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diff --git a/31068.txt b/31068.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b53fe7e --- /dev/null +++ b/31068.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2975 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Andrew Jackson, by William Garrott Brown + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Andrew Jackson + +Author: William Garrott Brown + +Release Date: January 25, 2010 [EBook #31068] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDREW JACKSON *** + + + + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + + + The Riverside Biographical Series + + NUMBER 1. + + + ANDREW JACKSON + + BY + + WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN + + + + +[Illustration: Andrew Jackson] + + + + + ANDREW JACKSON + + + + + BY + + WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN + + + + + [Illustration] + + + + + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street + Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. THE WAXHAWS AND THE WILDERNESS 1 + + II. CONGRESS: THE BENCH: THE MILITIA 24 + + III. TOHOPEKA AND PENSACOLA 46 + + IV. NEW ORLEANS 69 + + V. THE SEMINOLES AND THE POLITICIANS 87 + + VI. THE WHITE HOUSE 118 + + + + +ANDREW JACKSON + +I + +THE WAXHAWS AND THE WILDERNESS + + +In Lafayette Square, which fronts the White House at Washington, there +is an equestrian statue of a very thin, long-headed old man whose most +striking physical characteristics are the firm chin and lips and the +bristling, upright hair. The piece is not a great work of art, but it +gives one a strong impression of determination, if not of pugnacity. +Sculptors have not the means to represent the human eye, else this +impression might have been made stronger; for the old gentleman whose +warlike aspect is here reproduced had a glance like a hawk's. He had, +moreover, a habit of gazing fixedly at any one who attracted his +attention. When he was angry, as he was quite frequently, few men could +meet his look with composure. When he was in good humor, however, as he +usually was when he dealt with his friends, or with women or children, +his eyes could be very kindly, and his grim lips could part in a smile +that was extremely attractive. + +Not far away is the Treasury building. Were the horseman alive, by +merely turning his head he could see its outline through the trees. +There is a tradition in Washington that when this old man lived in the +White House, and Congress voted to erect a new Treasury building, the +old one being burned, there was some question of the exact spot on which +it should stand. The question was put to him when he happened to be +walking near the western end of Pennsylvania Avenue. He struck his cane +on the ground and said shortly, "Put it here, sir,"--and there it +stands. Whether or not the story is true, it is characteristic of the +man and in keeping with the history of his times; for when Andrew +Jackson was President most things were done at Washington just as he +ordered them to be done. His friends declared that this was so because +in most things his will stood for the will of the American people; his +enemies, that they were done for no good reason whatever, but only +because a despot commanded his slaves to do them. + +To this day there is the same division of opinion. The historians still +fight the same battle over him and his doings which in former times was +fought out by famous orators in Congress, by the whole people at the +polls. It is doubtful, indeed, if there ever will be, until the end of +the Republic itself, an end of the dispute over the place which that +slender figure with the bristling hair ought to have in American +history. Had Andrew Jackson any good claim to statues and monuments, to +the first place in the Republic, to popularity such as no other man had +enjoyed since Washington, to power such as Washington himself had never +exercised? Did he prove himself worthy of the place and power he held? +To answer either yes or no with assurance one must patiently examine +more books than Andrew Jackson ever glanced through in his whole life. +This little book would hardly contain the full titles of them all. Yet +it may perhaps be large enough to let the reader see what manner of man +he was concerning whom so many bitter controversies have raged. Perhaps +it may serve to explain how a Scotch-Irish boy, born to the deepest +obscurity and the wretchedest poverty, and blessed, apparently, with no +remarkable gifts of mind or body, came to have statues carved in his +honor, towns and counties and cities named for him, long books written +about him, a great party organized to do his bidding, the whole country +time and again divided into those who were for him and those who were +against him. + + * * * * * + +It is quite important, as Mr. Parton, the most painstaking of all his +biographers, often observes, that this particular poor boy was of +Scotch-Irish stock. That stock is again and again conspicuous in +American history, and Andrew Jackson was in many respects the most +thoroughly representative Scotch-Irishman of all the notable Americans +who can trace their descent to the North of Ireland. Indeed, it may be +said that he narrowly escaped being born in the North of Ireland, for +his parents were living at Carrickfergus until two years before his +birth. They landed in America in 1765, and made their home in a +Scotch-Irish settlement, the Waxhaws, on the boundary line between the +two Carolinas. Andrew