Care to take a wild guess who wrote this?
Upon winning the election of 1828, Jackson embarked on a transformation of the political system and the Presidency. He sought to advance the cause of democracy, and made an expanded executive power his tool in that great project. To Jackson, democracy meant that the will of the majority should prevail, regardless of existing governmental and social arrangements. Even Jefferson had not gone that far. The Framers designed a government to check and balance majority rule with the Senate, the Electoral College, and an independent judiciary. Jackson followed a different star. “[T]he first principle of our system,” Jackson declared in his State of the Union Address, is “that the majority is to govern.” He called for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College because “[t]o the people belongs the right of electing their Chief Magistrate.” The more elected representatives there were, he observed, the more likely the popular will would be frustrated. Jackson remains one of the greatest Presidents because he reconstructed the office into the direct representative of the American people.
Answer here.
(Some reality-based Jackson history here. For those who need help with this post’s title, see here.)
