Jackson claimed to be the guardian of the Constitution. He certainly tried to protect the individual liberties of the white male working class. One way he tried to protect the common person was by vetoing the bill in 832 to recharter the National Bank. He did this because he did not believe that the National Bank was constitutional, even though the Supreme Court had deemed it to be. He thought that the National Bank only benefited the extremely wealthy. The bank was owned by mostly a couple hundred very rich people and the other one fourth of it was owned by foreign people not from America. Jackson vetoing this shows how strongly he wanted to protect the Constitution. When writer Harriet Martineau came to America, she was amazed at how great America was. She said that it was incredible that there were all working class in the cities and there were all landowners in the rural areas. She expressed how democratic America was and how little poverty there appeared to be. With her description of America, one would not think that suffrage would at all be an issue at all. The point of view of Harriet Martineau was of a woman from England in 834. In England, a very small percentage of people are able to vote because you must own land to vote. So, for her, the voting in America was a big step up from England. When Jackson became president, he appointed Roger B. Taney as his chief justice. In the Supreme Court case of 837, Charles River Bridge vs. Warren Bridge, Taney says that Charles Bridge does not have a full monopoly. This goes in favor of everything that Jackson says that he believes in. By not letting them have a full monopoly, it favors the people rather than the big corporations. This decision allowed equal economic opportunities for all Americans.
Although Jackson claimed to be the president of the common people, he was not a good president for everyone and really hurt the Native American community and different minorities. During Jacksons presidency, many Americans sought to expand west. However, many Native Americans were currently living in these areas. In the Worcester vs. Georgia case, the court ruled that the natives had a right to their land and they we
re not able to be kicked out of it. Unfortunately for the natives, Jackson did not listen and decided to kick them out. This led to the Trail of Tears, in which the natives were forced to move 5,000 miles and one fourth of the natives died in this long process. In Jackson doing this, he is going against his congressional powers and his principles of democracy because of the Supreme Court already ruling this unconstitutional. Although Jackson was a large advocate of strict construction of the Constitution, he did not always abide by the First Amendment. At times, not allowing everyone to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In 835 South Carolina was pressuring Jackson with the Acts and Resolutions of South Carolina. In which they said that Jackson should ban the abolitionists from sending anything through the US mail that talked about abolishing slavery. Jackson agreed with this and tried to not let abolitionist mail through the US mail. The point of view of South Carolina in writing this is that they are making a killing off of slave labor. With the cotton gin in full effect, slave labor is more profitable than ever and it would hurt many landowners greatly if their slaves were taken away. This is a way that Jackson failed to protect the individual liberties of people, because he did not protect their freedom of speech. Not only did the natives and abolitionists get their liberties stripped from them, but other minority groups such as Africans and the Irish. In the 830s, Whig writer, Philip Hone, talked about violence against Africans and the Irish people. This shows that Jackson was only a great president for white men. When Jackson vetoed the bill for the National Bank, it could also be seen not as protecting the Constitution, but actually doing the opposite. Daniel Webster pointed this out in his reply message to Jackson on the veto decision. Webster argued that in vetoing it, he is giving way too much power to the executive brand of the government. He expresses how Jackson is acting like a king and just disregarding the Constitution. However, Webster could be bias because he was in support of the National Bank, and Jackson doing this just upset him.