Early life
Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier. Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in current-day Northern Ireland, around 1738. Jackson's parents lived in the village of Boneybefore, also in County Antrim. Their former house is preserved as the Andrew Jackson Centre and is open to the public.
When they emigrated to America in 1765, Jackson's parents probably landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They would have traveled overland down through the Appalachian Mountains to the Scots-Irish community in the Waxhaws region, straddling the border between North and South Carolina. They brought two children from Ireland, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert .
Jackson's father died in an accident in February 1767, at the age of 29, three weeks before his son Andrew was born in the Waxhaws area. His exact birth site is unclear because he was born about the
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time his mother was making a difficult trip home from burying Jackson's father. The area was so remote that the border between North and South Carolina had not officially been surveyed
In 1824, Jackson wrote a letter saying that he was born at an uncle's plantation in Lancaster County, South Carolina. But he may have claimed to be a South Carolinian because the state was considering nullification of the Tariff of 1824, which Jackson opposed. In the mid-1850s, second-hand evidence indicated that he may have been born at a different uncle's home in North Carolina.
Jackson received a sporadic education in the local "old-field" school. In 1781, he worked for a time in a saddle-maker's shop. Later, he taught school and studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1787, he was admitted to the bar, and moved to Jonesborough, in what was then the Western District of North Carolina. This area later became the Southwest Territory (1790), the precursor to the state of Tennessee.
Military career
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During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson, at age thirteen, joined a local militia as a courier. His eldest brother, Hugh, died from heat exhaustion during the Battle of Stono Ferry, on June 20, 1779. Jackson and his brother Robert were captured by the British and held as prisoners; they nearly starved to death in captivity. When Jackson refused to clean the boots of a British officer, the officer slashed at the youth with a sword, leaving Jackson with scars on his left hand and head, as well as an intense hatred for the British. While imprisoned, the brothers contracted smallpox.
Robert Jackson died on April 27, 1781, a few days after their mother Elizabeth secured the brothers' release. After being assured Andrew would recover, Elizabeth Jackson volunteered to nurse prisoners of war on board two ships in Charleston harbor, where there had been an outbreak of cholera. She died from the disease in November 1781, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Jackson became an orphan at age 14. Following the deaths of his brothers and mother during the war, Jackson blamed the British for his losses.Jackson was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia in 1801, with the rank of colonel. He was later elected major general of the Tennessee militia in 1802.During the War of 1812, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh encouraged the "Red Stick" Creek Indians of northern Alabama and Georgia to attack white settlements. He had unified tribes in the Northwest to rise up against the Americans, trying to repel European American settlers from those lands north of the Ohio. Four hundred settlers were killed in the Fort Mims massacre. In the resulting Creek War, Jackson commanded the American forces, which included
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Tennessee militia, U.S. regulars, and Cherokee, Choctaw, and Lower Creek warriors.Jackson defeated the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. US forces and their allies killed 800 Red Stick warriors in this battle, but Jackson spared the chief Red Eagle, a mixed-race man also known as William Weatherford. Sam Houston and David Crockett served under Jackson in this campaign. After the victory, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson upon both the Upper Creek enemies and the Lower Creek allies, wresting twenty million acres in present-day Georgia and Alabama from all the Creek for European-American settlement. Jackson was appointed Major General after this action.The Battle of New Orleans. General Andrew Jackson stands on the parapet of his makeshift defenses as his troops repulse attacking Highlanders, by painter Edward Percy Moran in 1910.Jackson's service in the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom was conspicuous for bravery and success. When British forces threatened New Orleans, Jackson took command of the defenses, including militia from several western states and territories. He was a strict officer but was popular with his troops. They said he was "tough as old hickory" wood on the battlefield, and he acquired the nickname of "Old Hickory". In the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, Jackson's 5,000 soldiers won a decisive victory over 7,500 British. At the end of the battle, the British had 2,037 casualties: 291 dead (including three senior generals), 1,262 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing.Jackson became a national hero for his actions in this battle and the war. He received the Thanks of Congress and a gold medal by resolution of February 27, 1815. Alexis de Tocqueville later commented in Democracy in America that Jackson "...was raised to the Presidency, and has been maintained there, solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained, twenty years ago, under the walls of New Orleans."
Legal and political career
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Jackson began his legal career in Jonesborough, now northeastern Tennessee. Though his legal education was scanty, he knew enough to be a country lawyer on the frontier. Since he was not from a distinguished family, he had to make his career by his own merits; soon he began to prosper in the rough-and-tumble world of frontier law. Most of the actions grew out of disputed land-claims, or from assault and battery. In 1788, he was appointed Solicitor (prosecutor) of the Western District and held the same position in the government of the Territory South of the River Ohio after 1791.
Jackson was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention in 1796. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, Jackson was elected its U.S. Representative. The following year, he was elected U.S. Senator as a Democratic-Republican, but he resigned within a year. In 1798, he was appointed a judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court, serving until 1804.
In addition to his legal and political career, Jackson prospered as planter, slave owner, and merchant. He built a home and the first general store in Gallatin, Tennessee in 1803. The next year he acquired the Hermitage, a 640-acre plantation in Davidson County, near Nashville. Jackson later added 360 acres to the plantation, which eventually grew to 1,050 acres . The primary crop was cotton, grown by enslaved workers. Starting with nine slaves, Jackson held as many as 44 by 1820, and later held up to 150 slaves, making him among the planter elite. Throughout his lifetime Jackson may have owned as many as 300 slaves.
Jackson was a major land speculator in West Tennessee after he had negotiated the sale of the land from the Chickasaw Nation in 1818 (termed the Jackson Purchase). He was one of the three original investors who founded Memphis, Tennessee in 1819 .
