FREE ESSAY ON 5 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

5 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

The United Sates has had a short yet complex history in its two hundred and twenty-four
years. 
She has produced millions and millions of great individuals. These great minds have
shaped what America 
is today. Others, however, have personally molded this magnificent nation with their own
acts. John 
Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson are the most
influential 
builders of the United States of America. 
John Adams was born loyal to the English Crown but evolved into the second President of
the 
Free World. As a lawyer, Adams emerged into politics as an opponent of the Stamp Act and
was a leader 
in the Revolutionary group opposing the British measures that were to lead to the
American Revolution. 
Sent to the First Continental Congress, he distinguished himself, and in the Second
Continental Congress 
he was a moderate but forceful revolutionary. He proposed George Washington as commander
in chief of 
the Continental troops to bind Virginia more tightly to the cause for independence. He
favored the 
Declaration of Independence, was a member of the drafting committee, and argued
eloquently for it. 
Adams was one of the negotiators who drew up the momentous Treaty of Paris to end the
American 
Revolution. Adams' diplomatic skills brought him much political fame.
Thomas Jefferson, although never effective as a public speaker, won a reputation as a
draftsman of 
resolutions and addresses. In the colonial House of Burgesses Jefferson was a leader of
the patriot faction. 
He helped form, and became a member of, the Virginia Committee of Correspondence. In his
paper "A 
Summary View of the Rights of British America", prepared for the First Virginia
Convention, he brilliantly 
expounded the view that Parliament had no authority in the colonies and that the only
bond with England 
was that of voluntary allegiance to the king. A delegate to the Second Continental
Congress, he served as a 
member of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. That historic document,
except for 
minor alterations by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and others made on the floor of
Congress, was 
wholly the work of Jefferson. In 1783 he was again in the Continental Congress where he
drafted a plan 
for a decimal system of coinage based on the dollar and drew up a proposed ordinance for
the government 
of the Northwest Territory, which, although not then adopted, was the basis for the very
important 
Ordinance of 1787. Though absent when the Constitution was drafted and adopted, Jefferson
gave his 
support to a stronger central government and to the Constitution, particularly with the
addition of the Bill of 
Rights. Jefferson was the first President inaugurated in Washington, a city he had helped
to plan. He 
believed that the Federal government should be concerned mostly with foreign affairs,
leaving the states 
and local governments free to administer local matters. Despite his contention that the
Constitution must 
be interpreted strictly, he pushed through the Louisiana Purchase, even though such an
action was nowhere 
expressly authorized. His eager interest in the West and in exploration had already led
him to plan and 
organize the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson led a slanderous yet substantial
life.
John Marshall's brilliant skill in argument made him one of the most esteemed of the many
great 
lawyers of Virginia. A defender of the new U.S. Constitution at the Virginia ratifying
convention, Marshall 
later staunchly supported the Federalist administration. He accepted appointment as one
of the 
commissioners to France in the diplomatic dispute that ended in the XYZ Affair.
Marshall's effectiveness 
there made him a popular figure. In his long service on the bench, Marshall raised the
Supreme Court from 
an anomalous position in the Federal scheme to power and majesty, and he molded the
Constitution by the 
breadth and wisdom of his interpretation; he eminently deserves the appellation the Great
Chief Justice. He 
dominated the court equally by his personality and his ability, and his achievements were
made in spite of 
strong disagreements with Jefferson and later Presidents. He made incontrovertible the
previously 
uncertain right of the Supreme Court to review Federal and state laws and to pronounce
final judgment on 
their constitutionality. He viewed the Constitution on the one hand as a precise document
setting forth 
specific powers and on the other hand as a living instrument that should be broadly
interpreted so as to give 
the Federal government the means to act effectively within its limited sphere. His
opinion in the 
Dartmouth College Case was the most famous of those that dealt with the constitutional
requirement of the 
inviolability of contract, another favorite theme with Marshall. His interpretation of
the interstate 
commerce clause of the Constitution, most notably in Gibbons v. Ogden, made it a powerful
extension of 
Federal power at the expense of the states. The sometimes undignified quarrel with
Jefferson reached a 
high point in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason. Marshall presided as circuit judge and
interpreted the 
clause in the Constitution requiring proof of an "overt act" for conviction of treason so
that Burr escaped 
conviction because he had engaged only in a conspiracy. Marshall's difficulties with
President Jackson 
reached their peak when Marshall declared against Georgia in the matter of expelling the
Cherokee, a 
decision that the state flouted. Marshall in his manners combined the unceremonious
heartiness of the 
frontier with the leisurely grace of the Virginia aristocracy. So great was his winning
charm and so absolute 
his integrity that he gained the admiration of his enemies and the unbounded affection of
his friends.