Jackson, the father, and Elizabeth Hutchinson, the +mother, were married and had two sons before they left Carrickfergus. +They were poor, and doubtless came to America for no other reason than +to better their fortunes. They were still very poor when, in the early +spring of the year 1767, the husband died. A few days later, March 15, a +son was born to the widowed Elizabeth, and she named him Andrew. He +himself in after years said that his birthplace was to the south of the +state line, and called South Carolina his native State; but Mr. Parton's +industrious researches make it seem more probable that the small +log-house in which he was born was north of the line, in Union County, +North Carolina. + +The question is of less importance than the fact, of which there is no +question, that he was born to the humblest circumstances in a new +settlement of a new country, and that his childhood and boyhood were +passed among people of little culture, whose lives were hard and bare. +The boy got little education, and never was a scholar. To the day of his +death, he wrote the English language with difficulty, making many errors +of grammar and spelling, and spoke it with many peculiarities of +pronunciation. Of other languages he knew nothing; of the great body of +science, literature, and the arts he knew next to nothing. In fact, he +probably got less from books than any other famous man in American +history. + +Little is authentically known of his early years. It is clear, however, +that he was a mischievous, high-spirited boy, and often got into +trouble. At least one anecdote is thoroughly in keeping with his career +in manhood. Some of his playmates, so the story goes, once loaded a gun +to the muzzle and gave it him to fire. As they expected, it kicked him +over, but they missed the fun they looked for. He sprang to his feet +white with rage, and exclaimed, with an oath, "If one of you laughs, +I'll kill him!"--and no one laughed. The oath itself is not an +unimportant part of the story, for it may as well be said at once that +Andrew Jackson, until near the end of his life, had many such vices as +swearing. He not only swore, but he frequently quarrelled and fought; he +was at one time given to betting, particularly on horses; he drank, and +he used tobacco constantly. All of these habits were common in the +society to which he was born, and he did not escape them. But some +things he did escape. He hated debt all his life, and was willing to do +almost anything rather than incur it. He had the greatest reverence for +women, and bore himself towards them with a courtesy and tenderness, a +knightly purity of thought and word and deed, which the finest +gentleman of the most ancient society in the world could not have +surpassed. + +When this pleasing fact is stated, one's thoughts turn naturally to his +widowed mother, as to the most natural source of such an excellence in +the son. All we know of her does indeed indicate that her influence on +him was both strong and good: but we know very little. She was a simple, +uncultivated person, like most of her neighbors, but her conduct during +the harrowing scenes of the revolutionary war makes us think she was in +some respects extraordinary. The struggle was nowhere rougher and +fiercer than it was in the Carolinas. The notorious Colonel Tarleton +operated in the Waxhaws neighborhood, and many dreadful stories of +suffering and cruelty belong to that country and that time. The Jackson +family had their full share of the fighting and the suffering. The two +older boys, Hugh and Robert, enlisted. Young "Andy" himself, when he was +barely in his teens, carried a musket. He and Robert were captured, and +were released through the efforts of their mother, who brought about an +exchange of prisoners. Soon afterwards, she went on a long and heroic +journey to Charleston to nurse the sick Americans confined on the +British prison ships there; and there she fell ill of the ship fever and +died. Hugh and Robert both died in the service. + +Andrew was thus left an orphan, weakened in body by the smallpox, which +he took while he was in prison. Moreover, he bore on his head the mark +of a blow from the sword of a British officer whose boots he had refused +to polish. No man ever lived who had a simpler human way of loving those +who befriended him and of hating those who hurt him than Andrew Jackson; +and surely few men ever had better excuse than he for hating the British +uniform. His feeling against the British was one of the things that +colored his opinions on public questions; the supreme hour of his life +was the hour when, at New Orleans, he had his revenge--full measure, +heaped up, and running over--for all that he had suffered in the +Waxhaws. Scholarly historians, passing rapidly over the events of his +childhood, give many pages of learned criticism to the course he took on +great public questions in later years, and gravely deplore the terrible +passions that swayed him when, no doubt, he should have been as +deliberate and calm as they are while they review his stormy life. But +for those who would rather understand than judge him it surely cannot +seem a small thing that he started out in life with such a heritage of +bitter memories, such a schooling in hatred, as few children were ever +cursed with. Passion and revenge are wrong, of course, but the +sandy-haired, pockmarked lad of the Waxhaws had better excuse than most +boys for failing to learn that lesson. It is doubtful, indeed, if any +one ever