First Seminole War
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Jackson served in the military again during the First Seminole War. He was ordered by President James Monroe in December 1817 to lead a campaign in Georgia against the Seminole and Creek Indians. Jackson was also charged with preventing Spanish Florida from becoming a refuge for runaway slaves. Critics later alleged that Jackson exceeded orders in his Florida actions. His directions were to "terminate the conflict".Jackson believed the best way to do this was to seize Florida. Before going, Jackson wrote to Monroe, "Let it be signified to me through any channel ... that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished." Monroe gave Jackson orders that were purposely ambiguous, sufficient for international denials.Military governor Jackson was sworn in at Plaza Ferdinand VII in Pensacola, FloridaThe Seminole attacked Jackson's Tennessee volunteers. The Seminole attack left their villages vulnerable, and Jackson burned their houses and the crops. He found letters that indicated that the Spanish and British were secretly assisting the Indians. Jackson believed that the United States could not be secure as long as Spain and the United Kingdom encouraged Indians to fight, and argued that his actions were undertaken in self-defense. Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida, with little more than some warning shots, and deposed the Spanish governor. He captured and then tried and executed two British subjects, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been supplying and advising the Indians. Jackson's actions struck fear into the Seminole tribes as word spread of his ruthlessness in battle (he became known as "Sharp Knife").The executions, and Jackson's invasion of territory belonging to Spain, a country with which the U.S. was not at war, created an international incident. Many in the Monroe administration called for Jackson to be censured. The Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, an early believer in Manifest Destiny, defended Jackson. When the Spanish minister demanded a "suitable punishment" for Jackson, Adams wrote back, "Spain must immediately [decide] either to place a force in Florida adequate at once to the protection of her territory ... or cede to the United States a province, of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is, in fact ... a post of annoyance to them." Adams used Jackson's conquest, and Spain's own weakness, to get Spain to cede Florida to the United States by the Adams–Onís Treaty. Jackson was subsequently named Florida's military governor and served from March 10, 1821, to December 31, 1821.
Election of 1824 and1828
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The Tennessee legislature nominated Jackson for President in 1822. It also elected him U.S. Senator again. By 1824, the Democratic-Republican Party had become the only functioning national party. Its Presidential candidates had been chosen by an informal Congressional nominating caucus, but this had become unpopular. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus. Those who attended backed Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford for President and Albert Gallatin for Vice President. A Pennsylvanian convention nominated Jackson for President a month later, stating that the irregular caucus ignored the "voice of the people" and was a "vain hope that the American people might be thus deceived into a belief that he was the regular democratic candidate."Gallatin criticized Jackson as "an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office."Besides Jackson and Crawford, the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay were also candidates. Jackson received the most popular votes (but not a majority, and four states had no popular ballot). The electoral votes were split four ways, with Jackson having a plurality. Since no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, which chose Adams. Jackson supporters denounced this result as a "corrupt bargain" because Clay gave his state's support to Adams, who subsequently appointed Clay as Secretary of State. As none of Kentucky's electors had initially voted for Adams, and Jackson had won the popular vote, some Kentucky politicians criticized Clay for violating the will of the people in return for personal political favors. Jackson's defeat burnished his political credentials, however; many voters believed the "man of the people" had been robbed by the "corrupt aristocrats of the East."Jackson resigned from the Senate in October 1825, but continued his quest for the Presidency. The Tennessee legislature again nominated Jackson for President. Jackson attracted Vice President John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas Ritchie into his camp (Van Buren and Ritchie were previous supporters of Crawford). Van Buren, with help from his friends in Philadelphia and Richmond, revived the old Republican Party, gave it a new name as the Democratic Party, "restored party rivalries," and forged a national organization of durability. The Jackson coalition handily defeated Adams in 1828.During the election, Jackson's opponents referred to him as a "jackass". Jackson liked the name and used the jackass as a symbol for a while, but it died out. However, it later became the symbol for the Democratic Party when cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized it.The campaign was very much a personal one. As was the custom at the time, neither candidate personally campaigned, but their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically attacked in the press, which reached a low point when the press accused Jackson's wife Rachel of bigamy. Though the accusation was true, as were most personal attacks leveled against him during the campaign, it was based on events that occurred many years prior . Jackson said he would forgive those who insulted him, but he would never forgive the ones who attacked his wife. Rachel died suddenly on December 22, 1828, before his inauguration, and was buried on Christmas Eve.
Election of 1832
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In the 1832 presidential election, Jackson easily won reelection as the candidate of the Democratic Party against Henry Clay, of the National Republican Party, and William Wirt, of the Anti-Masonic Party. Jackson jettisoned Vice President John C. Calhoun because of his support for nullification and involvement in the Petticoat affair, replacing him with longtime confidant Martin Van Buren of New York.
Presidency 1829–1837
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In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished. The accomplishment was short lived. A severe depression from 1837 to 1844 caused a tenfold increase in national debt within its first year.Electoral CollegeJackson repeatedly called for the abolition of the Electoral College by constitutional amendment in his annual messages to Congress as President. In his third annual message to Congress, he expressed the view "I have heretofore recommended amendments of the Federal Constitution giving the election of President and Vice-President to the people and limiting the service of the former to a single term. So important do I consider these changes in our fundamental law that I can not, in accordance with my sense of duty, omit to press them upon the consideration of a new Congress."Spoils systemMain article: Spoils systemWhen Jackson became President, he implemented the theory of rotation in office by political appointments, declaring it "a leading principle in the republican creed." He believed that rotation in office would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy. To strengthen party loyalty, Jackson's supporters wanted to give the posts to party members, a patronage system. In practice, this meant replacing federal employees with friends or party loyalists. By the end of his term, Jackson dismissed nearly 20% of the Federal employees at the start of it, replacing them with political appointees from his party.While Jackson did not start the "spoils system", he did encourage its growth for many years to come. It led to its own kind of corruption, including the appointment of officials with no experience related to their responsibilities.
Opposition to the National Bank
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The Second Bank of the United States was authorized for a 20-year period during James Madison's tenure in 1816. As President, Jackson worked to rescind the bank's federal charter. In Jackson's veto message, the bank needed to be abolished because:
It concentrated the nation's financial strength in a single institution,
It exposed the government to control by foreign interests,
It served mainly to make the rich richer,
It exercised too much control over members of Congress,
It favored northeastern states over southern and western states,
Banks are controlled by a few select families.
