Question

by the age of jackson, __________ had trimphed.
a. abolitionism
b.democracy
c. nullification
d. women's rights
e. whigs

Answer 1

d

Answer 2

Tough one. A is certainly wrong, as slavery was alive and well in the 1820s, and abolitionism did not become a major force for another 30 years. I vaguely recall Jackson himself owned slaves. B. is kind of silly. From one point of view, the United States has always been a bastion of democracy -- of democratic practises and attitudes, if not a pure democracy technically (it's a representative republic, which is not the same thing). But that might be the wished-for choice anyway, since Jackson is considered the founder of the modern Democratic Party, and he certainly had very strong democratic, if not populist and anti-aristocratic impulses. He was unlettered, had a contempt for elite opinion, and trusted to the wisdom of the School Of Hard Knocks. C is wrong, as nullification only became a real issue in the Jacksonian Era, and it was soundly defeated. I have no idea what to say about D, because I have no idea what "women's" rights are -- as distinct from, say, human rights. Are there "men's rights," too? Children's rights? The rights of people over 60 but under 75? And then E can't be right, because the Whigs formed up specifically to oppose Jackson and Jacksonianism, nor were they ever very successful, forming kind of an interlude between Federalists and Republicans.