took the trouble to teach it him. One little thing that stuck +in his mind probably hurt worse than the sabre cut on his head. He did +not even know where his mother's grave was. + +It does not appear that during the next seven years, while he was +growing to manhood, he gave himself with much industry either to study +or to work. For six months he was employed in the shop of a saddler, but +he seems to have learned more about filling saddles than about making +them, for he became somewhat famous as a horseman even in a country +where the love of horseflesh was universal. He got acquainted with some +wealthy people from Charleston who were exiled until the British +evacuated their city, and lived with them a sporting life which was +beyond his means. After the peace he made a visit to Charleston, got +into debt, got out of it by winning a wager, and grew somewhat graver in +consequence of his experience. There is even some reason to believe that +he went to work as a schoolmaster; and doubtless some backwoods schools +of that period had masters as ignorant as Andrew Jackson. Finally, he +resolved to study law, and in the winter of 1784-5 started out to find +an office in which he might prepare himself for his profession. He found +a place in the office of Mr. Spruce McCay, of Salisbury, North Carolina, +an old-fashioned Southern town, where he made his home until 1788, when +he was admitted to the bar. + +All that is known of his life at Salisbury accords with what is known of +his life at the Waxhaws. He was ready for a frolic or a fight at any +hour of the day or night; he excelled in such sports as required +swiftness and nerve; he was fond of practical jokes; he was not over +fond of study, and never acquired any great knowledge of the law. At +twenty, when his studies were finished, he is described as a tall, +slender young fellow, with a thin, fair face and deep blue eyes, by no +means handsome, but distinguished by considerable grace and dignity of +manner; an exquisite rider and a capital shot; of an extraordinarily +passionate temper, yet singularly swift, even when his anger was at +white heat, to seize upon the right means to protect himself or +discomfit an adversary; already somewhat of a leader, not by any +eminence of talent or knowledge, but because he had a gift of leadership +and was always intensely minded to have his way. The year of his +admission to the bar, after a brief stay at Martinsville, a small North +Carolina town, he got himself appointed solicitor, or public prosecutor, +of the western district of Tennessee, and soon set out for the West. + +The appointment of so young a man to such an office seems remarkable +until one knows what Tennessee was like at that time, and what duties a +solicitor was expected to discharge. The term Tennessee is, in fact, +misleading. The region to which Jackson went still belonged to North +Carolina, though its inhabitants had but a little while before made an +attempt to set up a separate State under the name of Franklin. But of +those who made the attempt the great majority had lived in that part of +North Carolina's western lands which is now East Tennessee--a +mountainous region of which Jonesboro, a squatter town of fifty or sixty +log-houses, was the metropolis. Nashville, whither Jackson was bound, +was nearly two hundred miles west of Jonesboro, and the Nashville +settlement was as yet less than ten years old. It was founded in 1779 +by Captain James Robertson with a little company of nine. The next year +Colonel John Donelson, with a much larger party, including women and +children, came from Virginia to join his friend Robertson. His journey +was one of the most striking incidents in the peopling of the West, for +it was made in flatboats which passed down the Holston into the +Tennessee, down the Tennessee into the Ohio, up the Ohio into the +Cumberland, and up the Cumberland to Nashville. It took four months to +cover the two thousand miles or more, and there were bloody fights with +Indians, sickness, and death by the way. When, eight years later, after +an overland journey through a wilderness still almost unbroken and still +infested with Indians, Jackson came to Nashville, he found Mrs. Donelson +a widow, for her husband had been murdered; and he soon became an inmate +of her home. + +It was well for a widow in that wild country if she could procure men +"boarders," even though she might not need to "take boarders" for a +living; for every household needed men to protect it from the Indians. +Immigration was increasing constantly, but the white population was +still far too small to be safe. Within seven miles of Nashville, during +the years 1780-1794, the Indians killed, on an average, one white person +every ten days. + +Life in such a country was even rougher and barer than in the Waxhaws. +The houses were chiefly cabins made of unhewn logs, and the things which +in older communities make the inside of houses attractive were almost +wholly wanting. Such merchandise as was offered to the settlers had to +be fetched hundreds of miles,--usually from Philadelphia,--and grew very +dear by the time it reached them. For food, clothing, and shelter each +family relied mainly on the handiwork of its own members. As in all +frontier regions, the population was chiefly male. The brave women who +took their share of the common work and hardship were treated with much +respect, and did their part well, no doubt, but they had little leisure +for those arts which brighten the lives