Short answer: secondary sources
Jacksonian democracy: Turner and Sumner
- Unit 4
- 3 points
- About 13 minutes
You read two historians' interpretations and answer three short parts, usually describing how they differ and using evidence you know to support or challenge them. On the exam: Short-answer question 1 of 3, required; the three short-answer questions share a 40-minute section worth 20% of the score.
The question and its sources
Read the two excerpts, then answer parts a, b and c. Write a few sentences for each part; you don't need a thesis.
Source 1
“Of this frontier democracy which now took possession of the nation, Andrew Jackson was the very personification. . . . In a word, the unchecked development of the individual was the significant product of this frontier democracy. It sought rather to express itself by choosing a man of the people, than by the formation of elaborate governmental institutions.
“It was because Andrew Jackson personified these essential Western traits that in his presidency he became the idol and the mouthpiece of the popular will. In his assault upon the Bank as an engine of aristocracy, and in his denunciation of nullification, he went directly to his object with the ruthless energy of a frontiersman. . . . To the new democracy of the West, office was an opportunity to exercise natural rights as an equal citizen of the community. Rotation in office served not simply to allow the successful man to punish his enemies and reward his friends, but it also furnished the training in the actual conduct of political affairs which every American claimed as his birthright.”
[Rotation in office: replacing government officeholders with the winning party's supporters, also called the spoils system.]
Source: Frederick Jackson Turner, historian, “Contributions of the West to American Democracy,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1903; reprinted in The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt, 1920)
Source 2
“Jackson's modes of action in his second term were those of personal government. . . . [T]he moment the historian tries to analyze these acts, . . . that moment he perceives that Jackson acted from spite, pique, instinct, prejudice, or emotion . . . . We have already seen, in some cases, what was the tyranny of his popularity. It crushed out reason and common sense. . . .
“Representative institutions are degraded on the Jacksonian theory, just as they are on the divine-right theory, or on the theory of the democratic empire. There is not a worse perversion of the American system of government conceivable than to regard the President as the tribune of the people, endowed by his election with prerogative to check, warn, correct, guide, and watch the representatives of the nation in Congress assembled.”
[Pique: resentment. Tribune of the people: in ancient Rome, an official who claimed to speak for the common people. Prerogative: special power.]
Source: William Graham Sumner, historian and economist, Andrew Jackson as a Public Man (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1882); text from the 1890 printing
Suggested time: 13 minutes
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Part (a)
1 pointBriefly describe ONE major difference between Turner's and Sumner's historical interpretations of Andrew Jackson's presidency.
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Part (b)
1 pointBriefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development from the period 1815 to 1840 that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Turner's interpretation.
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Part (c)
1 pointBriefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development from the period 1829 to 1840, other than the conflict over the Bank of the United States, that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Sumner's interpretation.
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