Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson is a giant among the presidents.  Many of our chief executives have either been weak, ineffective or viewed the presidency as merely a caretaker, secondary to Congress.  Jackson believed that the president had not only the right, but the responsibility, to set the agenda and make sure that the government was enacting policies benefitting the common people.  Jackson viewed all six of his predecessors as part of an American aristocracy.  He was the head of a political dynasty that lasted for 20 years; historians refer to the period from 1828 to 1848 as the “Age of Jackson” and he shaped the modern Democratic party.  Jackson was born in South Carolina (although there is a dispute that he was actually born in North Carolina) to a couple that had emigrated from Ireland.  His father died just before his birth.  During the American Revolution, his oldest brother died in 1779 during the battle of Stono Ferry.  He and his remaining brother were both captured by the British (he was serving as a courier at the age of 13).  His brother died of small pox while a POW, and Jackson was struck with a sword by a British officer for refusing to clean the officers boots.   After Andrew was released by the British, his mother went to work as a nurse on a POW ship and died of Cholera.  She was buried in an unmarked grave and later in life Andrew tried unsuccessfully to locate her grave site (her grave site was located in 1949 and a marker placed there).  In the span of two and a half years he lost both his brothers and his mother in a war with the British.  That, coupled with the scars on his face and arm, gave him an intense hatred of the British.

Soon after Jackson moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1788 he rented a room from the Donelson family.  It was here that he first met Rachel Donelson Robards, who had moved back to her parents’ house to escape her violent husband, Captain Lewis Robards.  In 1790, Rachel and Lewis agreed to a divorce and it was granted pending some minor paperwork.  Andrew was ecstatic and married Rachel in 1791.  Unfortunately Lewis Robards had never filed the minor paperwork.  This led to a scandal that would follow Jackson throughout his life; he had wedded a married women.  The divorce from Lewis was ultimately completed, and Andrew and Rachel remarried in 1794.  However, the damage was done.  Over the years, Andrew would get into bar fights and duels to defend Rachel's honor.  He fought 13 duels throughout his life, most in response to slander against his wife (some sources put the number of duels as high as 100, but 13 seems like a more common response).  In 1806 he shot and killed Charles Dickinson, who was known to be an excellent shot.  Dickinson got off the first shot and hit Jackson in the chest.  Jackson took his time and then leveled his pistol, shooting and killing Dickinson.  This was a slight breach of etiquette since they were supposed to fire at the same time.  If the first person fires early, the proper courtesy is for the second to fire into the air.  The bullet lodged in Jackson’s chest was too close to his heart for safe removal, so it stayed there until his death in 1845.

When Jackson first moved to Tennessee, he worked as a frontier lawyer.  He worked his way up the political ladder and was elected as Tennessee’s first US Representative, where he served only one term.  Then he was elected the senator of Tennessee in 1797, only to serve for one year because he didn’t like being a senator and wanted to return to Tennessee to take care of his personal business and deal with some debts.

In 1801 Jackson was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia.  He volunteered to lead a raid into British controlled Canada during the War of 1812, but instead was sent to defend the important port city of New Orleans.  Jackson added local blacks, creoles and militia to his force of 2,000.  When the British attacked with 7,500 men Jackson had a total of 5,000 with which to defend the city.  He set up 3 lines of defense and when the British launched a major assault, they found themselves exposed to fire from a remarkably entrenched defensive force.  In the end, the British had 2,037 casualties (291 dead, 1,262 wounded, 484 captured) to the American loss of 71 casualties (13 dead, 39 wounded, 19 missing).  They also had 3 senior generals killed.  The staggering success of the battle launched Jackson into national prominence.

During the First Seminole War in 1817, Jackson was ordered to Georgia by President Monroe to fight the Seminole and Creek Indians.  The mission was complicated by the fact that the Indians would launch raids into Georgia from Spanish-held Florida.  Jackson decided naturally that the best way to accomplish his mission was to take Florida from the Spanish!  He was given orders from President Monroe that were ambiguous.  It’s possible that what Jackson did was exactly what Monroe wanted, but the orders weren’t that clear, giving Monroe deniability (it depends on the meaning of the word “is”).  He defeated the Seminoles in pretty brutal fashion (this would become his standard manner of handling Indian affairs).  Once he captured Pensacola, he ousted the Spanish governor.   In one final controversial act he executed two British subjects who had been giving aid to the Indians.   The whole affair led to an international incident with both Spain and Britain.  The Spanish were basically told in diplomatic speak, if you can’t keep control of Florida then give it to us, which they did.  This argument also led James K. Polk to launch the Mexican-American War.  Many in Congress felt that Jackson should be censured for his actions, but John Quincy Adams convinced Monroe not to give any formal punishment.  This was a bit ironic given the later animosity between Q and Jackson.

Once again Jackson was elected to the Senate by the Tennessee legislature in 1823, and once again, he resigned before completing his term.  That probably makes him the only president to resign from the Senate twice.  He resigned from the Senate in 1825 to run for president in 1828.  As you’ll recall from my posting on John Quincy Adams, the election of 1824 was ugly and ended up being decided by the House of Representatives.  The decisive action was when Henry Clay threw his support to Q making him the first president elected without the majority of the popular vote.   Jackson was a bit peeved (to say the least).  He labeled Clay’s actions and Q’s posting him to the Secretary of State’s office as a corrupt bargain that had led to the stealing of the election of the “man of the people” by the “corrupt aristocrat's of the East”.  Jackson believed that the will of people had been thwarted and immediately started running for the 1828 election.  Throughout Q’s term in office Jackson’s supporters in congress stalled and denied most of his wishes. 