and refine the characters of +husbands and children. + +Manners suited conditions. These builders of the West had more strength +than gentleness, more shrewdness than wisdom, more courage than culture. +They were the rough front which American civilization presented to the +wilderness and the savage,--brave, hard-handed, themselves somewhat +affected with the barbarism they came to displace, yet in all essentials +of character true representatives of their masterful race. They were +mainly of English or Scotch-Irish stock; and no other breeds of white +men have ever shown such capacity as these two for dealing with inferior +races and new countries. Their virtues were courage, energy, alertness, +inventiveness, generosity, honesty, truth-speaking; their commonest +faults were violence, combativeness, lax ways in business, intemperance, +narrowness of mind. They hated foreigners and Indians, and were ready to +fight any one who behaved like an enemy or a critic; they held in honor +women, their country, and brave men. Shut off from the greater world to +the eastward, and having few pleasures such as most Americans may now +enjoy, they filled their leisure hours with such sports as hunting, +horse-racing, drinking bouts, fights, and lawsuits. The law, indeed, +they held in great reverence; that race mark they had in common with all +other societies made up of Englishmen and Americans of English descent. +But they were even fonder of fighting than of the law, and the +particular laws which were at once hardest to enforce and most in need +of enforcement were those very simple laws which set forth the principle +that private wrongs must be righted in the courts, which stand for the +peace of the State, and not by the "wild justice" of revenge. + +The difficult and dangerous work of keeping order and of enforcing +business obligations fell largely to the "solicitor;" and one need not +wonder that there was no great scramble for the office, so that a very +young man, with no experience at the bar and little knowledge of law, +got the appointment. His duties were simple enough, but he had no +reason to complain of being left in idleness. The court records of the +period show a picturesque assortment of assaults, street-fights, +pistollings, gougings, and the like. Men who took such methods to adjust +their differences were not apt to show any great respect to a prosecutor +aged twenty-one. The majesty of the law had need of a vigorous rather +than a learned representative; and the representative had need of other +weapons than those supplied by the law books if he meant to make his +authority respected and yet keep a whole skin on his body. If he proved +weak and timid, he was sure to be despised; if determined and +relentless, he was sure to make enemies; if incautious and unwary, he +would probably get himself shot. It is doubtful, however, if any better +man than young Jackson could have been found for the place, and that is +almost the same thing as saying that no better place could have been +found for him. To the office and his new surroundings he brought the +qualities they supremely demanded,--a will that no man ever subdued, a +desperate courage which not even the Tennesseans could match, and a +swift, intuitive perception of the way to act in emergencies. + +According to all accounts, he was successful from the first in his +trying work, and his success in that brought him other work as a lawyer +and a rapid rise to prominence in the community. He became well +acquainted, for his work required much travelling about. He learned the +country itself. On his long journeys he was frequently in danger from +the Indians, and learned their ways and how to cope with them. Sometimes +he slept alone in the woods, or even lay all night awake, his hand on +his rifle. Once his readiness and nerve alone saved himself and a party +of travellers from surprise and massacre. Whether he dealt with Indians +who beset his pathway through the wilderness, or white men who would not +let the law take its course, it is not on record that he ever turned +aside from his purpose. In ten years he was the possessor of a +considerable estate, chiefly in land. And he had not accumulated +property by neglecting his duties as solicitor. When certain intruders +on Indian lands were giving trouble, Governor Blount said: "Let the +district attorney, Mr. Jackson, be informed. He will be certain to do +his duty, and the offenders will be punished." + +But the district attorney did not escape the consequences of his +firmness and courage. He had so many "difficulties" that even in that +country he soon got a reputation for readiness to fight. A mass of +anecdote and tradition about his early quarrels has come down to us. +Some of these affairs seem to have been undignified and rather ludicrous +scuffles: in one of them Jackson overcame a huge antagonist by poking +him with the point--or, as Jackson himself pronounced it, the "pint"--of +a fence rail. Other quarrels followed the dignified procedure of the +duello. They were all subject to the condemnation which our gentler +civilization pronounces on violence as a means of ending disputes, but +no doubt they helped the young lawyer into the prominence he had won by +the time Tennessee was ready to become a State. + +The most important event of this early period of Jackson's life was his +marriage. It was first solemnized early in 1791, and a second time in +January, 1794. The second ceremony was due to the painful discovery that +at the