- Analyze the rise of mass politics and
popular democracy. Focus on the increasing democratic American celebration
of the people in opposition to entrenched elites, as well as
specific political innovations: the end of property qualifications, political
conventions, political machines, and the spoils system.
REFERENCE: Harry L. Watson, Liberty
and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (1990).
- Contrast Adams and Jackson as symbols
of the old and new politics. Show how the Jacksonians used the elitist
and corrupt election of 1824 to arouse popular feelings for
their sweeping democratic victory in 1828.
REFERENCES: Samuel Bemis, John
Quincy Adams and the Union (1956); Robert V. Remini, Andrew
Jackson and the Course of American Freedom (1981).
- Develop the theme of rising sectionalism
in the late 1820s and 1830s. Show how the assertion of states rights
and nullification in the tariff controversies reflected growing southern fears
of northern political and economic power.
REFERENCE: William J. Cooper, The
South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828 - 1856 (1978).
- Connect Jacksons political battles
with the emergence of the second two-party system. Show how Jackson especially
appealed to plain people who distrusted eastern bankers and capitalists, while
the Whigs grew out of the various groups that disliked Jackson and the Democrats.
REFERENCE: Robert V. Remini, Andrew
Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833 - 1845 (1984).
- Explain both the Indian removal and the
Texas rebellion as products of the expansionism and land hunger
of the time. The emphasis might be on how, in both cases, the U.S. government
essentially reacted to local political developments.
REFERENCES: Michael Green, The
Politics of Indian Removal (1982); Anthony Wallace, The
Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians (1993).
- Show how the Whigs turned the Democrats
own political techniques against them in the log-cabin and hard-cider
campaign of 1840.
REFERENCE: Robert G. Gunderson, The
Log-Cabin Campaign (1957).
