Andrew Jackson was elected to become the seventh president of the United States in 1829. The biggest thing that helped him get elected was that he was an advocate for "the common man". Throughout his two-term presidency, he was accused of abusing his presidential powers, and some called him a tyrant; when, in reality, he had no other choice but to overuse his powers to accomplish his goal of increasing the influence of the common man. This controversy is related to our government today and how some people think the government has too much control over us-the common man. Andrew Jackson was a president for the common man, but in order to accomplish his goals, he had to abuse his presidential powers during the Bank War, the Indian Removal Acts, and the Tariff of 1828.
The way Andrew Jackson went about handling the Bank War can irrefutably show that he was a president for the common man. In 1832, Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Second Bank of the United States, applied for a new charter, even though the bank's old charter was not going to expire until 1836. The recharter bill passed easily through congress, but President Jackson vetoed the bill because "the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes". Andrew Jackson saw the second bank for what it truly was: a tool of eastern economic privilege that enables the rich to take advantage of working-class Americans. After vetoing the bank's recharter, Jackson ordered the money to be taken from the government and to be placed in state banks. This decentralized the country's economy and placed the power within the states which ultimately gave the common man more power.
Andrew Jackson was a strong supporter of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In his address to Congress, Andrew Jackson asked them if they would rather have our country be covered with forests and only a few thousand Natives or have a country with cities, towns, and farms "occupied by more than twelve million happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion.
