#17 Andrew Johnson Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Andrew Johnson
1. He only lost one election in a forty year span. In 1829, “The tailor was defeated, the only time he was to lose an election until after the Civil War” (p. 40).
2. Before the Civil War, Johnson was a staunch Unionist, which earned him some enemies in his own state. At one point, he was almost lynched, ironically, in Lynchburg, TN. “When the train reached Lynchburg, an infuriated crowd, egged on by a Tennessee secessionist, invaded the car in which he was sitting, and one ruffian pulled his nose. He drew his pistol to defend himself, but the railroad officials calmed the mob so that he was permitted to ride on” (p. 140).
3. In an age when candidates for office did not campaign outright, Johnson did. “Although it was not customary for candidates to campaign actively, Johnson violated the rule, not only in Tennessee, but also elsewhere” (p. 182).
4. Johnson was drunk at Lincoln’s second inaugural! He had left for Washington from Tennessee at the last minute and was feeling quite unwell once he got there. Unfortunately on the morning of the inauguration, he had several shots of whiskey which he hoped would steady him but instead made him very inebriated. “Hamlin made a few remarks, and then Johnson, unsteady because of his condition, began his speech. The noise in the visitors’ gallery made his remarks barely audible, but as he proceeded, it became evident that he was drunk. Glorying in his rise from the masses, he pointed out that all who were sitting before him owed their positions to the people. He turned toward the cabinet. ‘I will say to you, Mr. Secretary Seward, and to you, Mr. Secretary Stanton, and to you, Mr. Secretary—(to a gentleman near by [Forney], sotto voice, Who is the Secretary of the Navy? The person addressed replied in a whisper, Mr. Welles)—and to you, Secretary Welles, I would say, you all derive your power from the people.’ Before he ended his harangue, he stressed the fact that Tennessee was a state in the Union and had never been out. Hamlin finally nudged him to stop, and the ordeal was over. The audience was horrified…Matters were not helped by Johnson’s performance when taking the oath. His hand on the Bible, he turned and held the book up, saying in a loud and theatrical voice, ‘I kiss this book in the face of my nation of the United States’” (p. 190-91). There would never be another such episode for Johnson but unfortunately, he was remembered as a drunkard. Years later, Johnson would lose one of his sons to alcoholism and suicide.
5. During the beleaguered strife with congress, Johnson was prone to being riled up by hecklers and would not think about what he was saying in return. In the midst of one such speech, Johnson even compared himself to Jesus. “Generally recounting his rise from the tailor’s bench to the presidency, he compared himself to Jesus Christ and explained that like the Savior, he, too, liked to pardon repentant sinners” (p. 263).
6. I always thought that Alaska was purchased under the Lincoln administration but it was under Andrew Johnson’s instead. “In the meantime, the administration was able to achieve a definite success, the purchase of Russian America, which Sumner renamed Alaska” (p. 288).
7. Charles Dickens met Andrew Johnson and greatly admired him. “Charles Dickens, who also met the president during his 1867-68 trip to America, agreed. ‘I was very much impressed with the President’s face and manner,’ was his comment. ‘It is, in its way, one of the most remarkable faces I have ever seen. Not imaginative, but very powerful in its firmness (or perhaps obstinacy), strength of will, and steadiness of purpose.’ Dickens was also struck by Johnson’s obviously composed manners as well as his excellently tailored clothes” (p. 347).
8. Johnson, through his ambitious secretary of state, also bought Midway Island. “Seward also acquired Midway Island in the Pacific, although some of his other expansionist schemes, such as the purchase of bases in the Caribbean and of the Danish West Indies, failed” (p. 348).

The author, Hans, really did a wonderful job of not biasing us as to what he personally felt or did not feel about Andrew Johnson. He just gives it to us plainly that this is who Johnson was, what he stood for, and these were the decisions that he made. There is probably no more controversial president, after all he was the only one to be impeached, and yet, I found him a sad study.

It’s true—Andrew Johnson had probably one of the poorest origins of any of our presidents and yet, he rose above it in a truly American-Dream sort of way. His overwhelming ambitions and acute business sense naturally propelled him into the political arena and it is no wonder that he excelled there. I find it rather funny that many people disliked him and yet he won election after election. He must have been one of those people that once you meet them you either like them a lot or dislike them a lot and nothing is ever going to change that feeling. The common people of his state loved his bombastic speeches which were quite graphic and highfalutin, however, his fellow politicians were enamored neither of his personality nor his political ideals. Johnson had a very cut and dried approach to politics and to what his state required in Washington. For instance, he was absolutely obsessed with governmental economy and so fought the Smithsonian tooth and nail, believing it was a grave extravagance. I also thought it was interesting that before he was president he was one of the wiliest politicians in antebellum America and yet, once in office, acted foolishly and obstinately.

