Sunday, December 14, 2014

Andrew Jackson's Reputation Debunked

In class we have been learning about the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The question we were trying to answer was if he was really the "people's president" or not. To find the answer to this question, we slip into six groups with two groups each focusing on one of the three major events during Andrew Jackson's term. They were the Indian removal, the bank wars, and the spoils system. My group had the bank wars. Each group was provided with a couple documents to base presentations off of in which we explained our event and how it answered the main question. My group made a presentation on an app called Chatterpix which can make pictures look like they are talking while you record your voice. We had Andrew Jackson arguing how he was in favor of the people with Daniel Webster who thought the opposite. Jackson was vetoing the Second National Bank because it was highly in favor of the richer class and many of the stocks were owned by foreign powers. He thought it had too much power over the economy. Daniel Webster argued that he was just trying to turn the classes of people against each other and he didn't have the right to shut down the bank. Andrew Jackson was thinking of the common people, who made up the majority of the population, but making rich people seem like more of an enemy. Another time he really just favored the common people was the spoils system. This was a system in which the presidential candidate would offer jobs in government to those who voted for him. Jackson said he was trying to get more people to participate in government, but it was really taking advantage of their need for jobs and representation in government to help him win. He was only thinking of the common people for his votes. The Indian removal showed Jackson going against his reputation of the people's president. No other president had actually forced the Native Americans out of their rightful land until Jackson. He tried to justify it by saying he didn't want the tribe to die out like the other ones in that area and it was their choice to move to the west. In reality, the tribe had been living in peace with surrounding settlers for a while and could live on where they were. Moving out west would mean unfamiliar surroundings and possibly languages for them to have to adjust to. Andrew Jackson tried just to think of the lower class of people but never fully reached out to all the American people. The common people were still let down and taken advantage of, and he completely failed to recognize the Native Americans as people while he forced them out of their rightful land.

Here are links to the videos my group made (it was too big to be one video):
Video 1:http://video.videolicious.com/2cdbf897-669d-4d55-bd5a-d52b36724f9c
Video 2:http://video.videolicious.com/3f32ceda-db13-4e36-a900-ff39f8e62ec8

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