How Did Andrew Jackson Maintain Presidential Power

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President Andrew Jackson’s interpretation of the powers of the presidency was unprecedented at the time. He believed it to be his presidential duty to protect the rights of the people from suppression by the federal government. He also considered it to be his presidential right to interpret the Constitution, in addition this being a power granted to the legislative branch. The result was an unparalleled number of presidential vetoes employing during the Jackson presidency, which some see as an indication of autocracy. While Jackson’s approach to the presidency was somewhat uncompromising in his implementation of executive powers, it was, overall, democratic as the intentions of his actions were to protect the people against the separation of …show more content…
The Ordinance of Nullification suggested that the states have the right to secede from the Union. According to Jackson, if this power to secede was implemented, the nation, which was built on unity, would collapse. He expressed the imperativeness of protecting the unity of the nation in his Second Inaugural Address as he stated, “Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they never can be maintained.” Jackson argued that the only what to maintain the liberty previously attained by the people was for all the states to remain part of a unified nation. Although Jackson’s method for asserting this belief in the importance of unity, by establishing the Force Bill which threatened forceful action taken by the federal government against a state attempting to secede, seemed slightly undemocratic in that it would attempt to violently force a state to remain in the Union, it was actually in the interest of the whole nation. For The United States to preserve its liberty, each state must remain united with the nation as a