There is no shortage of books on Andrew Jackson. Even Remini, the author of my John Quincy Adams book, wrote at least 3 or 4 books on Jackson. For me, the issue was just narrowing it down to the perfect one. I retired again to my favorite library and came out with Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by HW Brands (New York: Doubleday, 2005). Now I have to admit that I felt bad about this—you see, my dad had just purchased a new Andrew Jackson biography for me, American Lion by John Meacham. You can see that this would be a great present for me since I have to read about all the presidents anyways. Unfortunately, this biography (and I only found this out upon its arrival) concentrated strictly on Andrew Jackson’s presidential years. Boo! I had assiduously tried to keep my presidential biographies from being merely about their years in the White House but now I was forced to change my mind.
Good news though. I decided instead that I would simply read both! I know that most of you wouldn’t read more than was absolutely necessary but I excused this aberration by remarking on the sheer amount of literature on Jackson. How could I narrow it down to just one book? Therefore I will read HW Brands’ book first and then follow it up with a little mini-bio from Meacham. And everyone’s happy.
Except little Andrew Jackson, that is. In 1765, Andrew Jackson Sr and his wife emigrated from Ulster, Ireland to make a new life here in the colonies. Due to some very bad luck, Andrew Jackson Sr would die only months before his son was born in 1767 in South Carolina. When Andrew Jackson Jr came into the world, he already had two older brothers but no home and no father. His mother, to keep the family afloat, hired herself off to her relatives as a housekeeper.
Even though the family was dirt poor, Andrew attended an academy for a little while (he showed promise of being very smart) but soon enough, the Revolutionary War would intrude on the Jacksons’ existence. They lived in an area of South Carolina called Waxhaw, and during the war, it was repeated burned and scavenged by the British, leading to an abiding hatred of all the British in little Andrew’s breast. Andrew’s oldest brother died while fighting on the front. At age 14, Andrew enlisted and saw some action but he and his other older brother were captured and sent to a terrible British prison. Mrs. Jackson set out to rescue them, and did so, even though by that time, the boys were both very sick and Andrew’s brother died soon afterwards. Two of Andrew’s cousins were also taken captive around this time and forced Mrs. Jackson to leave again on a rescue mission. Andrew never saw her again.
Since he no longer had any immediate family members, Andrew traveled to Charleston to claim a windfall from another relative there. He proceeded to blow the entire amount but from this impressionable age, he would begin his love of fancy dress, gambling, and horse racing. Upon reaching poverty once more, he tried to be a teacher but that didn’t work out so he switched his profession to law and became an apprentice in Salisbury, North Carolina. In Salisbury, Andrew proceeded to live it up with wild escapades of drinking, gambling and carousing with women, which despite all this, he was eventually admitted to the board to practice law.
He then decided to be a country lawyer for a while but this also didn’t work out. (Apparently Andrew Jackson couldn’t find his niche in society.) But he found a job that would soon lead him where he was meant to be. Since Tennessee was still a part of North Carolina at this time, Jackson was hired by the state and sent out to Nashville as a state Solicitor. Arriving in Nashville, Andrew lived at the Donelson’s boarding house. There he met the lovely Rachel Robards, who was currently estranged from her jealous husband. Her husband soon brought a divorce settlement against her, allowing Rachel and Andrew to marry. They were very much in love and would remain so the rest of their lives, despite Andrew’s frequent absences and various rumors about Rachel’s virtue. Andrew purchased Hermitage Hill for their abode and soon had the settled existence that he had never known before.
With the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, North Carolina lost its territory west of the Appalachian Mountains and Andrew Jackson lost his job, however, he quickly became district attorney of the new territory, inexorably leading him into the political arena. This new territory called a convention to prepare for admission into the Union and to write a state constitution, keeping Jackson in the thick of things for the new state. Tennessee was admitted to the Union and was given one congressional seat in the House of Representatives. Andrew Jackson became the first Congressman from the state of Tennessee. Jackson did some good things for the people of his state but after becoming a Senator as well, he decided he was sick and tired of politicians and the way the government was run. He resigned in 1798 and became a state judge of Tennessee but the military represented his true calling and very soon he was made major general of the Tennessee Militia.
