Many historians have viewed Andrew Jackson’s coming to power—his election in 1828 and the boisterous “people’s” inauguration that followed—as the critical moment when a democratic spirit took possession of American culture and public life. But the democratic movement was too broad and deep to be reflected adequately in the rise of a single leader, however influential. Before turning directly to Jackson’s role—and the national political arena where he played it—we need to understand the wider ferment and changing climate of opinion that turned America in a more democratic direction and made Jackson’s presidency possible.

During the 1820s and 1830s the term democracy first became generally acceptable as a way of describing how American institutions were supposed to work. Most of the Founders had viewed democracy as a dangerous tendency that needed to be held in check within a well-balanced republic. Too much direct popular influence over government and society allegedly led to instability and even anarchy since the general public was more liable than a cultivated elite to be ruled by passion or corrupted by unscrupulous leaders. For champions of popular government in the Jacksonian period, however, the people were truly sovereign and could do no wrong. “The voice of the people is the voice of God” was their clearest expression of this principle. Conservatives were less certain of the wisdom of the common folk. But even they were coming to recognize that public opinion had to be won over before major policy decisions could be made.

Besides evoking a heightened sense of “popular sovereignty”, the democratic impulse stimulated a process of social leveling—making all people equal in status. Earlier Americans had usually assumed that the rich and wellborn should be treated with special respect and automatically recognized as leaders in the community and guardian of its cultures and values. By the 1830s the disappearance of inherited social ranks and clearly defined aristocracies or privileged groups stunned many “elite” European visitors. Historians have described this development as a decline of the spirit of deference.

The decline of deference meant that “self-made men” of lowly origins could now rise more readily to positions of power and influence and that exclusiveness and aristocratic pretensions were likely to provoke popular hostility or comtempt. But economic equality, in the sense of an equitable sharing of wealth, was not part of the agenda of mainstream Jacksonianism. This was, after all, a competitive capitalistic society. The watchword was equality of opportunity not equality of rewards. Life was a race, and so long as everyone appeared to have an equal start, there could be no complaint if some were winners and some were losers.

The election in 1832 was the first election in which the candidates were chosen by a national nominating convention. Jackson defeated the Republican, Henry Clay, by a landslide.

The election of 1836 was another victory for the Democrats as Martin Van Buren defeated William H. Harrison representing the Whigs.