The key to understanding Andrew Jackson's political philosophy is to look back into his life. Jackson was essentially the first common citizen elected into the presidency. He was not born into privilege and suffered many hardships as a child. This directly influenced his later political beliefs. Jackson absolutely favored state's rights and the will of the people. He believed the government's reach should be however long the people of the United States wanted it to be.
The views of Jackson and Hamilton are contrary in one fundamental way: the size of the government. Again, Jackson favored a limited government built on state's rights, while Hamilton saw the need for a strong central government. One element that caught the hatred of Jackson was that of the National Bank. Jackson saw it as corrupt and, worst of all, too powerful. He could not see how the common person benefited from the national bank, while Hamilton viewed it as a vehicle to American infrastructure and expansion.
Andrew Jackson believed in states' rights and in the limits of federal government. This policy ran counter to the ideas of the Whigs and their development of the American system, a plan of economic development that supported a tariff to protect domestic industry, a system of road and canal building, and the founding of the Bank of the United States. Jackson believed that the people should have more direct power in the government, and he supported the expansion of suffrage, or the right to vote. He wanted to make the government more democratic—at least for whites—and he favored the westward expansion of the country.
Jackson's ideas were somewhat similar to those of Thomas Jefferson, who also supported the idea of states' rights. However, Jackson's ideas were in opposition to those of Alexander Hamilton, who supported a strong federal government, the establishment of tariffs, and the foundation of a national bank.
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