If the 1824 election was ugly, then the 1828 was its uglier sister.  The attacks from both sides was brutal and very personal.  Q’s supporters dredged up stories of Jackson’s wife and Adams was called an elitist.  In the end, Jackson beat Adams pretty easily 178-83 electoral votes.  Rachel, Jackson’s wife, died of a heart attack before the inauguration.  Jackson believed that the strain of the campaign, and having to endure the slander, was the cause of his wife’s death.

Jackson was the last president to be elected to two terms until Abraham Lincoln.  What followed him were a series of ineffective presidents and presidents that only wanted one term.  During his presidency there were 3 major issues that arose: the re-charter of the 2nd Bank of the United States, the Nullification Crisis and the Indian removals.

At that time the funds of the United States were held in a national bank, the 2nd Bank of the United States.  Jackson felt that the bank needed to be abolished for several reasons, but among them:

• concentrated all of the nations finances into one institution
• favor of northeastern states over southern and western ones
• too much control of the country’s finances to a handful of rich people

Jackson vetoed the re-charter of the bank in 1832 and withdrew the government’s money in 1833, placing it into local and state banks.  The banks would issue paper bank notes that were not backed by gold or silver reserves to drive up inflation.  Jackson then issued an order that anyone buying government land had to pay in “specie” (gold or silver coins).   This led to the collapse of many of these banks because they did not have enough specie and led directly to the Panic of 1837.  Congress voted to censure Jackson for his actions in removing the money from the 2nd Bank of the United States (although this was later expunged).

The Nullification Crisis was trigged by Jackson’s Vice President, John Calhoun.  Calhoun was from South Carolina and the southern states were being hurt by the “Tariff of Abominations” that was passed during Q’s presidency.  Calhoun issued a statement he called his “Theory of Nullification,” which basically stated that any state could ignore, or nullify, any federal law that it felt was not in the states best interest.  Jackson was a supporter of a strong union and did not believe that the states had the right to nullify federal laws.  In 1832 it really heated up when South Carolina not only state that it intended to nullify a new tariff, but it threatened to secede.  Jackson threatened to send federal troops in to enforce the tariff if necessary.  A compromise was reached, but not before Congress passed the “Force Bill” which authorized the president to send troops in order to support the enforcement of the tariff.

Jackson’s presidency is especially tarnished by his treatment of the Native Americans.  After his election, he signed an act allowing the president to purchase land from the Indians in exchange for land in the West.  The removal act became very popular in Georgia when gold was discovered on Cherokee lands.  This culminated in the Supreme Court decision of Worcester vs. Georgia in which ruled that Georgia could not impose it’s laws on Native American lands.  This led to Jackson stating “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”.  Jackson’s decisions ultimately led to the forced removal of over 45,000 Native Americans, most famously in the “Trail of Tears” where 4,000 Cherokees died during the forced march.

 

Party conversation starters:

• His relationship with Congress was so bad (especially Henry Clay) that he had the Treasury building built just east of the White House so he wouldn’t have to look at the Capital. 
• Saying “now I can’t see the Capital anymore”
• Only president to have shot and killed a man.
• Killed Charles Dickinson in a duel for spreading gossip about his wife, Rachel
• He is the only president to have been prisoner of war.
• Was serving as a courier at the age of 13, thus the distinction that Monroe was the only president wounded during the American Revolution
• Jackson (1767-1845) was reportedly involved in over 100 duels, most to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. He had a bullet in his chest from the 1806 duel and another in his arm from a barroom fight in 1813 with Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton.
• The first attempt to assassinate a president was on Jackson by Richard Lawrence, a house painter. Both of their guns misfired—an event that statisticians say could occur only once in 125,000 times. Andrew Jackson then chased after Lawrence with his walking stick.
• President Jackson remains the only president in United States history to have paid off the national debt.
• John Quincy Adams’ supporters also referred to Jackson as a “jackass”, which Jackson liked and used as a symbol for a time.  It was later popularized by Thomas Nast and became the symbol for the Democratic party.  Nast also created the modern version of Santa Claus, Uncle Sam and the elephant of the Republican party.
• Jackson never had any children of his own, but did adopt his nephew and a Creek Indian orphan, Lyncoya.
• The Petticoat Affair occurred during his 1st term.  Basically, Eaton, his Secretary of War, had married Peggy Timberlake soon after her husband died (oh the scandal!).  All of the wives of Jackson’s cabinet members shunned Peggy and refused to associate with her.  This reminded Jackson of the treatment his wife received, so he ordered his cabinet and their wives to play nice. They refused.  He purged his cabinet and formed a more informal advisory group that became known as the “Kitchen Cabinet.”
• Jackson vetoed more bills than all of his predecessors combined (12-9).
• He is quoted as saying "My only two regrets in life are that I did not hang [John] Calhoun and shoot [Henry] Clay."