Following Jefferson, Jackson supported an "agricultural republic" and felt the Bank improved the fortunes of an "elite circle" of commercial and industrial entrepreneurs at the expense of farmers and laborers. After a titanic struggle, Jackson succeeded in destroying the Bank by vetoing its 1832 re-charter by Congress and by withdrawing U.S. funds in 1833. The bank's money-lending functions were taken over by the legions of local and state banks that sprang up. This increased credit and speculation. At first, as Jackson withdrew money from the Bank to invest it in other banks, land sales, canal construction, cotton production, and manufacturing boomed.Then, in 1836, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, which required buyers of government lands to pay in "specie" (gold or silver coins). The result was a great demand for specie, which many banks did not have enough of to exchange for their notes. These banks collapsed.[34] This was a direct cause of the Panic of 1837, which threw the national economy into a deep depression. It took years for the economy to recover from the damageThe U.S. Senate censured Jackson on March 28, 1834, for his action in removing U.S. funds from the Bank of the United States. When the Jacksonians had a majority in the Senate, the censure was expunged.
Nullification crisis
Another notable crisis during Jackson's period of office was the "Nullification Crisis", or "secession crisis", of 1828 – 1832, which merged issues of sectional strife with disagreements over tariffs. Critics alleged that high tariffs on imports of common manufactured goods made in Europe made those goods more expensive than ones from the northern U.S., raising the prices paid by planters in the South. Southern politicians argued that tariffs benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers.The issue came to a head when Vice President Calhoun, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, supported the claim of his home state, South Carolina, that it had the right to "nullify"—declare void—the tariff legislation of 1828, and more generally the right of a state to nullify any Federal laws that went against its interests. Although Jackson sympathized with the South in the tariff debate, he was also a strong supporter of a strong union, with effective powers for the central government. Jackson attempted to face down Calhoun over the issue, which developed into a bitter rivalry between the two men.Particularly notable was an incident at the April 13, 1830, Jefferson Day dinner, involving after-dinner toasts. Robert Hayne began by toasting to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States." Jackson then rose, and in a booming voice added "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to Calhoun. Calhoun clarified his position by responding "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dearThe relationship between Jackson and Calhoun was further strained when the Vice President's wife, Floride Calhoun, led several other Cabinet members and their wives in the social ostracism of Secretary of War John H. Eaton and his wife, Margaret O'Neill Eaton in what became known as the Petticoat affair, causing further resignations from Jackson's cabinet, leading to its reorganization as the "Kitchen Cabinet". Martin Van Buren, despite resigning as Secretary of State, played a leading role in the new unofficial cabinet. At the first Democratic National Convention, privately engineered by members of the Kitchen Cabinet following the Petticoat Affair, Calhoun and Jackson broke apart politically from one another, and Van Buren replaced Calhoun as Jackson's running mate in the 1832 presidential election . In December 1832, Calhoun resigned as Vice President to become a U.S. Senator for South Carolina.In response to South Carolina's nullification claim, Jackson vowed to send troops to South Carolina to enforce the laws. In December, 1832, he issued a resounding proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." South Carolina, the President declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason," and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union for which their ancestors had fought. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution... forms a government not a league... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation."Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" explicitly authorizing the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but its passage was delayed until protectionists led by Clay agreed to a reduced Compromise Tariff. The Force Bill and Compromise Tariff passed on March 1, 1833, and Jackson signed both. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance. The Force Bill became moot because it was no longer needed. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote, "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.".
Indian removal
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Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Jackson's presidency was his policy regarding Native Americans, which hostile historians see as amounting to the ethnic cleansing of several Indian tribes.Jackson was a leading advocate of a policy known as Indian removal. Jackson had been negotiating treaties and removal policies with Indian leaders for years before his election as president. Many tribes and portions of tribes had been removed to Arkansas Territory and further west of the Mississippi River without the suffering of what later became known as the Trail of Tears. Further, many white Americans advocated total extermination of the "savages", particularly those who had experienced frontier wars. Jackson's support of removal policies can be best understood by examination of those prior cases he had personally negotiated, rather than those in post-presidential years. Nevertheless, Jackson is often held responsible for all that took place in the 1830s.
In his December 8, 1829, First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson stated:This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry.Before his election as president, Jackson had been involved with the issue of Indian removal for over ten years. The removal of the Native Americans to the west of the Mississippi River had been a major part of his political agenda in both the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections. After his election he signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830. The Act authorized the President to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the east in exchange for lands further west, outside of existing U.S. state borders.While frequently frowned upon in the North, and opposed by Jeremiah Evarts and Theodore Frelinghuysen, the Removal Act was popular in the South, where population growth and the discovery of gold on Cherokee land had increased pressure on tribal lands. The state of Georgia became involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokees, culminating in the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Worcester v. Georgia), which ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. Jackson is often quoted (regarding the decision) as having said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" According to Remini, Jackson never said this, as the quote first appeared in Horace Greeley's The American Conflict in 1864.In any case, Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. A small faction of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated the Treaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate.[48] Over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal; the list was ignored by the Supreme Court and the U.S. legislature, in part due to delays and timing.[49] The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren, who ordered 7,000 armed troops to remove the Cherokees. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered until troops arrived.[50] This abrupt and forced removal resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Cherokees on the "Trail of Tears".By the 1830s, under constant pressure from settlers, each of the five southern tribes had ceded most of its lands, but sizable self-government groups lived in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. All of these (except the Seminoles) had moved far in the coexistence with whites, and they resisted suggestions that they should voluntarily remove themselves. Their nonviolent methods earned them the title the Five Civilized Tribes.More than 45,000 American Indians were relocated to the West during Jackson's administration. A few Cherokees escaped forced relocation, or walked back afterwards, escaping to the high Smoky Mountains along the North Carolina and Tennessee border.
Jackson's administration bought about 100 million acres (400,000 km²) of Indian land for about $68 million and 32 million acres (130,000 km²) of western land. Jackson was criticized at the time for his role in these events, and the criticism has grown over the years. U.S. historian Robert V. Remini characterizes the Indian Removal era as "one of the unhappiest chapters in American history."
Attack
The first presidential attack was against Jackson. Jackson ordered the dismissal of Robert B. Randolph from the Navy for embezzlement. On May 6, 1833, Jackson sailed on USS Cygnet to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was to lay the cornerstone on a monument near the grave of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother. During a stopover near Alexandria, Randolph appeared and struck the President. He fled the scene chased by several members of Jackson's party, including the well-known writer Washington Irving. Jackson decided not to press charges.
