Jackson Administrations - Jackson's Advisers

Jackson's Advisers

Prior to Jackson's election the executive cabinet was known as the organization where U.S. presidents were cultivated. Jackson's appointments, however, were notoriously mediocre; among them, only his secretary of state Martin Van Buren was a first-rate officer with the intelligence and shrewdness to have much influence over policy formation. This was not because Jackson chose his officers poorly. He chose a weak cabinet purposely, because he meant to dominate it. He believed firmly in the doctrine of "executive supremacy"—it was the president, and not the legislature or the courts, who alone represented and symbolized the will of the American people. As one historian put it, "While [he] intended to listen to their ideas, his vision of President-Cabinet relations involved secretaries who functioned as lieutenants, carrying out policies they had little voice in deciding" (Belohlavek, p. 25).