In the young years of America, two of the early presidents had to different take on democracy in America. Thomas Jefferson, a highly educated lawyer from Virginia that served as the second vice president, and Andrew Jackson, from South Carolina, orphaned as a child and later became a war general, the third and seventh presidents of America. Even though from different backgrounds, the men’s’ ideas on democracy share similar elements. At the same time each of them had his own interpretation of American Democracy. Thomas Jefferson worked to increase the power of the “citizens,” which by Jefferson’s philosophy meant any white male that was a farmer or land owner. In fact Jefferson said that a big advantage of the Louisiana Purchase was that farmers could have more land to farm so that they could …show more content…
For instance as you can see in this excerpt from Jackson’s veto message regarding the Bank of the United States, “make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.” Jackson is completely against the concept of a national bank. Jefferson was also against the national bank, he just never did anything to stop it. Jefferson and Jackson both claimed that they strive towards total equality of all people, but their actions show that they both only worked towards the advantage of the white male population. They both believed that the “common man,” as opposed to the more wealthy, should have the most influence on the country. Both men also believed in an individual state to govern itself with minimal intrusion by the federal government. Finally both presidents claimed to be against a big