Question/Problem 4: Did Andrew Jackson's expansion of presidential power benefit or harm the American people?

Directions: Read the following excerpt from President Andrew Jackson's message to Congress on December 8, 1829. Answer the questions listed below.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another. Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense. No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is matter of right. The incumbent became an officer with a view to public benefits, and when these require his removal they are not to be sacrificed to private interests. It is the people, and they alone, who have a right to complain when a bad officer is substituted for a good one. He who is removed has the same means of obtaining a living that are enjoyed by the millions who never held office. The proposed limitation would destroy the idea of property now so generally connected with official station, and although individual distress may be sometimes produced, it would, by promoting that rotation which constitutes a leading principle in the republican creed, give healthful action to the system.

"Andrew Jackson: First Annual Message to Congress," The Annals of America, Volume Five, 1821-1832 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), p. 332.

1. Summarize in your own words what Jackson is saying.







2. How did his proposal expand the power of the President?







3. Did the proposal benefit or harm the American people? Explain the reasons for your answer.