time of the first his wife was not fully released from a former +marriage. She was Rachel, daughter of John Donelson, the pioneer, and +when Jackson first came to Tennessee she was already married to one +Lewis Robards. Robards was a jealous husband. He made charges against +his wife concerning several men, and finally concerning Jackson, +although the facts that have come down to us and the opinions of those +who knew most about the affair all go to show that Jackson acted as a +chivalrous protector of a distressed woman, and never knowingly +committed any offence against his accuser's home. Robards and Rachel +Donelson had been married in Kentucky, then a part of Virginia, and +Virginia had no law of divorce. In 1790 the Virginia legislature, acting +on a petition of Robards, authorized the supreme court of Kentucky to +try the case and grant him a divorce if it should find his charges +against his wife and Jackson to be true. Somehow, Jackson and Mrs. +Robards were persuaded that this act of the Virginia legislature was +itself a divorce, and so they were married. In 1793, however, Robards +brought suit before the Kentucky court, and the court, finding on the +facts as they then existed, when the accused couple were living together +as man and wife, granted the decree. In order, therefore, to make sure +of a legal marriage, Jackson had the ceremony repeated. + +It was a most unfortunate situation for an honest man and an honest +woman, and saddened a union which was otherwise pure and beautiful; for +to the day of her death Jackson and his wife loved each other most +tenderly. It brought into his life a new element of bitterness and +passion. Whoever, by the slightest hint, referred to the irregularity of +his marriage, became his mortal enemy. For such he kept his pistols +always ready, and more than one incautious man found to his cost what it +meant to breathe a word on that forbidden subject. One such man was no +less a person than John Sevier, "the Commonwealth Builder," who struck +such a good blow for American independence at the battle of King's +Mountain in the revolutionary war, and who was Governor of Tennessee +when the trouble with Jackson occurred. + +The painful facts of his marriage, and the criticism of his wife, had +another effect on Jackson which in time became important to the whole +country. Through that experience his chivalrous feeling for women was +developed into a quixotic readiness to be the champion of any woman whom +he found distressed or slandered. + + + + +II + +CONGRESS: THE BENCH: THE MILITIA + + +In 1796 Jackson took his seat as a member of the convention called to +frame a constitution for the State of Tennessee. He thus entered on a +brief career of public service, in the course of which he held three +important offices. In the autumn of 1796 he was chosen to be Tennessee's +first representative in Congress. A year later he was appointed United +States Senator, and held the office until he resigned in April, 1798. +From 1798 until 1804, he was a justice of the Supreme Court of +Tennessee. + +These were all high places for so young a man, and one naturally expects +his biographer to linger for many pages over his course while he held +them. The fact that he held them is indeed important, for it shows how +strongly he had established himself in Tennessee. But very little need +be said of what he did while he held them. Indeed, it is amazing how +little _can_ be said. + +In the convention he served on the committee to draft the constitution +and took a somewhat prominent part in the debates, and there is also a +tradition that he suggested the name of the State; but no notable +feature of the constitution is clearly due to him. It might, however, +have been due to the presence in the convention of such fiery spirits as +he that it adopted a rule of order which throws into comical prominence +the warlike character of early Tennesseans. Rule 8 declared: "He that +digresseth from the subject to fall on the person of any member shall be +suppressed by the Speaker." + +The scant record of Jackson's services in the House of Representatives +and in the Senate is of little importance to us save in three respects. +It throws some light on his political opinions at that period; it gives +us a glimpse of him as he appeared against the background of the most +elegant society then existing in America, for Congress was sitting in +Philadelphia, which had sixty-five thousand inhabitants; and it led to +one or two friendships which had an important bearing on his later +career. + +His opinions, however, were not expressed in speeches. He addressed the +House but twice, both times on a resolution for paying troops whom +General Sevier had led against the Indians without any order from the +national government. The resolution passed, and added to Jackson's +popularity at home. In the Senate it is not on record that he ever spoke +at all. Many years afterwards, Thomas Jefferson, who was Vice-President +in 1797-8, gave to Daniel Webster a rather curious explanation of the +Tennessee Senator's silence. The accuracy of Webster's report of his +famous interview with Jefferson at Monticello in 1824 has been +questioned, but if it is correct, this is what Jefferson said of +Jackson: "His passions are terrible. When I was president of the Senate, +he was Senator, and he could never speak on account of the rashness of +his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke +with rage." + +His votes, however, and a few letters show