With war on the horizon in 1811, Jackson saw this as the chance for him and his Tennessee volunteers to shine (hence the nickname of the state.) He issued orders calling up the militia and before anyone could stop him, he was headed right for New Orleans. Once there, he received bad news. The US Department of War did not need them and ordered them to disperse, leaving Jackson furious. He had lead these many through many dangers, including Indian raids, bad weather, and food shortages to New Orleans, and now the government just wanted him to send them packing. He refused and staunchly declared that as he brought his men south, now he intended, even if it meant defying orders, to lead them home again. His men loved him for this, gave him the nickname Old Hickory, and followed him wherever he wanted to lead them.
“Jackson’s defiance of authority—word got out that he was bucking orders—and his pledge of his personal resources on behalf of his men won him their love and admiration as nothing else could have…Someone compared him to a hickory branch: thin but impossible to break. The image caught on, and before long, when he rode down the line of march, his men pointed to him and said there goes Old Hickory” (p. 186).
In fact, Andrew did lead them home safely but within months, he called them back into service against a horrendous Creek Indian raid that destroyed Fort Mims. Jackson had been severely wounded only months before but now, while William Henry Harrison was taking care of Tecumseh in the north, Andrew would lead his men south against the Red Sticks tribe and exact vengeance. The Creek War then began and Jackson did what he said he would—kill anyone involved in the Fort Mims massacre. What is amazing is not only did he accomplish his task but he did it under impossible circumstances, including heinous food shortages and mutiny. In fact, Jackson did so well against the Indians that his Indian name became “Sharp Knife” and he became renowned throughout the United States. It was not too long before the United States government agreed with the people; Jackson was someone not to be overlooked and soon he was made a Major General of the United States Army.
Jackson and his militia reached New Orleans on December 1, 1814 and arrived to find the British already nearby and a motley American army in defense of the city. “The ranks included Americans and Frenchmen and Spanish, whites and blacks and persons of mixed race, poor and middling and rich. Some mustered willingly, others with great reluctance. Some hoped for success, others for failure. Most simply hoped to survive whatever Jackson had in store for them. All knew that they’d be fighting British regulars, the best battlefield soldiers in the world.” (p. 260). Add to that the militiamen that came with Andrew Jackson and this was the heterogeneous force that would try to repel the British military at the height of its power. Thankfully, Jackson was not fazed. “The sight of his new troops hardly inspired Jackson’s confidence—which simply meant that he had to inspire confidence in them” (p. 261). He ordered martial law on the city, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and molded his army into a formidable force that would crush the British attack. Although the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, Jackson and his army would decimate thousands of British soldiers on January 8, 1815. Andrew Jackson was a hero.
But the job was not over yet. He was called again into action by President James Monroe to subdue the Seminole tribes wreaking havoc along the Georgia/Florida border. There the first Seminole War began while Jackson took his army to Georgia and dispelled the Indians. However, since most of them merely fled into Spanish-controlled Florida, Jackson believed it was expedient that he go in there and get them. Even though it was a diplomatic disaster, Jackson easily trounced the tiny Spanish garrisons and tracked his way across Florida, capturing the errant Seminoles.
It was an easy step, then, for Jackson to ride his newfound popularity all the way to the White House. Unfortunately it took longer than he expected. With the 1824 election coming up, his name was advanced as a rival to Henry Clay from Kentucky and John Quincy Adams from Massachusetts. It was a close campaign but one that ended with John Quincy Adams winning the presidency and then only a week later JQA offered Henry Clay the Secretary of State position. As Jackson furiously saw it, Adams had offered the job to Clay as payment for his support. “And so began the longest, bitterest, ugliest campaign in American political history. Adams wasn’t even inaugurated before Jackson’s hometown paper, the Nashville Gazette, declared him a candidate for president in 1828” (p. 389).
For four years, the Jacksonian Democrats electioneered on behalf of their presidential candidate. Mudslinging became the norm and the accusations became outrageous. Even Jackson’s wife, Rachel, became the butt of many insinuations, with people calling her a “black wench” and a bigamist. When Jackson won the 1828 election, Rachel died before he could leave for his inauguration, leaving him to believe that she died of a broken heart.
