Changes

There was never a dull moment in the eight years of the Jackson Administration, as he fought with anyone who disagreed with him.  His political opponents began to characterize him as a king or a tyrant, but most voters felt that Jackson was looking out for the public against the self-serving government types.  Jackson was a firm supporter of the "spoils system," which means that "to the victor goes the spoils":  the winner gets to fire all the government workers and replace them with his friends and supporters, no matter how incompetent.  (Today conservatives tend to prefer a spoils system because the alternative of an entrenched bureaucracy unresponsive to voters is worse.)

There was never a dull moment in the eight years of the Jackson Administration, as he fought with anyone who disagreed with him.  His political opponents began to characterize him as a king or a tyrant, but most voters felt that Jackson was looking out for the public against the self-serving government types.  Jackson was a firm supporter of the "spoils system," which means that "to the victor goes the spoils":  the winner gets to fire all the government workers and replace them with his friends and supporters, no matter how incompetent.  (Today conservatives tend to prefer a spoils system because the alternative of an entrenched bureaucracy unresponsive to voters is worse.)

Jackson particularly disliked banks, supposedly because a banker refused to give him a loan as a young man.  Jackson vetoed renewal of the national bank, despite the insistence of wealthy bankers (similar to the insistence by Wall Street types today for the $700 billion bailout legislation).  

Jackson particularly disliked banks, supposedly because a banker refused to give him a loan as a young man.  Jackson vetoed renewal of the national bank, despite the insistence of wealthy bankers (similar to the insistence by Wall Street types today for the $700 billion bailout legislation). Jackson encouraged the expansion of credit (loans to people to buy homes, start businesses, and farm) and speculative investments without a national bank.

Jackson vetoed federal road projects because he was a strict constitutionalist:  if the power is not expressly in the Constitution, then it did not exist, Jackson felt.  Jackson's most famous veto of a road construction project was his Maysville Road Veto in 1830, which would have sent money to Kentucky, the State of the influential Senator Henry Clay (known as the "Great Compromiser").  Jackson said there was no ''national'' benefit to justify federal funding for the project.  Obviously future presidents did authorize interstate highways, because there are so many today.

Jackson vetoed federal road projects because he was a strict constitutionalist:  if the power is not expressly in the Constitution, then it did not exist, Jackson felt.  Jackson's most famous veto of a road construction project was his Maysville Road Veto in 1830, which would have sent money to Kentucky, the State of the influential Senator Henry Clay (known as the "Great Compromiser").  Jackson said there was no ''national'' benefit to justify federal funding for the project.  Obviously future presidents did authorize interstate highways, because there are so many today.