clearly enough where he stood +on the questions of the day. Parties were hardly yet formed under the +Constitution, but in the strife between the followers of Hamilton, who +went for a strong national government, and who became the Federalist +party, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the followers of +Jefferson, who went for the rights of the States and distrusted a strong +national government, and who became the Republican party, he sided with +Jefferson. Indeed, he belonged to the extreme faction of the +Republicans, to which the term "Democrats" was applied, at first as a +reproach. He favored the French, who were at war with England, and +opposed the treaty with England which John Jay had just negotiated. He +even went so far as to vote, with eleven others, against the address +presented to President Washington after his final speech to Congress. +The address was mainly given over to thanks for Washington's great +services to his country and to praise of his administration. The handful +that opposed it showed at least courage. One of them, Edward +Livingston, of New York, afterwards defended himself by drawing a +distinction between Washington and his administration. At that time the +partisans of France were very bitter over the firm course Washington +took to keep the country out of the European contest, and over the +treaty with England. + +Livingston was one of the men with whom Jackson at this time formed a +lasting friendship. He was an accomplished gentleman, a very able +lawyer, and an advanced Republican. Another was William Duane, +Jefferson's friend, the editor of "The Aurora," a newspaper which helped +to build up the Republican party. A third was Aaron Burr, who then stood +very high among the Republican leaders, and who excelled all other +public men in charm of manner. + +Another leading Republican of the time, Albert Gallatin, recalled +Jackson afterwards as "a tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with +long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a cue down his back tied +in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment that of a +rough backwoodsman." Taking this with Jefferson's description of him, it +seems clear that he made no strong impression at Philadelphia, and found +himself out of place in the national legislature. Who, then, would have +dreamed that the accomplished Livingston should win his highest fame by +preparing a state paper for this unlettered person's signature; that +this rough backwoodsman should alone of all Americans surpass the +polished Burr in the charm of his manners; that Duane's little son +should one day be called by his father's unpromising acquaintance to a +place such as even Jefferson's friendship never conferred upon Duane +himself. Of all who knew Jackson in Washington, Burr seems to have had +the strongest hopes for his future. + +Scant as are the traces of his labors as a legislator, even scanter are +the records of his career on the bench during the six years that +followed. The reports of the decisions of the Tennessee Supreme Court in +this period are extremely meagre; not one decision is preserved as +Jackson's. But the stories told of Judge Jackson, like the stories told +of the solicitor, the general, the president, are legion. One must +suffice. A gigantic blacksmith named Bean had committed a crime and the +sheriff dared not arrest him. "Summon me," said the judge, and himself +walked down from the bench, found the criminal, and arrested him. It was +while he was judge that his quarrel with John Sevier, who was again +governor in 1803, came finally to a head. Two years before, the two men +had been rivals for the office of major-general in the militia, and by a +single vote Jackson had won, so that he was both general and judge when +he and the governor met in what seemed likely to prove a fatal combat. +However, neither was killed, and the quarrel was patched up. In 1804 +Judge Jackson resigned. He had not yet found his true place in the +public service. But he kept his commission in the militia, and those who +like to magnify the work of chance may argue that the single vote by +which he got that office determined his career. + +But he had years to live before it was made plain to him what his career +should be; and during those years, from 1804 to 1813, his energies were +given chiefly to planting and business. His affairs had become somewhat +involved while he was a judge, and to restore his fortunes he entered +into trade and set up a store. In this and other enterprises a stalwart +Tennessean named John Coffee was his partner, and between the two there +grew a bond of friendship which lasted until death broke it. Jackson had +considerable shrewdness in trade, and his reputation for paying his +debts promptly was of great value, but he had more success in planting +and stock-raising than in any other money-making enterprise. His +judgment of horses was exceptionally good. From his famous stallion, +Truxton, a great racer in his day, many Tennessee thoroughbreds of the +present time are descended. Horse-racing was Jackson's favorite sport, +and was a source of profit also. In 1805 he first occupied the estate +which became so well known as "The Hermitage," where he built a +block-house of three rooms; the mansion so often displayed in pictures +was not built until 1819. In the log-house, however, no less than in the +mansion which was to follow, he offered to guests of high and low degree +a hospitality which would have been