The great orator Henry Clay played a major role in the U.S. House of Representatives. In
1810 
Clay was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served as speaker. As spokesman
of Western 
expansionist interests and leader of the "war hawks," Clay stirred up enthusiasm for war
with Great Britain 
and helped bring on the War of 1812. He resigned from Congress to aid in the peace
negotiations leading to 
the Treaty of Ghent. He again served in the House, again was speaker, and began to
formulate his 
"American system," a national program that ultimately included federal aid for internal
improvements and 
tariff protection of American industries. In 1821, Clay, to pacify sectional interests,
pushed the Missouri 
Compromise through the House. In the House for the last time, he once more became
speaker, and he did 
much to augment the powers of that office. In this session he secured the western
extension of the National 
Road and, against much opposition, eloquently carried through the Tariff of 1824. As
Secretary of State, 
he secured congressional approval—which came too late for the American delegates to
attend—of U.S. 
participation in the Pan American Congress of 1826. Working, even at the cost of his own
protectionist 
views, toward a compromise with the John C. Calhoun faction, he helped to promote the
Compromise 
Tariff of 1833. He reentered the Senate when the country faced the slavery question in
the territory newly 
acquired following the Mexican War. Clay denounced the extremists in both North and
South, asserted the 
superior claims of the Union, and was chiefly instrumental in shaping the Compromise of
1850. It was the 
third time that he saved the Union in a crisis, and thus he has been called the Great
Pacificator and the 
Great Compromiser.
Andrew Jackson had appeal for the farmer, for the artisan, and for the small-business
owner; he 
was viewed with suspicion and fear by people of established position, who considered him
a dangerous 
upstart. By the time of the election of 1828, Jackson's cause was more assured. The
result was a sweeping 
victory; Jackson polled four times the popular vote that he had received in 1824. His
inauguration brought 
the "rabble" into the White House, much to the distaste of the established families.
There was a strong 
element of personalism in the rule of the hotheaded Jackson, and the Kitchen
Cabinet—a small group of 
favorite advisers—was powerful. Jackson stood firmly for the Union and had the
Force Bill of 1833 passed 
to coerce South Carolina into accepting the Federal tariff, but a compromise tariff was
rushed through and 
the affair ended. Jackson, on the other hand, took the part of Georgia in its insistence
on states' rights and 
the privilege of ousting the Cherokee Nation; he refused to aid in enforcing the Supreme
Court's decision 
against Georgia, and the tribe was illegally removed. Jackson's long fight against the
Bank of the United 
States put him down in history. Although its charter did not expire until 1836, Henry
Clay succeeded in 
having a bill to re-charter it passed in 1832. Jackson vetoed the measure, and the
powerful interests of the 
bank were joined with the other opponents of Jackson in a bitter struggle with the
anti-bank Jacksonians. 
Jackson promptly removed the funds from the bank and put them in chosen state banks (the
"pet banks"). 
He was despised as a high-handed and capricious dictator by his enemies and revered as a
forceful 
democratic leader by his followers. Although he was known as a frontiersman, Jackson was
personally 
dignified, courteous, and gentlemanly—with a devotion to the "American working-man"
that led him into 
history.
Our history is growing larger every day, producing many more great people. These people
will 
continue to shape our country into a superior nation.