What are the similarities between Jackson and Jefferson?
Both men were Democrats and remain icons of the Democratic party even though the party has changed a great deal since Jefferson and Jackson's time. Both men mistrusted the Eastern establishment, and they gained much of their support from what was considered the West at the time. Both men did not want to expand the government—Jefferson cut the size of the military and Jackson did not want to use federal money to build infrastructure projects. Both men also were elected in contested elections with a great deal of mudslinging—Jefferson was accused of defacing a Bible and having a slave mistress, while Jackson was accused of executing prisoners in the US's war in Florida against Spanish interests. Jackson was also accused of marrying another man's wife.
Both men's policies caused severe turmoil once they left office. Jefferson's military cuts nearly led to the destruction of the US in the War of 1812. Jackson's non-renewal of the Bank of the United States led to the Panic of 1837, the largest financial panic up to that time. To suffer through these setbacks, both presidents were followed by handpicked successors—Jefferson followed by Madison and Jackson followed by Van Buren.
Both men also viewed the Indian problem similarly. Jefferson thought that the tribes' best chance of survival was to move West of the Mississippi. Jackson wanted the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast moved to present-day Oklahoma in order to preserve their way of life and to open land to white settlement. Both Jefferson and Jackson believed that if the tribes did not move, they would go extinct.
Jefferson and Jackson were very different when it came to their personalities. Jefferson was a shy bookish person while Jackson was an accomplished duelist with little formal schooling or interest in the world outside the United States. Despite these differences, both men helped shape America and are considered the fathers of the Democratic party.
What are the similarities between Jackson and Jefferson?
Jackson and Jefferson shared a similar vision as to how American democracy should function. They were both deeply suspicious of the East Coast political and banking elites, whom they believed were subverting the original ideal of American liberty. For both Presidents, this ideal was intimately linked to an agrarian economy in which the ownership of land conferred a sense of responsibility upon the leaders of society. (Though Jackson, unlike Jefferson, was as much concerned with small landholders as larger ones).
In any case, Jacksonian and Jeffersonian democracy alike were based on the society of a pre-industrial economy. One consequence of this was a strong resistance to anything that smacked of the centralization of power at the Federal level. The governmental system of pre-industrial America was, to a large extent, decentralized, with states' rights still very much a feature of political life. And both Jefferson and Jackson wanted to keep it that way.
The two Presidents fought against any attempts by their opponents to diminish states' rights, especially when it came to the contentious issue of slavery. They were also deeply hostile to the establishment of a Federal Bank, which they believed would be used by the East Coast banking elite to develop commerce and industry at the expense of the agrarian economy of the South.
What are the similarities between Jackson and Jefferson?
Jefferson's and Jackson's ideas of who should participate in governance:
A point of clarification:
In Jefferson's time, there was a political party which believed that only wealthy men should govern. Wealthy menwere best qualified by theexperience of making andmanaging their wealth,to know how government could help and how it could hurt. Therefore, theoretically they could avoid bad government, unless they decided to use government to help just themselves, and not the whole country.
Jefferson believed that anyone who had a sufficient means of supporting himself so that he was not dependent upon any other man for a living, should be allowed to vote and govern. He believed that people who were not self employed would be controlled, in how they voted, by their boss or by the richest candidate. He believed these people should not be allowed to vote.
ByJackson's time, Jefferson's idea of who should be allowed to vote was pretty much accepted, so that small farmers and small business men could vote. Jackson believed that every, free, adult, white male should be allowed to vote, irrespective and regardless of how he made his living. (In Jackson's day and in Jefferson's day, almost no one believed women would ever vote, nor slaves, and most Indians were not citizens and did not want to be citizens of the U.S.) Jackson believed that if all free, adult, white males voted, the will of the majority would thus be expressed and he thought that the majority could never be wrong (which I don't agree with).
So, Jefferson's idea of the common man, did not include as many people as Jackson's idea of the common man.
What are the similarities between Jackson and Jefferson?
