Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Election of 1828: Democratic Revolt?

I most agree with Sean Wilentz' argument. The number of people voting between the years of 1824 and 1828 clearly doubled because of the population's interest in Andrew Jackson. The voting requirements had been lowered and Jackson truly stood up for what people believed in. Therefore, more citizens were inspired to vote, and for him. The fact that he was the first "not-wealthy" president made him more appealing also.
Despite the fact that I agree with Wilentz' position, I believe that Richard McCormick makes a much stronger argument. He backs up all of his statements with meaningful statistics, etc. If I did not already believe that Jackson was responsible for an "uprising" of democracy, I would probably take McCormick's side just because he is so convincing. For example, when he said that voting turnouts increased only as a result of the increased population, and that gubernatorial elections held a bigger turnout, he was very convincing. He successfully "proved" that a democratic "uprising" did not occur in 1824-1848, but in the year 1840 instead.

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