For all of its complexities, American politics is sometimes reducible to a single enduring conflict, symbolized by the historic battle between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in the election of 1832.

Jackson saw the status quo in government as an unfair payoff to the privileged, and believed that he should be the great leveling agent. This explains much of the Jacksonian agenda: the assault on the Second Bank of the United States, the elevation of the spoils system to a civic virtue, and efforts to secure more land for poor Western farmers.