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Jacksonian Policies Dbq

The members of the Jacksonian Democrats viewed their party as the protectors of the Constitution, economic opportunity, individual liberty, and political democracy. Although they were the protectors of some of these virtues, they were not correct in their opinion that they upheld them all.
An example of their fault is in the fact that they were not protectors of the Constitution, in fact multiple times they had a blatant disregard for the document. This was shown in many different occasions both on Jackson’s part and on the part of his party. One of the major ways was the treatment of the Native Americans at the time. The Indian Removal Act was a huge breech on basic human rights, guaranteed by the Constitution. Jackson also showed he thought he had greater authority than the Constitution by overruling many legal acts such as failing to uphold South Carolinas decisions about the Cherokee Indians and causing the Trail of Tears. This was no surprise that Jackson undermined the states since he considered states rights a threat to federal government and had such a strong distaste for the Native Americans. Jackson also vetoed the bank of the United Stated that was formally judged by the Supreme Court as constitutional in the case of McCullouch v Maryland.
This veto of the Bank of the United States however was one of the ways that Jackson proved he was a protector of equality in economic opportunity. The veto was done to protect the American citizens for a potentially hurtful monopoly controlled by the foreigners and the rich. Being a southern man, and supporting the farmers, he did it to in a sense “protect the little man”. Since almost all the stock was held by foreigners or Americans of the richest sort. Also Jackson strongly encouraged economic competition. For example, the ruling of Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (Doc. H), which ruled that the Charles River Bridge could not hold a monopoly over the waters and bridge-ways because as Supreme Court Chief...