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President Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States in 1828 and quickly made his mark upon American political life. While his predecessor John Quincy Adams boasted ties to the nation's Founding Fathers, Jackson presented himself as a man of the people. Rejecting Adams' policy of coordinated national economic development, Jackson forced the dissolution of the powerful Bank of the United States, a publicly-chartered private institution that served to regulate the nation's financial institutions. He also proved himself a strong nationalist in crushing South Carolina's attempt to assert a single state's right to nullify federal policies, namely a high tariff that damaged the agricultural South's export prospects. Jackson's popularity and success led many Americans to fear that the former general sought a dictatorship. These opponents banded together around the principles of a weak executive, coordinated national development, and individuals' and society's moral improvement in the Whig Party.