Should he have been impeached? Probably not. In the United States, our system of electing presidents ever four years is wonderful and I believe that one of the main reasons that Johnson was eventually acquitted was due to the fact that his term was about to expire anyways. I believe Johnson’s immediate presidential problems stemmed from the fact that he played fast and loose with everyone’s expectations after Lincoln’s assassination. Messing with people’s expectations is not cool and can do some serious damage to your cause, right? Johnson, even though he was an acclaimed states’ rights and pro-slavery man, managed to assure just about everyone that he would uphold Lincoln’s Reconstruction program and that everything would be the same. Everyone went away sighing with relief when all of a sudden, Johnson’s true self emerged and all his old pro-southern, pro-slavery leanings emerged in force. After the rude awakening, Johnson did nothing to assuage his opponents, merely insisting getting his way for his policies to the exclusion of all else. So it’s really no wonder that the bulk of Congress took exception to the president’s idea of Reconstruction and even hauled him before the entire world on very thin impeachment charges.

And despite all that, Johnson wanted to be reelected! He really thought that he could nab the Democratic nomination but what he did not understand is that he really had no party at all. It made me think of John Tyler, the party-less president numero uno, to see Johnson stepping on each party’s toes one after the other. Technically he was elected as a Union Party candidate but he ruined his relationship with the Republicans with his Reconstruction policies. Then the impeachment trial and all the other problems proved to the Democrats that Johnson probably wasn’t safe to touch right then. Thus a president without a party only seems to end one way—in retirement.

What made me sad about Johnson was that he was almost doomed from the start. His personality was abrasive in that special way that should have kept him from the presidency to begin with. Not to mention, he became president after one of our all-time best presidents ever! Lincoln, in contrast to Johnson, was political suavity itself and although he seemed amenable to each politician’s suggestions, he always made his own way and ended up winning the war. It is a fact that Lincoln’s idea for Reconstruction was much, much different from Johnson’s and this juxtaposition was too hard for anyone to handle at the time. Poor Johnson believed that he was the hero of this piece, upholding the Constitution and bringing the Union back as it should be. Although I do not believe that he did anything really wrong—anything that would necessitate impeachment charges, per se—he could rationally be blamed for not heeding the mood of the people or taking the time to diplomatically work his policies out through Congress. Sheesh.

#7 Andrew Jackson Part 3

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham.
New York: Random House, 2008.

I know that some of you are wondering what Andrew Jackson has to do with the current events in our nation. You may be thinking that he lived almost 200 years ago and therefore has very little impact on what or who we are today. This is an incorrect assumption because Andrew Jackson, for better or for worse, was a prime factor in shaping the executive branch into what it looks like nowadays. If we complain about too much executive control, we can thank Jackson; if we are happy about the strong leadership in our government, we can also thank Jackson. Jackson, in so many ways, embodied who we were collectively as Americans and steered us towards the place we would eventually reach. In fact, Meachum remarks on the fact that Andrew Jackson is America. “Yet of the great early presidents and Founders, Andrew Jackson is in many ways the most like us. In the saga of the Jackson presidency, one marked by both democratic triumphs and racist tragedies, we can see the American character in formation and action. To understand him and his time helps us to understand America’s perennially competing impulses. Jackson’s life and work—and the nation he protected and preserved—were shaped by the struggle between grace and rage, generosity and violence, justice and cruelty” (p. xx).

The story of Andrew Jackson is one of surmounting seemingly impossible odds. “Yet Jackson endured and conquered. He knew how to make amends when he had to and possessed enough charm to turn longtime enemies into new friends. Jackson, could, of course, lapse into alarming violence, but he also had a capacity for political grace and conciliation when the spirit moved him” (p. 38). As you can see, the General had a mercurial temperament but also had the political savvy to when to blow hot and when to blow cold. In some ways, he’s the perfect politician—he had concrete morals and ethics (to himself) but was able to use a myriad of ways to accomplish them. Machiavelli would have been so proud! Unlike Jefferson, who was an enigma through and through, Jackson had a method to his madness.

