Andrew Jackson: People's President?

          In class we learned about Andrew Jackson and the rise of democracy. Andrew was known as the people's president. But was he really all about the people. In class we learned about three specific events during Andrew Jackson's life that will prove if he is or is not a people's president. The first event was the Spoil System. During his run for election Jackson promised government jobs to anyone who supported him. To fulfill his promise Jackson had to fire 919 people from his job. Also one of the people he hired was Samuel Swartwout who was known to steal. Samuel eventually stole over 1.2 million dollars from the country and Jackson was to blame for hiring him. The next event was the bank war. Jackson, as president, vetoed the second bank of the United States because he believed the bank would only help the rich, and not the poor. People who heard about this thought by saying this that Jackson was starting an internal war in the United States between the social classes. Finally, was the Trail of Tears. Jackson wanted to expand his country west, but Native Americans lived on that land and they would not move west because they wanted to live on the land of their fathers and the tribes west spoke different languages and they would not fit in. Jackson said that since they lived in the same country they had to abide by the same laws so they forced them to leave. On there hike to a new home many Native Americans died. Jackson was not a people's president because he fired 919 people of their jobs, he created a war inside America's social system, and her force many Native Americans from their homeland. Below is a script my group did about the Trail of Tears.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-1T7EqJKrlXTpRaM7gVZiUNsjSh-CvlriQTo3DyJkc8/edit?usp=sharing 

Democracy in the United States in the Early 1800's

          In class we learned about the rise of democracy and the voting system of the United States in the early 1800's. To accomplish this we split into three groups and analyzed multiple sources. There were voting charts quotes and a painting of an election. After analyzing the sources we had a choice to either make a prezi or a poster. Our group decided to do a poster. On it we have pictures of the voting charts and the painting and we described what is going on. We also added how these sources help us answer the essential question for the lesson. The question is, how should we define democracy, and how democratic was the United States in the early 1800's? My groups poster is below.