Compare And Contrast Andrew Jackson's Views On Slavery

Every President has their own opinion on slavery. For example, James Madison owned over 100 slaves between the years 1809-1817. His father was a tobacco planter who grew up on a plantation in Orange County, Virginia, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood. Madison believed that slavery harmed both slave and slaveholder. It violated the natural rights of the people, undermining the slaveholder's moral integrity and instilling in him a contempt for honest labor. Madison also believed that slavery tainted the American experiment in self-government, which he regarded as an important turning point in the history of the world. James Madison owned a slave names Billy and according to the liberty of congress, “When Madison went to Philadelphia

He owned hundreds of slaves who grew cotton on his 1,000 acre plantation. According to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage “When Andrew Jackson bought The Hermitage in 1804, he owned nine enslaved African Americans. Just 25 years later that number had swelled to over 100 through purchase and reproduction” (Andrew Jackson’s Enslaved Laborers). This shows how Andrew Jackson did not go easy on owning slaves. He did not respect slaves in the ways the other three presidents did. As president, he banned the post office from delivering Abolitionist literature. During his presidency, gag rules were established in Congress forbidding discussion of any restriction of slavery, and Abolitionists were physically attacked. Jackson appointed political cronies to government offices, instead of appointing people based on competence. One of his appointees embezzled $1 million while in office. President Jackson removed the Native Americans from the southeastern United States in the ethnic cleansing incident that became known as the Trail of Tears. But on his last day as president, he declared that his only regrets were that he had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun. Andrew Jackson and the emergence of the Democratic Party did much to inflame the slavery issue, which eventually split the nation and led to the Civil