For instance, take the Trail of Tears debacle. I think that most people read about Jackson’s inhumanity towards the Indians and this causes many to hate him outright. I disagree. Jackson merely had an idea on how the Indian question could best be solved and he stuck to it for the rest of his life. I really can’t see Jackson as the diabolical tyrant, setting out to destroy the Indians en toto. No, I see him as a man who made an incorrect assumption based on his knowledge, his perceptions, and his prejudices, which led inevitably to an incorrect decision. And since he was president, that incorrect decision affected thousands.

Let us remember that Andrew practically grew up on the frontier in Nashville, TN where the threat of Indian raids and scalpings were of very real concern. As he grew older, he watched the Americans slowly chase the Indians off their land; he also saw the deadly interactions between the two groups (including some battles that he was present at). Plus with the advent of the cotton gin, cotton was the New Big Crop in Town and that meant more slaves and more importantly, more land was needed. The Americans then started branching out and they greedily eyed the wild land of the Indian tribes. Jackson, in his mind, decided that the best policy for keeping the Indians whole and the Americans happy was to send the Indians west of the Mississippi. Sure, now it looks completely heartless and Jackson was certainly at fault in the matter. However considering that I too am an American, I understand how desperately and pointedly those Americans back then would have salivated over all that deliciously, unused land. So here’s Jackson’s plan: there would be no more fighting between the Indians and the Americans because he would give the Americans the land they wanted and send all the Indians across the Mississippi to keep them whole and to give them the land they enjoyed (unmolested).

Jackson’s mind was made up on this matter (it seemed so obvious) so he pushed the bill through Congress and that was that. As we all know in retrospect that the Indians were forced onto the Trail of Tears over thousands of miles, ending with one-fourth of them dying. Even though Jackson was no longer president when this occurred, I definitely think that he could have and should have taken greater steps to see that the Indians were treated more humanely under the circumstances. I am not defending all his actions, but Jackson’s reasoning does make some sense. “For Jackson the primary duty of federal power once invoked, was to protect the many from the few. Like the Bank, like the radicals of South Carolina, like the Washington elite, the Christian movement for justice for the Indians and for public purity posed a threat to Jackson’s vision, which held that the people (or at least white male people) were sovereign and that intermediary forces were too apt to serve their own interests rather than the public’s. Jackson’s solution? Jackson. On the Indian question, he was determined to have his way, and few doubted that he would prevail” (p. 76-77).

In other words, “Jackson was neither a humanitarian nor a blind bigot. He thought of himself as practical” (p. 96).

In his paradoxical way, he espoused rights of man but continued to own slaves and saw nothing wrong with it. In the South, slaves were owned as a way of life, end of story. Even though Jackson believed in the Declaration of Independence and fought for the idea of Union, he was particularly blind to the idea that slavery was repugnant to all these vaunted ideals. At one point, he actively worked against the Constitution to suppress abolitionist mailings in South Carolina. “If Jackson had been a president of consistent principle, the issue [slavery] would have been clear. He was the defender of the Union, the conqueror of nullification, the hero of democracy. An American organization was exercising its constitutional right to free speech and was using the public mails—mails that were to be open to all—to do so. But Jackson was not a president of consistent principle. He was a politician, subject to his own passions and predilections, and those passions and predilections pressed him to cast his lot with those with whom he agreed on the question at hand—slavery—which meant suppressing freedom of speech” (p. 304). Jackson can be very, very hard to understand at times but I believe that he was acting off a set of his own guiding principles.

When I look back to Andrew Jackson, though, I see that his main impact on us today was the establishment of the executive branch as the strongest of the three. No longer would the president bow before whims of Congress! He revolutionized the presidency through his belief that the president was a direct representative of the people of the United States, which was more than Congress could claim at the time. “Patronage, the Bank, nullification, Indian removal, clerical influence in politics, internal improvements, respect abroad—these were the questions that would define Jackson’s White House years. They were questions about power, money, God, and Jackson’s answers were linked to his expansive view of the office of president” (p. 57). Only a month in office and Jackson had vetoed his first bill. During his presidency, Congress raged at him for his tyrannical stronghold on what he believed was right. And you know what? The people loved him. I mean, absolutely loved him! He went straight to the people on any major issues, having his party-friendly newspapers print what he wanted them to say. No president had claimed to be the people’s direct representative but that is what Jackson did and nobody could stop him. “’King Andrew the First,’ as his foes styled him, was the most powerful president in the forty-year history of the office, but his power was marshaled not for personal gain—he was always in financial straits—but, as Jackson saw it, for what he believed was in the best interest of the ordinary, the unconnected, the uneducated. He could be brutal in his application of power, but he was not a brute. He could be unwavering, but he was not close-minded. He was, rather, the great politician of his time, if success in politics is measured by the affirmation of a majority of the people in real time and by the shadow one casts after leaving the stage” (p. 230).

