4.8 Jackson and Federal Power

Several Southeastern nations, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole, held land that cotton planters wanted. Many Cherokees had adopted farming methods, a written language (created by Sequoyah), a newspaper and a written constitution (1827), hoping to keep their land by showing they could live alongside white Americans.

Georgia passed laws claiming authority over Cherokee land. Jackson supported Georgia, and Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which let the president negotiate treaties exchanging Eastern Native land for land west of the Mississippi, in what became Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

The Cherokee went to court. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Supreme Court called the Cherokee a 'domestic dependent nation' and declined to hear the case. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), it ruled that Georgia's laws had no force in Cherokee territory, because only the federal government could deal with Native nations. Jackson refused to enforce the ruling. (The famous line 'John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it' is probably not his actual words, but it reflects his position.)

In the Treaty of New Echota (1835), a small faction of Cherokees, without the approval of the Cherokee government, signed away the nation's land. In 1838–1839 the US Army forced about 16,000 Cherokees west. Roughly 4,000 died on what became known as the Trail of Tears. Other nations were also removed; the Seminoles fought the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) in Florida, and some were never removed.

Nullification is the idea that a state can declare a federal law void within its borders. Southern planters hated the high Tariff of 1828, which they called the 'Tariff of Abominations'. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, vice president under John Quincy Adams and then under Jackson, secretly wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828), arguing that states could nullify unconstitutional laws, building on the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (3.10).

In 1832, unsatisfied by a modest tariff cut, South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification declaring the tariffs void and threatened secession if the federal government used force. Jackson, though a believer in limited government and a slaveholder, insisted the Union came first. He issued a proclamation declaring nullification unconstitutional and warning that disunion by force was treason, and Congress passed the Force Bill (1833), authorizing military force to collect tariffs. At the same time, Henry Clay brokered the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which lowered rates gradually. South Carolina withdrew its nullification of the tariff but then 'nullified' the Force Bill to save face.

Jackson saw the Second Bank of the United States, led by Nicholas Biddle, as an unconstitutional monopoly that served wealthy Eastern investors. In 1832 Clay and Biddle pushed a bill to renew the bank's charter four years early, hoping to make it an election issue. Jackson vetoed it, calling the bank a tool of the rich and powerful against 'the humble members of society', and won reelection.

Jackson then moved federal deposits to state banks, which his critics called 'pet banks'. Those banks lent freely, fueling land speculation. In 1836 Jackson's Specie Circular required that public land be paid for in gold or silver. Together with international problems, this helped bring on the Panic of 1837, which struck soon after Van Buren took office.

Jackson vetoed more bills than all previous presidents combined, using the veto over policy disagreements rather than only constitutional ones. He also embraced the spoils system, rewarding loyal supporters with government jobs, which he defended as rotation in office that kept government open to ordinary men. Critics named the Whig Party after the British party that had opposed royal power, to cast him as 'King Andrew I'.