I just finished reading a thought-provoking essay on Jacksonian influences on American culture and politics, via a link found on Steven Den Beste's site. The entire article is rather long, but worth it, to me anyway. Of course, I've always thought that Jackson was one of the greatest presidents, and not given his props these days. :-)

A sample quote to pique your interest: "Jacksonians are instinctively democratic and populist. Hamiltonians mistrust democracy; Wilsonians don’t approve of the political rough and tumble. And while Jeffersonians support democracy in principle, they remain concerned that tyrannical majorities can overrule minority rights. Jacksonians believe that the political and moral instincts of the American people are sound and can be trusted, and that the simpler and more direct the process of government is, the better will be the results. In general, while the other schools welcome the representative character of our democracy, Jacksonians tend to see representative rather than direct institutions as necessary evils, and to believe that governments breed corruption and inefficiency the way picnics breed ants. Every administration will be corrupt; every Congress and legislature will be, to some extent, the plaything of lobbyists. Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it’s probably a fly. Jacksonians see corruption as human nature and, within certain ill-defined boundaries of reason and moderation, an inevitable by-product of government.

Disclaimer: once again, it's long, and prolly of more interest to political science junkies more than anyone else. But if you're a European that doesn't quite understand why things like the ICC smell bad to the citizenry here, or why we seem to be marching unilaterally off to war in the streets of Baghdad, this article will go a long way towards helping you understand these positions, even though it may not persuade you of their ultimate validity.