And that, I think, is his greatest legacy—the “shadow” that he has cast ever since on our great nation. After all, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Truman all looked to Jackson and the precedents that he set. He was needy and selfish and vain and opinionated but he cared about people and he could make decisions when they were necessary. Not great decisions sometimes but he didn’t waffle. Whether you love him or hate him (there’s really no middle ground here), Andrew Jackson was and still is one of our greatest Presidents.

“In Nashville, according to legend, a visitor to the Hermitage asked a slave on the place whether he thought Jackson had gone to heaven. ‘If the General wants to go,’ the slave replied, ‘who’s going to stop him’” (p. 346)?

#7: Andrew Jackson Part 2

Cool Stuff about Andrew Jackson
1. Jackson actually married a “married woman.” Rachel Robard’s husband, although initiating divorce proceedings in 1791 didn’t follow through with it until 1793. By then Rachel had been Mrs. Jackson for more than 2 years.
2. Jackson had a hand in naming the state of Tennessee. During the state constitutional convention, some delegates wished to name the state Franklin (after Benjamin Franklin) but Jackson thought the state should be named for its main river, the Tennessee. “Four years earlier Kentucky had graced itself with an Indian name, and Jackson thought Tennessee should follow the example, keeping the name of the river that had made the first settlements possible” (p. 79). He proceeded to second the motion and it carried by a large majority.
3. Ever since his foray into Charleston as a teenager, Jackson fell in love with horse racing and horse breeding and for ever afterwards. “And as Jackson acquired capital and standing in the community [in Tennessee], he became a pillar of what even rabid democrats didn’t blush at calling the ‘sport of kings’” (p. 130). He even killed a man, Charles Dickinson, in a duel, over implications of cheating in a horse race. In fact, Jackson took the first bullet near his heart so that he would be able freely fire and kill his man.
4. Andrew Jackson was involved in numerous duels over the years. One such duel was between Jackson as head of the Tennessee militia and John Sevier, ex-Governor of the State. They already had a heated rivalry through Tennessee politics but it became personal when Sevier insulted Rachel. Jackson could never stand a slur against his wife so he challenged Sevier to a duel in Virginia where neither was hurt. In another affair right before the Creek War began, Jackson was insulted by a young man, named Jesse Benton. Jackson threatened to beat him next time they came into contact. When that meeting took place, it was in the open street and shots were fired by various people. No one was killed but Jackson was hit in the arm and the wound was so bad that the doctors wanted to amputate. Jackson would not allow it but kept that bullet in his body till he was President.
5. The Jacksons seemingly could not have children, so they adopted a boy, named Andrew Jackson Jr, from a sister of Rachel’s.
6. Jackson spent most of his life involved with slavery. He owned hundreds of them himself and even traded them. “Jackson treated slavery as a business matter but one not devoid of humanity” (p. 149). “A small but not insignificant aspect of Jackson’s business during this early period was commerce in slaves” (p. 71).
7. Aaron Burr, formerly Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, ruined his political career when he murdered Alexander Hamilton in a duel. He ran away but schemed to liberate the west under his leadership, creating a new nation next to the United States. He ran into Jackson in Tennessee and convinced the General that he needed an army to help him “get the Spanish out of New Orleans.” Jackson, who looked forward to the same thing, mobilized his militia as Burr headed southwest. Soon afterwards though Jackson heard uncomfortable information, accusing Burr as a traitor to the US. Jackson cut off all future contact with Aaron Burr (which was just as well because Jefferson soon would haul him before the Supreme Court) but had almost, inadvertently, committed treason himself.
8. Jackson, although ruthless and coldhearted where his enemies were concerned, had a softer side as well. During the Creek Wars as he brought his vengeance to bear upon the Indians, Jackson adopted an orphaned Indian boy, named Lyncoya, as a companion for Andrew Jr.
9. Most presidents, after they were inaugurated, hold a small reception afterwards at the White House. However, when Jackson was inaugurated, the party at the White House became a mob instead. For some reason, security broke down and people just began streaming into the White House in crowds—leaving the place literally trashed. One of Jackson’s first duties as president was to have the White House completely cleaned and restocked.
10. Jackson was also one of the first presidents to have, besides his Cabinet, a group of tightly-knit political allies that he could consult on many issues. Most people called this unofficial group, the “Kitchen Cabinet” and Jackson used them for much of his information and for the dissemination of presidential information. “Jackson’s informal council served him as a sounding board for policy, but it also provided sustenance, especially now that Rachel was gone” (p. 416).
11. Jackson was the first president to completely overhaul his real Cabinet mid-presidential term. “As much to prove the smug reckoners wrong as to jettison the dead weight of his useless advisors, Jackson did something no president had ever done (and none would ever do more dramatically): he overthrew his whole cabinet” (p. 448). For various reasons, Jackson’s cabinet had not gelled at all and were becoming quite irksome for him. Thus, he dexterously planned to have some resign, some he fired, and others he re-hired elsewhere. He then put together another cabinet, who, some said, were even more qualified than the first.
12. Andrew Jackson was also the first president to face an assassination attempt (actually a couple of them!) The first one was due to the “spoils system” when a recently unemployed Robert Randolph of the Navy department tried to hit Jackson for losing his job. Randolph was immediately overpowered and Jackson only bloodied. A far more serious attempt occurred due to Jackson’s war on the Bank of the United States when the country went into a recession. The assailant’s name was Richard Lawrence and he was a painter, from England, and who had lost his job. On the steps of the Capitol building in 1835, Jackson was descending the steps when Lawrence shot at him pointblank but the gun never fired. He then tried to shoot him with his other gun but it also did not fire. “Jackson by this time realized he was under mortal attack, and he charged the man with his cane” (p. 504). Lawrence was taken into custody and it was proved that he was mentally insane. The weird part? “In the course of the investigation the police tested the pistols Lawrence aimed at the president. Each time now, the weapons fired perfectly” (p. 505). This circumstance proved to many people that Andrew Jackson was chosen by divine providence.
13. Jackson was the first president to take a trip by railroad.