President Jackson and President Jefferson both believed that the individual states should have more control over their own governments than having one federal government controlling all the states. They believed that the federal government should only convene when international affairs are involved.
It is very true that they believed in the common man but it is important to note that the concept of common man did not include minorities. Both presidents owned slaves and both supported moving Native Americans to new lands so white man could take the land over for themselves.
What are the similarities between Jackson and Jefferson?
In my opinion, the most important similarity between these two men is that they are both democrats. They both believe in the common people rather than in elites.
Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic-Republicans. This was the party that wanted more power for the common people. They wanted there to be less hierarchy in American society. They wanted America to be dominated by small farmers.
Jackson also favored the common people. He wanted to do things like destroying the Bank of the United States because he felt that it favored the rich over the common people.
What are the similarities between Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson?
At first glance, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln appear to have few similarities. Lincoln is most famous for liberating the slaves, whereas Jackson was a supporter of slaveholders' rights. However, if we look closer at how the two presidents treated their role as president, some similarities do emerge.
Lincoln and Jackson both faced crises in which a state or states threatened to secede. With Lincoln, it was the Civil War in which nearly the entire South rebelled. Lincoln refused to allow this and the bloodiest American war was fought to preserve the Union. Jackson also went to great lengths to maintain the Union, although his situation was not as extreme. In 1832, South Carolina declared several federal tariffs to be unconstitutional and threatened to secede over the issue. Thankfully Jackson did not have to resort to military conflict to prevent this, although both sides were prepared to fight.
Both President Jackson and President Lincoln expanded the role of executive power. This even occurred in relation to issues that violated individuals' constitutional rights. During the Civil War Lincoln authorized an act that allowed him to suspend habeas corpus. For Jackson's example, we can look at his refusal to recognize the Supreme Court's 1832 ruling recognizing the Cherokee as a sovereign nation. As a result, Jackson ordered the removal of the Cherokee to the West in what is known as the Trail of Tears.
Less relevant to their presidencies, but still noteworthy is the similar humble backgrounds of the two presidents. Andrew Jackson's parents were poor immigrants who had settled in a remote area on the North Carolina and South Carolina border. Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. Both were able to shed their humble origins.
Perhaps irrelevant, but still an interesting similarity is that there were assassination attempts on both presidents. Of course, Lincoln did not survive his and became the first president to be murdered. Jackson survived the first ever assassination attempt on a US president. Luckily for him, the would-be assassin's guns misfired.
What's the difference between the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson?
Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln shared a number of superficial similarities: both men practiced law for a time; both came from relatively humble backgrounds to ascend to the highest office in the land; both generated a good deal of controversy throughout their remarkable political careers. Beyond that, the differences between them were far greater. In terms of personality, for instance, Jackson and Lincoln were like night and day. Jackson was notorious for his hair-trigger temper, whereas Lincoln was renowned for his generally calm and placid demeanor.
As members of different parties—Jackson was a Democrat, Lincoln a Republican—the two men had radically differing attitudes toward issues of national policy. During his time in office, Jackson became an implacable foe of the Second National Bank. Like many in his party, Jackson saw the Bank as favoring the wealthy east coast financial and commercial elite at the expense of agricultural interests, mainly in the South, who formed the backbone of support for the Democrats.
Under Lincoln, the Republican Party established close links with the very same economic interests to which Jackson was so implacably opposed. It was during Lincoln's presidency that the Republican Party became the party of big business, forging a close connection with the industrialists and financiers behind the rapid expansion of the Northern economy.
The most notable difference between Jackson and Lincoln lay in their respective attitudes toward slavery. Lincoln detested slavery and hoped and believed it would eventually wither away. Although the Civil War was fought on the basis of slavery and its expansion, Lincoln's initial focus was on keeping the Union together. If that could be done by preserving slavery, then so be it. But as the war drew to a close, Lincoln realized that all the bloodshed and all the sacrifice would be for nothing if it did not usher in a "new birth of freedom," as he called it in his famous Gettysburg Address. To that end, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and worked hard to get the Fourteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, passed.
