“Jacksonian Democracy”

Although never used by contemporaries, “Jacksonian Democracy” has been a favorite term of historians. From the time of the so-called Progressive school of American history, the second quarter of the nineteenth century was celebrated as “the era of the common man”, the time when a triumphant democracy, led by Andrew Jackson, conquered the nation and transformed its institutions irrevocably. The culmination of Progressive history came as late as 1945 with the publication of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.‘s Age of Jackson. Schlesinger hailed Jackson as a great democratic leader and applauded the achievements of the Democratic party.

Schlesinger's book was itself a great achievement, unquestionably one of the most important works in American history in the twentieth century. Its strength was the author's ability to empathize with the Democrats. As a result he was aware of, and able brilliantly to communicate, their sense of urgency, their conviction that they were the special champions of the people locked in a desperate struggle against the “aristocracy”. Moreover, Schlesinger realized, as his critics did not, that there was an anti-capitalist animus in the Jacksonian movement. The Democratic party was, he argued, hostile to the claims of “the business community”.

Ironically, it was here, where Schlesinger had, if anything, understated his case, that the attacks came. Despite a paucity of evidence to support the claim, other historians argued that the Democrats, so far from being anti-capitalist, were themselves incipient capitalists desiring merely to widen entrepreneurial opportunities for small businessmen.