On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a sitting President of the United States occurred just outside the United States Capitol. When Jackson was leaving through the East Portico after the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren R. Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed housepainter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Historians believe the humid weather contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was restrained, and legend says that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane. Others present, including David Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence.
Lawrence told doctors later his reasons for the shooting. He blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty" (a reference to Jackson's struggle with the Bank of the United States) and that he "could not rise until the President fell." Finally, he told his interrogators that he was a deposed English King—specifically, Richard III, dead since 1485—and that Jackson was his clerk. He was deemed insane and institutionalized.
Afterward, due to public curiosity concerning the double misfires, the pistols were tested and retested. Each time they performed perfectly. Many believed that Jackson had been protected by the same Providence that protected the young nation. This national pride was a large part of the Jacksonian cultural myth fueling American expansion in the 1830s.
Family life
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Shortly after Jackson first arrived in Nashville in 1788, he lived as a boarder with Rachel Stockley Donelson, the widow of John Donelson. Here Jackson became acquainted with their daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. At the time, Rachel Robards was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, a man subject to irrational[dubious – discuss] fits of jealous rage. Due to Lewis Robards' temperament, the two were separated in 1790. According to Jackson, he married Rachel after hearing that Robards had obtained a divorce. However, the divorce had never been completed, making Rachel's marriage to Jackson technically bigamous and therefore invalid. After the divorce was officially completed, Rachel and Jackson remarried in 1794. To complicate matters further, evidence shows that Donelson had been living with Jackson and referred to herself as Mrs. Jackson before the petition for divorce was ever made.It was not uncommon on the frontier for relationships to be formed and dissolved unofficially, as long as they were recognized by the community.The controversy surrounding their marriage remained a sore point for Jackson, who deeply resented attacks on his wife’s honor. With his anger over attacks about Rachel, and his participation in violent confrontations, Jackson gained a reputation as a quarrelsome and vengeful man. By May 1806, Charles Dickinson had published an attack on Jackson in the local newspaper, and it resulted in a written challenge from Jackson to a duel. In the duel, Dickinson shot Jackson in the ribs before Jackson returned the fatal shot; Since Dickinson was considered an expert shot, Jackson and his friend, Thomas Overton, determined it would be best to let Dickinson turn and fire first, hoping that his aim might be spoiled in his quickness. Jackson would wait and take careful aim at Dickinson. Dickinson did fire first, hitting Jackson in the chest. Under the rules of dueling, Dickinson had to remain still as Jackson took aim and shot and killed him. However, the bullet that struck Jackson was so close to his heart that it could never be safely removed. Jackson had been wounded so frequently in duels that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles."Jackson’s reputation suffered greatly from the duel.Rachel died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, two weeks after her husband's victory in the election and two months before Jackson took office as President. Jackson blamed John Quincy Adams for Rachel's death because the episode ridiculing his wife was repeatedly used in the campaign of 1828. He felt that this had hastened her death and never forgave Adams.
Jackson had three adopted sons, Theodore, an Indian about whom little is known,Andrew Jackson Jr., the son of Rachel's brother Severn Donelson, and Lyncoya, a Creek Indian orphan adopted by Jackson after the Creek War. Lyncoya died of tuberculosis in 1828, at the age of sixteen.
The Jacksons also acted as guardians for eight other children. John Samuel Donelson, Daniel Smith Donelson and Andrew Jackson Donelson were the sons of Rachel's brother Samuel Donelson, who died in 1804. Andrew Jackson Hutchings was Rachel's orphaned grand nephew. Caroline Butler, Eliza Butler, Edward Butler, and Anthony Butler were the orphaned children of Edward Butler, a family friend. They came to live with the Jacksons after the death of their father.
The widower Jackson invited Rachel's niece Emily Donelson to serve as host at the White House. Emily was married to Andrew Jackson Donelson, who acted as Jackson's private secretary and in 1856 would run for Vice President on the American Party ticket. The relationship between the President and Emily became strained during the Petticoat affair, and the two became estranged for over a year. They eventually reconciled and she resumed her duties as White House host. Sarah Yorke Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson Jr., became cohost of the White House in 1834. It was the only time in history when two women simultaneously acted as unofficial First Lady. Sarah took over all hosting duties after Emily died from tuberculosis in 1836. Jackson used Rip Raps as a retreat, visiting between August 19, 1829 through August 16, 1835.Jackson remained influential in both national and state politics after retiring to The Hermitage in 1837. Jackson remained a firm advocate of the federal union of the states, and rejected any talk of secession. "I will die with the Union," he always insisted.The tomb of Andrew and Rachel Donelson Jackson located at their home, The Hermitage.Jackson was a lean figure standing at 6 feet, 1 inch (1.85 m) tall, and weighing between 130 and 140 pounds on average. Jackson also had an unruly shock of red hair, which had completely grayed by the time he became president at age 61. He had penetrating deep blue eyes. Jackson was one of the more sickly presidents, suffering from chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a hacking cough, caused by a musket ball in his lung that was never removed, that often brought up blood and sometimes made his whole body shake. After retiring to Nashville, he enjoyed eight years of retirement and died at The Hermitage on June 8, 1845, at the age of 78, of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, and heart failure.In his will, Jackson left his entire estate to his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr., except for specifically enumerated items that were left to various other friends and family members. About a year after retiring the presidency, Jackson became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
Jackson on U.S. Postage
Andrew Jackson is one of the few American presidents ever to appear on US Postage more than the usual two or three times. He died in 1845, but the U.S. Post Office did not release a postage stamp in his honor until 18 years after his death, with the issue of 1863, a 2-cent black issue, commonly referred to by collectors as the 'Black Jack'. In contrast, the first Warren G. Harding stamp was released only one month after his death, Lincoln, one year exactly. As Jackson was a controversial figure in his day there is speculation that officials in Washington chose to wait a period of time before issuing a stamp with his portrait. In all, Jackson has appeared on thirteen different US postage stamps, more than that of most US presidents and second only to the number of times Washington, Franklin and Lincoln have appeared. During the American Civil War the Confederate government also issued two Confederate postage stamps bearing Jackson's portrait, one a 2-cent red stamp and the other a 2-cent green stamp, both issued in 1863.Jackson also appears on other U.S. Postage stamps of the 19th and 20th centuries. In all, Jackson appears on twelve US Postage stamps to date.
Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier. Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in current-day Northern Ireland, around 1738. Jackson's parents lived in the village of Boneybefore, also in County Antrim. Their former house is preserved as the Andrew Jackson Centre and is open to the public.
When they emigrated to America in 1765, Jackson's parents probably landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They would have traveled overland down through the Appalachian Mountains to the Scots-Irish community in the Waxhaws region, straddling the border between North and South Carolina. They brought two children from Ireland, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert .
Jackson's father died in an accident in February 1767, at the age of 29, three weeks before his son Andrew was born in the Waxhaws area. His exact birth site is unclear because he was born about the
time his mother was making a difficult trip home from burying Jackson's father. The area was so remote that the border between North and South Carolina had not officially been surveyed
In 1824, Jackson wrote a letter saying that he was born at an uncle's plantation in Lancaster County, South Carolina. But he may have claimed to be a South Carolinian because the state was considering nullification of the Tariff of 1824, which Jackson opposed. In the mid-1850s, second-hand evidence indicated that he may have been born at a different uncle's home in North Carolina.
Jackson received a sporadic education in the local "old-field" school. In 1781, he worked for a time in a saddle-maker's shop. Later, he taught school and studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1787, he was admitted to the bar, and moved to Jonesborough, in what was then the Western District of North Carolina. This area later became the Southwest Territory (1790), the precursor to the state of Tennessee.
Military career
Robert Jackson died on April 27, 1781, a few days after their mother Elizabeth secured the brothers' release. After being assured Andrew would recover, Elizabeth Jackson volunteered to nurse prisoners of war on board two ships in Charleston harbor, where there had been an outbreak of cholera. She died from the disease in November 1781, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Jackson became an orphan at age 14. Following the deaths of his brothers and mother during the war, Jackson blamed the British for his losses.Jackson was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia in 1801, with the rank of colonel. He was later elected major general of the Tennessee militia in 1802.During the War of 1812, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh encouraged the "Red Stick" Creek Indians of northern Alabama and Georgia to attack white settlements. He had unified tribes in the Northwest to rise up against the Americans, trying to repel European American settlers from those lands north of the Ohio. Four hundred settlers were killed in the Fort Mims massacre. In the resulting Creek War, Jackson commanded the American forces, which included
Tennessee militia, U.S. regulars, and Cherokee, Choctaw, and Lower Creek warriors.Jackson defeated the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. US forces and their allies killed 800 Red Stick warriors in this battle, but Jackson spared the chief Red Eagle, a mixed-race man also known as William Weatherford. Sam Houston and David Crockett served under Jackson in this campaign. After the victory, Jackson imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson upon both the Upper Creek enemies and the Lower Creek allies, wresting twenty million acres in present-day Georgia and Alabama from all the Creek for European-American settlement. Jackson was appointed Major General after this action.The Battle of New Orleans. General Andrew Jackson stands on the parapet of his makeshift defenses as his troops repulse attacking Highlanders, by painter Edward Percy Moran in 1910.Jackson's service in the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom was conspicuous for bravery and success. When British forces threatened New Orleans, Jackson took command of the defenses, including militia from several western states and territories. He was a strict officer but was popular with his troops. They said he was "tough as old hickory" wood on the battlefield, and he acquired the nickname of "Old Hickory". In the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, Jackson's 5,000 soldiers won a decisive victory over 7,500 British. At the end of the battle, the British had 2,037 casualties: 291 dead (including three senior generals), 1,262 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing.Jackson became a national hero for his actions in this battle and the war. He received the Thanks of Congress and a gold medal by resolution of February 27, 1815. Alexis de Tocqueville later commented in Democracy in America that Jackson "...was raised to the Presidency, and has been maintained there, solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained, twenty years ago, under the walls of New Orleans."
Legal and political career
Jackson began his legal career in Jonesborough, now northeastern Tennessee. Though his legal education was scanty, he knew enough to be a country lawyer on the frontier. Since he was not from a distinguished family, he had to make his career by his own merits; soon he began to prosper in the rough-and-tumble world of frontier law. Most of the actions grew out of disputed land-claims, or from assault and battery. In 1788, he was appointed Solicitor (prosecutor) of the Western District and held the same position in the government of the Territory South of the River Ohio after 1791.
Jackson was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention in 1796. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, Jackson was elected its U.S. Representative. The following year, he was elected U.S. Senator as a Democratic-Republican, but he resigned within a year. In 1798, he was appointed a judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court, serving until 1804.
In addition to his legal and political career, Jackson prospered as planter, slave owner, and merchant. He built a home and the first general store in Gallatin, Tennessee in 1803. The next year he acquired the Hermitage, a 640-acre plantation in Davidson County, near Nashville. Jackson later added 360 acres to the plantation, which eventually grew to 1,050 acres . The primary crop was cotton, grown by enslaved workers. Starting with nine slaves, Jackson held as many as 44 by 1820, and later held up to 150 slaves, making him among the planter elite. Throughout his lifetime Jackson may have owned as many as 300 slaves.
Jackson was a major land speculator in West Tennessee after he had negotiated the sale of the land from the Chickasaw Nation in 1818 (termed the Jackson Purchase). He was one of the three original investors who founded Memphis, Tennessee in 1819 .
