No, he was not for big government. He vetoed several acts from congress designed to build roads etc. in the country. Moreover, most knew him as a states rights’ politician,someone against a larger federal government, or as we might say today, a big government advocate. The only thing he did do, which can be considered a win for big government was the Nullification Proclamation. And at the time it was a good thing because secession and nullification needed to be refuted. Moreover, he is the only president to ever pay off the national debt. Big government people don’t pay off debt. What makes you think he was a big government adovacte?
He was certainly not an early FDR. Jackson would never have advocated federal aid programs like the New Deal. FDR admired Jackson, but the two men were very different.
Disagree entirely. A veto is NOT a “small government” act. Quite the contrary, in the antebellum world, which had a Whig view of the legislature, a veto was viewed as a big-government activist executive act. He overrode the USSC on the Cherokees; he tasked his SecTreas to create a new GOVERNMENT bank (not the mostly private BUS); he tried to outlaw all private small bank notes. He killed the mostly private BUS. Everything Jackson did increased the power of the federal government. The budget in real and per capita terms grew under Jackson, at times quite rapidly. He used the Post Office as his own fiefdom to control state politics, and expanded the Post Office. He was FDR writ small.