American Political Theory

The Jacksonian Period is usually associated with Andrew Jackson. Basically Jackson followed in what Thomas Jefferson already started. The Jacksonian era valued the rights of common man. The democracy in this particular era endorsed the power of the executive branch as well as that of the president’s. It also allowed a broad range of public involvement in the government. Thus during these times different rights were respected such as women’s rights, economic rights for factories and the like.

Thus, the Jacksonian era showed more concern on common man and thus they did not see them merely as a tool or as a means towards some ends as can be seen nowadays. Nowadays the same kind of values and beliefs are slowly dissolving. Usually the Bush government treats their subjects simply as means to achieve his goals. He is more concerned on profits rather than on man himself. This is basically present on the act on immigration that he supports, the S.

1348 wherein he gives false hopes to immigrants and giving prime importance to profit rather than on the immigrants themselves. Another aspect which could be found is the 5-4 vote pattern. During the election the pattern five is to four is very dominant. There are still 175,000 ballots that were not yet counted and still they already proclaimed Bush as the winner. 5 associates of the US Supreme Court interfered with the manual count in Florida.

These five are Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O’Connor, and Kennedy. These five conservatives are also responsible for some violations of human rights such as banning of abortion even though the mother’s and the fetus life are in danger, rejecting appeals from prisoners and the like. Thus in this regard we could see how very undemocratic our government had become as compared from the Jacksonian era. The decisions on votes and other rights are no longer decided by the common people.

Those in power are very manipulative taking their own interests first more than that of the public’s. Liberty and equality is basically no longer on the people’s hands rather it was on the hands of the select few. Thus dealing with terms like liberty and equality are rather difficult especially if they fall on deaf ears as could be seen on the 5-4 voting patterns. (Toobin). References: Doherty, Kieran. Andrew Jackson : America’s 7th President. New York: Children’s Press, 2003. Toobin, Jeffrey. “Five to Four. ” The New Yorker 2007.