First Seminole War
Jackson served in the military again during the First Seminole War. He was ordered by President James Monroe in December 1817 to lead a campaign in Georgia against the Seminole and Creek Indians. Jackson was also charged with preventing Spanish Florida from becoming a refuge for runaway slaves. Critics later alleged that Jackson exceeded orders in his Florida actions. His directions were to "terminate the conflict".Jackson believed the best way to do this was to seize Florida. Before going, Jackson wrote to Monroe, "Let it be signified to me through any channel ... that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished." Monroe gave Jackson orders that were purposely ambiguous, sufficient for international denials.Military governor Jackson was sworn in at Plaza Ferdinand VII in Pensacola, FloridaThe Seminole attacked Jackson's Tennessee volunteers. The Seminole attack left their villages vulnerable, and Jackson burned their houses and the crops. He found letters that indicated that the Spanish and British were secretly assisting the Indians. Jackson believed that the United States could not be secure as long as Spain and the United Kingdom encouraged Indians to fight, and argued that his actions were undertaken in self-defense. Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida, with little more than some warning shots, and deposed the Spanish governor. He captured and then tried and executed two British subjects, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, who had been supplying and advising the Indians. Jackson's actions struck fear into the Seminole tribes as word spread of his ruthlessness in battle (he became known as "Sharp Knife").The executions, and Jackson's invasion of territory belonging to Spain, a country with which the U.S. was not at war, created an international incident. Many in the Monroe administration called for Jackson to be censured. The Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, an early believer in Manifest Destiny, defended Jackson. When the Spanish minister demanded a "suitable punishment" for Jackson, Adams wrote back, "Spain must immediately [decide] either to place a force in Florida adequate at once to the protection of her territory ... or cede to the United States a province, of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is, in fact ... a post of annoyance to them." Adams used Jackson's conquest, and Spain's own weakness, to get Spain to cede Florida to the United States by the Adams–Onís Treaty. Jackson was subsequently named Florida's military governor and served from March 10, 1821, to December 31, 1821.
Election of 1824 and1828
The Tennessee legislature nominated Jackson for President in 1822. It also elected him U.S. Senator again. By 1824, the Democratic-Republican Party had become the only functioning national party. Its Presidential candidates had been chosen by an informal Congressional nominating caucus, but this had become unpopular. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus. Those who attended backed Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford for President and Albert Gallatin for Vice President. A Pennsylvanian convention nominated Jackson for President a month later, stating that the irregular caucus ignored the "voice of the people" and was a "vain hope that the American people might be thus deceived into a belief that he was the regular democratic candidate."Gallatin criticized Jackson as "an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office."Besides Jackson and Crawford, the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay were also candidates. Jackson received the most popular votes (but not a majority, and four states had no popular ballot). The electoral votes were split four ways, with Jackson having a plurality. Since no candidate received a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, which chose Adams. Jackson supporters denounced this result as a "corrupt bargain" because Clay gave his state's support to Adams, who subsequently appointed Clay as Secretary of State. As none of Kentucky's electors had initially voted for Adams, and Jackson had won the popular vote, some Kentucky politicians criticized Clay for violating the will of the people in return for personal political favors. Jackson's defeat burnished his political credentials, however; many voters believed the "man of the people" had been robbed by the "corrupt aristocrats of the East."Jackson resigned from the Senate in October 1825, but continued his quest for the Presidency. The Tennessee legislature again nominated Jackson for President. Jackson attracted Vice President John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas Ritchie into his camp (Van Buren and Ritchie were previous supporters of Crawford). Van Buren, with help from his friends in Philadelphia and Richmond, revived the old Republican Party, gave it a new name as the Democratic Party, "restored party rivalries," and forged a national organization of durability. The Jackson coalition handily defeated Adams in 1828.During the election, Jackson's opponents referred to him as a "jackass". Jackson liked the name and used the jackass as a symbol for a while, but it died out. However, it later became the symbol for the Democratic Party when cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized it.The campaign was very much a personal one. As was the custom at the time, neither candidate personally campaigned, but their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically attacked in the press, which reached a low point when the press accused Jackson's wife Rachel of bigamy. Though the accusation was true, as were most personal attacks leveled against him during the campaign, it was based on events that occurred many years prior . Jackson said he would forgive those who insulted him, but he would never forgive the ones who attacked his wife. Rachel died suddenly on December 22, 1828, before his inauguration, and was buried on Christmas Eve.
Election of 1832
In the 1832 presidential election, Jackson easily won reelection as the candidate of the Democratic Party against Henry Clay, of the National Republican Party, and William Wirt, of the Anti-Masonic Party. Jackson jettisoned Vice President John C. Calhoun because of his support for nullification and involvement in the Petticoat affair, replacing him with longtime confidant Martin Van Buren of New York.
Presidency 1829–1837
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished. The accomplishment was short lived. A severe depression from 1837 to 1844 caused a tenfold increase in national debt within its first year.Electoral CollegeJackson repeatedly called for the abolition of the Electoral College by constitutional amendment in his annual messages to Congress as President. In his third annual message to Congress, he expressed the view "I have heretofore recommended amendments of the Federal Constitution giving the election of President and Vice-President to the people and limiting the service of the former to a single term. So important do I consider these changes in our fundamental law that I can not, in accordance with my sense of duty, omit to press them upon the consideration of a new Congress."Spoils systemMain article: Spoils systemWhen Jackson became President, he implemented the theory of rotation in office by political appointments, declaring it "a leading principle in the republican creed." He believed that rotation in office would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy. To strengthen party loyalty, Jackson's supporters wanted to give the posts to party members, a patronage system. In practice, this meant replacing federal employees with friends or party loyalists. By the end of his term, Jackson dismissed nearly 20% of the Federal employees at the start of it, replacing them with political appointees from his party.While Jackson did not start the "spoils system", he did encourage its growth for many years to come. It led to its own kind of corruption, including the appointment of officials with no experience related to their responsibilities.
Opposition to the National Bank
The Second Bank of the United States was authorized for a 20-year period during James Madison's tenure in 1816. As President, Jackson worked to rescind the bank's federal charter. In Jackson's veto message, the bank needed to be abolished because:
It concentrated the nation's financial strength in a single institution,
It exposed the government to control by foreign interests,
It served mainly to make the rich richer,
It exercised too much control over members of Congress,
It favored northeastern states over southern and western states,
Banks are controlled by a few select families.
Following Jefferson, Jackson supported an "agricultural republic" and felt the Bank improved the fortunes of an "elite circle" of commercial and industrial entrepreneurs at the expense of farmers and laborers. After a titanic struggle, Jackson succeeded in destroying the Bank by vetoing its 1832 re-charter by Congress and by withdrawing U.S. funds in 1833. The bank's money-lending functions were taken over by the legions of local and state banks that sprang up. This increased credit and speculation. At first, as Jackson withdrew money from the Bank to invest it in other banks, land sales, canal construction, cotton production, and manufacturing boomed.Then, in 1836, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, which required buyers of government lands to pay in "specie" (gold or silver coins). The result was a great demand for specie, which many banks did not have enough of to exchange for their notes. These banks collapsed.[34] This was a direct cause of the Panic of 1837, which threw the national economy into a deep depression. It took years for the economy to recover from the damageThe U.S. Senate censured Jackson on March 28, 1834, for his action in removing U.S. funds from the Bank of the United States. When the Jacksonians had a majority in the Senate, the censure was expunged.
