Jacksonian Democracy Dbq Analysis

The fact on how democratic or undemocratic Jacksonian Democracy was, can be largely disputed. For one to argue such a point a definition of terms must be applied; democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the suitable members of a state, generally through elected representatives. For a white man during this time, Jacksonian Democracy was extremely democratic. It was based on the idea that all white men should have the right to vote and that they could freely partake in politics. It was the era of universal white male suffrage and supremacy for the “common man”. As for women, Indians, and African American slaves this was not a democratic era seeing that these groups had very few rights during this time. While white males …show more content…
Life of African American slaves and free blacks seemed to be extremely unfair. Slaves were treated like property, meaning they had little to no rights and masters even threatened to sell them if they didn’t obey them. Some slaves developed various strategies of resistance towards their masters and continued to fight for their independence and equal rights. For those who were lucky enough to gain the title of a free black, equal rights, racial prejudice, and discrimination were still issues they had to deal with throughout the Jacksonian Democracy. While many states abolished property requirements for white males, they adopted higher property requirements to pin on property-owning free blacks to be able to vote (Keene, 241). Jackson may have acted as if he wanted to help the African Americans, especially in his address to the free blacks stating, “Through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights, in which our country is engaged. This shall no longer exist…,” but in reality, he is just a hypocrite when comes to actually helping