The System That Almost Spoiled America

This week my class took on the challenge of accurately assessing Andrew Jackson’s reputation as “the people’s president” and attempting to decide whether it was a deserved title or not. This is an important point to think about because, as a democracy, we like our leaders to be working for the people each ad every day. Reflecting on past leaders and their efforts to be "the people's president" gives us insight into what our current leaders are thinking and whether their actions are really as democratic as we would like them to be. My class split into six groups and each took on a certain aspect of Jackson’s presidency. The six groups chose between researching the bank war, the Indian removal act, or the spoils system. My group chose last and, because of this, got stuck with the choice the other groups had neglected, which happened to be the spoils system.

The bank war groups showed us that, even though it didn't turn out well for America, Andrew Jackson had vetoed the bank with American's best interests in mind. The bank favored the higher classes and, by vetoing it, he was supporting the lower and middle classes, which were the majority of the population. Even if it didn't turn out well, his intentions could be described as being for the people. The Indian removal group showed us that Andrew Jackson should not be considered the people's president. He was trying to look out for the American people, but he wasn't looking out for all people, seeing as the Indians faced incredible suffrage due to this act. So we had one group in favor of his reputation and one group against it; it was up to the spoils groups to decide how Jackson should be remembered. Despite the fact we received the topic involuntarily, I found the spoils system to be a rather intriguing topic. We read through our online documents and created a common craft video summarizing what the system was. We came to the conclusion that Jackson wasn’t "the people’s president" because he gave positions based on loyalty rather than intelligence and merit. It would benefit the people more if they were run by electives who knew what they were doing, rather than just a group of people untied under the requests and orders of a single man. Not only that, but the spoils system ended up having a negative effect on America and, therefore, proves that Jackson should not be remembered as a good president, let alone one for the people.

Democracy is Spelled USA

My class has spent these past two days learning about the rise of democracy in America during the 19th century. We read through and analyzed primary source documents as well as charts and background essays to understand just how our government took shape. We then used these documents to create a presentation of the information we gathered to decide how much of a democracy this country was in the 19th century.