Nullification crisis
Another notable crisis during Jackson's period of office was the "Nullification Crisis", or "secession crisis", of 1828 – 1832, which merged issues of sectional strife with disagreements over tariffs. Critics alleged that high tariffs on imports of common manufactured goods made in Europe made those goods more expensive than ones from the northern U.S., raising the prices paid by planters in the South. Southern politicians argued that tariffs benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers.The issue came to a head when Vice President Calhoun, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, supported the claim of his home state, South Carolina, that it had the right to "nullify"—declare void—the tariff legislation of 1828, and more generally the right of a state to nullify any Federal laws that went against its interests. Although Jackson sympathized with the South in the tariff debate, he was also a strong supporter of a strong union, with effective powers for the central government. Jackson attempted to face down Calhoun over the issue, which developed into a bitter rivalry between the two men.Particularly notable was an incident at the April 13, 1830, Jefferson Day dinner, involving after-dinner toasts. Robert Hayne began by toasting to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States." Jackson then rose, and in a booming voice added "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" – a clear challenge to Calhoun. Calhoun clarified his position by responding "The Union: Next to our Liberty, the most dearThe relationship between Jackson and Calhoun was further strained when the Vice President's wife, Floride Calhoun, led several other Cabinet members and their wives in the social ostracism of Secretary of War John H. Eaton and his wife, Margaret O'Neill Eaton in what became known as the Petticoat affair, causing further resignations from Jackson's cabinet, leading to its reorganization as the "Kitchen Cabinet". Martin Van Buren, despite resigning as Secretary of State, played a leading role in the new unofficial cabinet. At the first Democratic National Convention, privately engineered by members of the Kitchen Cabinet following the Petticoat Affair, Calhoun and Jackson broke apart politically from one another, and Van Buren replaced Calhoun as Jackson's running mate in the 1832 presidential election . In December 1832, Calhoun resigned as Vice President to become a U.S. Senator for South Carolina.In response to South Carolina's nullification claim, Jackson vowed to send troops to South Carolina to enforce the laws. In December, 1832, he issued a resounding proclamation against the "nullifiers", stating that he considered "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." South Carolina, the President declared, stood on "the brink of insurrection and treason," and he appealed to the people of the state to reassert their allegiance to that Union for which their ancestors had fought. Jackson also denied the right of secession: "The Constitution... forms a government not a league... To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation."Jackson asked Congress to pass a "Force Bill" explicitly authorizing the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but its passage was delayed until protectionists led by Clay agreed to a reduced Compromise Tariff. The Force Bill and Compromise Tariff passed on March 1, 1833, and Jackson signed both. The South Carolina Convention then met and rescinded its nullification ordinance. The Force Bill became moot because it was no longer needed. On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote, "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.".
Indian removal
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Jackson's presidency was his policy regarding Native Americans, which hostile historians see as amounting to the ethnic cleansing of several Indian tribes.Jackson was a leading advocate of a policy known as Indian removal. Jackson had been negotiating treaties and removal policies with Indian leaders for years before his election as president. Many tribes and portions of tribes had been removed to Arkansas Territory and further west of the Mississippi River without the suffering of what later became known as the Trail of Tears. Further, many white Americans advocated total extermination of the "savages", particularly those who had experienced frontier wars. Jackson's support of removal policies can be best understood by examination of those prior cases he had personally negotiated, rather than those in post-presidential years. Nevertheless, Jackson is often held responsible for all that took place in the 1830s.
In his December 8, 1829, First Annual Message to Congress, Jackson stated:This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry.Before his election as president, Jackson had been involved with the issue of Indian removal for over ten years. The removal of the Native Americans to the west of the Mississippi River had been a major part of his political agenda in both the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections. After his election he signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830. The Act authorized the President to negotiate treaties to buy tribal lands in the east in exchange for lands further west, outside of existing U.S. state borders.While frequently frowned upon in the North, and opposed by Jeremiah Evarts and Theodore Frelinghuysen, the Removal Act was popular in the South, where population growth and the discovery of gold on Cherokee land had increased pressure on tribal lands. The state of Georgia became involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokees, culminating in the 1832 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Worcester v. Georgia), which ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. Jackson is often quoted (regarding the decision) as having said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" According to Remini, Jackson never said this, as the quote first appeared in Horace Greeley's The American Conflict in 1864.In any case, Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. A small faction of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated the Treaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate.[48] Over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal; the list was ignored by the Supreme Court and the U.S. legislature, in part due to delays and timing.[49] The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren, who ordered 7,000 armed troops to remove the Cherokees. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered until troops arrived.[50] This abrupt and forced removal resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Cherokees on the "Trail of Tears".By the 1830s, under constant pressure from settlers, each of the five southern tribes had ceded most of its lands, but sizable self-government groups lived in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. All of these (except the Seminoles) had moved far in the coexistence with whites, and they resisted suggestions that they should voluntarily remove themselves. Their nonviolent methods earned them the title the Five Civilized Tribes.More than 45,000 American Indians were relocated to the West during Jackson's administration. A few Cherokees escaped forced relocation, or walked back afterwards, escaping to the high Smoky Mountains along the North Carolina and Tennessee border.
Jackson's administration bought about 100 million acres (400,000 km²) of Indian land for about $68 million and 32 million acres (130,000 km²) of western land. Jackson was criticized at the time for his role in these events, and the criticism has grown over the years. U.S. historian Robert V. Remini characterizes the Indian Removal era as "one of the unhappiest chapters in American history."
Attack
The first presidential attack was against Jackson. Jackson ordered the dismissal of Robert B. Randolph from the Navy for embezzlement. On May 6, 1833, Jackson sailed on USS Cygnet to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was to lay the cornerstone on a monument near the grave of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother. During a stopover near Alexandria, Randolph appeared and struck the President. He fled the scene chased by several members of Jackson's party, including the well-known writer Washington Irving. Jackson decided not to press charges.
