify.

407

:

The market Revolution had created a

dynamic interconnected economy, but one

408

:

that was increasingly divided into the

free labor north and a slave labor south.

409

:

The next great chapter in

our story will be about the

410

:

collision of these two systems.

411

:

A collision fueled by a powerful

new ideology manifest destiny.

412

:

The next time we get together on

Star-Spangled Studies, we're gonna

413

:

explore the religious and the

reform movements that swept the

414

:

nation in this antebellum period.

415

:

Antebellum meaning between the wars, we'll

meet the abolitionists, the feminist, the

416

:

utopian dreamers who sought to perfect

American society, even as the nation

417

:

hurdled towards its greatest crisis.

418

:

I'm Dr.

419

:

G, and I'll see y'all in the past.

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About the Podcast

Star-Spangled Studies
Star-Spangled Studies is a college-level U.S. history podcast created by professional historian Dr. G—built for students, teachers, and curious listeners alike. Season 1 covers the era from 1865 to the present, using The American Yawp, a free and open educational resource (OER) textbook, as its guide. Each episode unpacks key events, movements, and ideas that shaped the modern United States—through rich narrative, scholarly insight, and accessible storytelling.

Whether you're enrolled in a course or exploring history on your own, you’ll get clear, engaging episodes that follow the chapters of The American Yawp. Bring your curiosity, download the textbook, and join Dr. G for a star-spangled journey through American history.

Free. Accessible. Thought-provoking.
This is your front-row seat to the story of the United States.
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