Jackson’s years as President were hectic ones and he faced many challenges. Almost immediately upon being elected Jackson’s cabinet was rent asunder by scandal. It began with Eaton, the Secretary of War, marrying Margaret O’Neale, who had a less than savory past. All the women of Washington snubbed her repeatedly but Jackson, who had just dealt with this about Rachel, militantly stood up for her and her husband. In the end, the Eaton scandal would rock the entire presidency—Jackson would exile his secretary and ward, Andrew Donelson and his family, back to Tennessee and he threw over his entire cabinet in the process.
Jackson also proceeded to fire about a tenth of the civil servants under his command, saying that there was corruption in the past governments and it was time for a change. This seemingly indiscriminate shake-up produced widespread paranoia and bitterness against Jackson and his regime. It also led to the coining of the term “spoils system,” from the common phrase “to the victor go the spoils.”
Another major issue was the Indians. Jackson did not seem to love or hate the Indians but he did love the United States. He knew that Americans wanted the land that the Indians were on and would do anything to get it. Therefore, in a very practical manner, Jackson decided that the best policy for the Indians would be to move west of the Mississippi. That way the Americans could have their land and the Indians would be together and safe from the encroaching Americans. “What Jackson proposed was the legal transfer of land west of the Mississippi to the eastern tribes and the physical transfer of those tribes to the western land” (p. 436). He forced the issue, making the Indians leave their homeland and travel many miles to their new place. The “Trail of Tears” as this route is called starts in Georgia and leads to modern-day Oklahoma.
He was re-elected to a second term and then faced down two of his biggest adversaries. The first was the Bank of the United States and to Jackson, it represented the largest bed of corruption in the nation. Its charter was up for renewal before both houses of Congress and the passed them but the President he vetoed the bill. The Bank of the United States and its president, Nicholas Biddle, would not go out without a fight which became obvious when a money shortage occurred. The Bank contained most of the money in circulation so all Biddle needed to do to get people’s attention was to stop the flow of money. This action led to a recession and Jackson lost some of his popularity but even so he did not swerve and eventually the economy righted itself again.
His second biggest opponent was none other than an opponent to the liberty and union of this country—nullification. Nullification was spawned in the South during JQA’s presidency after he signed the Tariff of 1828, otherwise known as the Tariff of Abominations. Although it was protecting the economy of the nation by putting a protective tariff on all European goods, it hurt the South because it then had to pay extra for things it couldn’t produce—and it made it harder for the European countries to buy cotton. John Calhoun, from South Carolina and once Vice President, drafted the nullification ordinance from this tariff which stated that any state that didn’t like something the national government did could simply refuse to do it. In only a few years from the creation of the tariff, South Carolina was ready to secede from the Union.
This “nullification crisis” was met by the iron will of Andrew Jackson. He had fought for the Union his entire life and wasn’t ready to stop now. He sent South Carolina a strong message through one of their congressmen, “Please give my compliments to my friends in your state, and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach” (p. 481). In effect, Jackson had responded with alacrity by ordering a portion of the US Army down South and the Navy to block Charleston’s harbor. When the date for the tariff to go into effect was imminent, Jackson quietly changed some of the tariff so that South Carolina then quietly rescinded their nullification ordinance. The situation was solved and with great delicacy from the president.
In 1836, Jackson was able to retire from the presidency as his Secretary of State and Vice President, Martin Van Buren, succeeded him. Upon his return to Hermitage Hill in Tennessee, he noticed that he would have some work to do in future, making the place profitable again and taking care of his fine horses. Just like most of the presidents upon retirement, Jackson was faced with financial issues at home. His son, Andrew Jr, was constantly in debt and Jackson was forced to sell more and more land and horses to pay for him. “Yet he never got out from under the shadow of debt. Andrew Jr. was demonstrating his incompetence at business; though well-intentioned, he managed to lose thousands to feckless partners and outright frauds” (p. 533). On June 8, 1845, Andrew Jackson died.
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