On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a sitting President of the United States occurred just outside the United States Capitol. When Jackson was leaving through the East Portico after the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren R. Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed housepainter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Historians believe the humid weather contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was restrained, and legend says that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane. Others present, including David Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence.
Lawrence told doctors later his reasons for the shooting. He blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty" (a reference to Jackson's struggle with the Bank of the United States) and that he "could not rise until the President fell." Finally, he told his interrogators that he was a deposed English King—specifically, Richard III, dead since 1485—and that Jackson was his clerk. He was deemed insane and institutionalized.
Afterward, due to public curiosity concerning the double misfires, the pistols were tested and retested. Each time they performed perfectly. Many believed that Jackson had been protected by the same Providence that protected the young nation. This national pride was a large part of the Jacksonian cultural myth fueling American expansion in the 1830s.
Family life
Shortly after Jackson first arrived in Nashville in 1788, he lived as a boarder with Rachel Stockley Donelson, the widow of John Donelson. Here Jackson became acquainted with their daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. At the time, Rachel Robards was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, a man subject to irrational[dubious – discuss] fits of jealous rage. Due to Lewis Robards' temperament, the two were separated in 1790. According to Jackson, he married Rachel after hearing that Robards had obtained a divorce. However, the divorce had never been completed, making Rachel's marriage to Jackson technically bigamous and therefore invalid. After the divorce was officially completed, Rachel and Jackson remarried in 1794. To complicate matters further, evidence shows that Donelson had been living with Jackson and referred to herself as Mrs. Jackson before the petition for divorce was ever made.It was not uncommon on the frontier for relationships to be formed and dissolved unofficially, as long as they were recognized by the community.The controversy surrounding their marriage remained a sore point for Jackson, who deeply resented attacks on his wife’s honor. With his anger over attacks about Rachel, and his participation in violent confrontations, Jackson gained a reputation as a quarrelsome and vengeful man. By May 1806, Charles Dickinson had published an attack on Jackson in the local newspaper, and it resulted in a written challenge from Jackson to a duel. In the duel, Dickinson shot Jackson in the ribs before Jackson returned the fatal shot; Since Dickinson was considered an expert shot, Jackson and his friend, Thomas Overton, determined it would be best to let Dickinson turn and fire first, hoping that his aim might be spoiled in his quickness. Jackson would wait and take careful aim at Dickinson. Dickinson did fire first, hitting Jackson in the chest. Under the rules of dueling, Dickinson had to remain still as Jackson took aim and shot and killed him. However, the bullet that struck Jackson was so close to his heart that it could never be safely removed. Jackson had been wounded so frequently in duels that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles."Jackson’s reputation suffered greatly from the duel.Rachel died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, two weeks after her husband's victory in the election and two months before Jackson took office as President. Jackson blamed John Quincy Adams for Rachel's death because the episode ridiculing his wife was repeatedly used in the campaign of 1828. He felt that this had hastened her death and never forgave Adams.
Jackson had three adopted sons, Theodore, an Indian about whom little is known,Andrew Jackson Jr., the son of Rachel's brother Severn Donelson, and Lyncoya, a Creek Indian orphan adopted by Jackson after the Creek War. Lyncoya died of tuberculosis in 1828, at the age of sixteen.
The Jacksons also acted as guardians for eight other children. John Samuel Donelson, Daniel Smith Donelson and Andrew Jackson Donelson were the sons of Rachel's brother Samuel Donelson, who died in 1804. Andrew Jackson Hutchings was Rachel's orphaned grand nephew. Caroline Butler, Eliza Butler, Edward Butler, and Anthony Butler were the orphaned children of Edward Butler, a family friend. They came to live with the Jacksons after the death of their father.
The widower Jackson invited Rachel's niece Emily Donelson to serve as host at the White House. Emily was married to Andrew Jackson Donelson, who acted as Jackson's private secretary and in 1856 would run for Vice President on the American Party ticket. The relationship between the President and Emily became strained during the Petticoat affair, and the two became estranged for over a year. They eventually reconciled and she resumed her duties as White House host. Sarah Yorke Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson Jr., became cohost of the White House in 1834. It was the only time in history when two women simultaneously acted as unofficial First Lady. Sarah took over all hosting duties after Emily died from tuberculosis in 1836. Jackson used Rip Raps as a retreat, visiting between August 19, 1829 through August 16, 1835.Jackson remained influential in both national and state politics after retiring to The Hermitage in 1837. Jackson remained a firm advocate of the federal union of the states, and rejected any talk of secession. "I will die with the Union," he always insisted.The tomb of Andrew and Rachel Donelson Jackson located at their home, The Hermitage.Jackson was a lean figure standing at 6 feet, 1 inch (1.85 m) tall, and weighing between 130 and 140 pounds on average. Jackson also had an unruly shock of red hair, which had completely grayed by the time he became president at age 61. He had penetrating deep blue eyes. Jackson was one of the more sickly presidents, suffering from chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a hacking cough, caused by a musket ball in his lung that was never removed, that often brought up blood and sometimes made his whole body shake. After retiring to Nashville, he enjoyed eight years of retirement and died at The Hermitage on June 8, 1845, at the age of 78, of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, and heart failure.In his will, Jackson left his entire estate to his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr., except for specifically enumerated items that were left to various other friends and family members. About a year after retiring the presidency, Jackson became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
Jackson on U.S. Postage
Andrew Jackson is one of the few American presidents ever to appear on US Postage more than the usual two or three times. He died in 1845, but the U.S. Post Office did not release a postage stamp in his honor until 18 years after his death, with the issue of 1863, a 2-cent black issue, commonly referred to by collectors as the 'Black Jack'. In contrast, the first Warren G. Harding stamp was released only one month after his death, Lincoln, one year exactly. As Jackson was a controversial figure in his day there is speculation that officials in Washington chose to wait a period of time before issuing a stamp with his portrait. In all, Jackson has appeared on thirteen different US postage stamps, more than that of most US presidents and second only to the number of times Washington, Franklin and Lincoln have appeared. During the American Civil War the Confederate government also issued two Confederate postage stamps bearing Jackson's portrait, one a 2-cent red stamp and the other a 2-cent green stamp, both issued in 1863.Jackson also appears on other U.S. Postage stamps of the 19th and 20th centuries. In all, Jackson appears on twelve US Postage stamps to date.
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