I have to admit that after some of those other presidents, reading about Andrew Jackson was just plain refreshing. I mean this guy had balls and he let everyone know about it. But could you blame him? He literally came from nothing which is quite different from all the other presidents up to this date. Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were all Virginia landholders and although were they were not wealthy (and most were quite broke), they all started with something. John Adams and his son, John Quincy, never lacked for money and came from a long line of New England farmers. Andrew Jackson was born to a destitute family, fatherless, and by the age of 15, he had lost most of the people he loved. Here then was the American Dream in full force.

Even Jackson’s personality is an enigma. So many people blame him for the Indian catastrophe, believing that he was prejudiced against them, but those same people don’t know that he adopted an Indian boy as his own (of course, he had just killed the boy’s parents.) He was involved in so many duels that I find it amazing that he lived so long and he hated indiscriminately but he was a passionate lover of his family, especially his wife. He was courted and feted and loved by the people of the United States but hated by just about everyone else. He destroyed Britain’s best troops but was then taken to court afterwards for taking over the city in time of war. He inspired such loyalty that it was no wonder that people thought that Jackson had too much power. I like him because you can tell that he was the type that believed in asking forgiveness and not permission.

I also really enjoyed reading this book by HW Brands. It was well-written, not too biased, and it flowed beautifully throughout Jackson’s life. Brands opens the book with a classic Michener-esque feel to it, bringing us back the origins of North America. This opening narrative gives the book a heaviness I would not otherwise have felt if he had just plunked down Andrew Jackson’s birth date on page one. Brands give us a sense that history is important and get this, it flows and repeats itself. For the origins of North America begin with the Indians rollicking over their deliciously unmolested land which is sharply contrasted against the land-hungry, cotton-selling Americans killing and double-dealing to get it back. There is a poetry about Jackson’s story that almost crosses the line into fiction.
Brands also did a great job, I thought, of giving just enough information to understand Andrew Jackson’s life in context with the times. Good background information is given on the Constitution and the start of the state of Tennessee. But Brands’ best achievement was his mini-bios that practically peppered the entire book. I learned quite a bit, by proxy, about Aaron Burr, Nicholas Biddle, John Sevier, Sam Houston and Davy Crockett. I loved how Brands weaved these other men into and out of the life of Andrew Jackson and the story is accordingly so much better for it.

#7: Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)

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.