As for Jackson, he was a slave owner, and it's no exaggeration to say that virtually his entire wealth was built on the backs of his slaves. Though not perhaps as cruel as many slave owners, Jackson did beat his slaves. In one notorious incident, he brutally whipped one of his female slaves in public for "putting on airs."
Jackson took a number of his slaves with him to Washington when he became President. Once in office, he fiercely resisted any attempts to halt the spread of slavery into the Western territories. Moreover, he took active steps to prevent abolitionists from sending anti-slavery tracts to the South. For good measure he described abolitionists—in characteristically intemperate language—as "monsters" who should pay with their lives for such a "wicked attempt" at stirring up anti-slavery sentiment.
Contrast Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.
Both came from humble beginnings—Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1809 while Jackson was born on the frontier on the North Carolina-South Carolina border in 1767. Both overcame their humble start to be quite prosperous before opening their political careers. Lincoln was one of the best patent lawyers in Illinois while Jackson was a prosperous planter in Tennessee Both were elected by the "common man" even though they did not personally campaign. Both had nicknames that demonstrated their frontier beginnings. Lincoln was known as "The Railsplitter" while Jackson was known as "Old Hickory." Both were elected to two presidential terms.
There were quite a few differences between the men. Jackson won acclaim as an Indian fighter in conflicts against the Creek and Seminole Indians while Lincoln barely saw action in Black Hawk's War. Lincoln was known for his gentle manner and his ability to tell a good story in order to lighten a serious situation. Jackson was known for his temper, having fought multiple duels. Jackson survived his two terms while Lincoln was killed early in his second term. While both men faced secession crises, each handled it differently. Jackson threatened to lead the army against South Carolina when it threatened to leave the Union. Lincoln waited until cooler heads prevailed before the Civil War; sadly, they never did and South Carolinians fired the first shots of the Civil War against Fort Sumter in April 1861. Lincoln was defined by the Civil War. It is harder to define the Jacksonian presidency but two of his more famous acts in his administration were the Indian Removal Act and his failure to renew the National Bank. Lincoln did not approve of slavery's expansion while Jackson personally owned slaves at his plantation in Nashville. Lincoln was hated and seen as incompetent by many of his own party. This would last until his death. Lincoln has been treated quite well by historians as one of the best presidents. Jackson enjoyed accolades while he was alive but he is often criticized by historians for his actions against the Cherokee. Jackson's inability to build consensus and his fondness for the veto led to the formation of the Whig Party. While Lincoln was reviled by many Democrats and some Republicans, his main source of political irritation was the radicals in his own party who would have probably hindered his generous Reconstruction terms to the South. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, was largely ridiculed for being unfit for the high office while Van Buren and James Polk were able to ride Jackson's legacy to the presidency.
What are the differences between the presidencies of Lincoln and Jackson?
The most fundamental difference between the two presidents is the context in which they served their terms. Jackson served (1829-1837) his term as a time of relative peace and prosperity while Lincoln (1861-1865) presided over a nation divided and at war.
Jackson was a wealthy southern planter who ran as a populist. Lincoln was a prominent lawyer from Illinois who ran as the first presidential candidate of the new Republican party. Jackson had been a general, and was a rough man of the frontier who had personally killed other men in duels. Lincoln was also a product of the frontier, and had served in the militia, but he was politically savy and shrewd.
Both men wielded a strong hand with presidential power. Jackson fended off the first secession crisis with South Carolina, and ordered the Cherokee tribe to be evicted from their land. Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclimation, and waged a decisive war against the south.
Jackson waged war on the national bank, while Lincoln used the federal goverment as strategically as possible to save the Union.
Jackson's presidency was mired in personal controversy surrounded the legitimacy of his marriage, and his involvement in duels. To many at the time Lincoln was unpopular, but his personal life was free from scandal, but not tragedy. Unlike Jackson, Lincoln's presidency ended with his assassination in 1865.
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