“Seeking the fundamental impulse behind Jacksonian Democracy, historians have variously pointed to free enterprise, manhood suffrage, the labor movement, and resistance to the market economy. But in its origins, Jacksonian Democracy (which contemporaries understood as a synonym for Jackson’s Democratic Party) was not primarily about any of these, though it came to intersect with all of them in due course. In the first place it was about the extension of white supremacy across the North American continent. By his policy of Indian Removal, Jackson confirmed his support in the cotton states outside South Carolina and fixed the character of his political party. Indian policy, not banking or the tariff was the number one issue in the national press during the early years of Jackson’s presidency.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 356-357.

“In the saga of the Jackson presidency, one marked by both democratic triumphs and racist tragedies, we can see the American character in formation and in action...A champion of extending freedom and democracy to even the poorest of whites, Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder. A sentimental man who rescued an Indian orphan on the battlefield to raise in his home, Jackson was responsible for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancestral lands. An enemy of Eastern financial elites and a relentless opponent of the Bank of the United States, which he believed to be a bastion of corruption, Jackson also promised to die, if necessary, to preserve the power and prestige of the central government.”

Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (New York: Random House, 2008), pp. xviii-xix.

Answer (A), (B), and (C)

(A) Briefly explain ONE specific historical difference between Howe’s and Meacham’s interpretations.

(B) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Howe’s interpretation.

(C) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Meacham’s interpretation.