extraordinary outside of the +Southern States. Probably his planter life had some effect on his +manners, and helped him to acquire that mingling of cordiality and +distinction which in those days gave a peculiar charm to the gentlemen +of the South. + +Even in his quarrels, violent, passionate, and wilful as he was, he +usually bore himself in a way to make a deep impression on the +impressionable people among whom he lived. Unfortunately, his quarrels +did not grow fewer as he grew older, for he never learned the difference +between mere opposition to his will, which might be conscientious and +honest, and personal enmity to himself. Like most men of that region and +time, he carried his personal feelings, his likes and dislikes, into +all the affairs of life. In 1803-4, when he wished to be governor of +Orleans Territory, the Tennessee congressmen urged President Jefferson +to appoint him, but he was represented to the President as "a man of +violent passions, arbitrary in his disposition, and frequently engaged +in broils and disputes." + +The most celebrated and perhaps the worst of all his quarrels was that +with Charles Dickinson, a young man of prominence, a duellist, and a +marvellous shot. It was a long quarrel, beginning, apparently, over a +projected race between Truxton and Plow Bay, a horse in which Dickinson +was interested. Other persons were involved before the quarrel ended. +General Jackson publicly caned one Thomas Swann who had contrived to get +himself mixed up in the affair. Coffee, acting as Jackson's friend, had +a duel with one McNairy, and was severely wounded. Finally, for no +sufficient cause which the printed accounts discover, Jackson and +Dickinson met in Kentucky, each bent on killing his man. The word being +given, Dickinson fired quickly, and with perfect aim; a puff of dust +flew up from the breast of Jackson's coat. But he kept his feet, drew +his left arm across his breast, slowly raised his pistol, and pulled the +trigger. The hammer stopped at the half-cock. He cocked it again, aimed +deliberately, fired, and killed his man. His own life he owed to the +thinness of his body, for Dickinson had hit the spot where he thought +his adversary's heart was beating. Jackson had purposely allowed the +other to fire first, expecting to be hit, and fearing that if he, too, +fired hurriedly, the shock would spoil his aim. "I should have hit him," +he said afterwards, "had he shot me through the brain." It is supposed +that his hatred of Dickinson was really due, not to the confused dispute +over the race, but to something Dickinson had said in his cups about +Mrs. Jackson. Whatever the provocation, the bloody story is revolting +enough; but the picture of Jackson's grim, erect figure, his hawklike +eyes terrible with hatred, the ball in his breast, the pistol in his +hand, must take its place alongside those other pictures and statues of +him which all Americans know. + +But if Jackson was a terrible enemy, he was also the most faithful of +friends. Many men feared and hated him; many also loved him, and he +himself would go as far to help a friend as to crush an enemy. One of +his friends was a certain Patten Anderson, who seems always to have been +getting into trouble, but whom the general never deserted. Once Anderson +got into a fight at one end of a long table where a public dinner was +being served, and was in great danger until Jackson, who sat at the +other end, noticed the scuffle. "I'm coming, Patten," he cried, and +promptly leaped on the table and strode through dinner to the rescue. +Anderson was killed at last, and Jackson was a witness at the trial of +his slayer. He was asked if the unfortunate Anderson was not given in +his lifetime to quarrelling. "Sir," said Jackson, "my friend, Patten +Anderson, was a natural enemy to scoundrels." + +His friendship for Aaron Burr came very near involving him in serious +difficulties. In 1805, when Burr was on his first visit to the +Southwest, he went to Nashville, and was entertained most cordially at +The Hermitage. He was there again on his return, and made with his host +a contract for boats and supplies to be used in that mysterious +enterprise which has so puzzled American historians. Burr declared he +had no designs hostile to the United States, and Jackson believed him. +When, a year later, the whole country was in a sort of panic over Burr's +suspected treason, Jackson offered to President Jefferson the services +of the militia under his command, and promptly took measures to thwart +any treasonable movement that might be afoot in the West; but he was +soon convinced that Burr was suspected unjustly, and never for a moment +deserted him in his trouble. He went to Richmond to testify at his +trial, and while there made a public speech full of bitterness against +those who, as he thought, were persecuting his friend. He himself was +at first strongly suspected of complicity in Burr's project, but there +is absolutely no reason to believe that Andrew Jackson ever in his life +looked upon an enemy of his country otherwise than as his own mortal +foe. His faults were many, but he loved his country simply, and with all +his heart. + +It seems clear, however, that Jackson, and in fact the whole Southwest, +sympathized very strongly with the design which many in that quarter at +first thought Burr to entertain; the design, namely, of seizing West +Florida or Texas, or perhaps both. The United States were at that time, +as they were before and after, very close to war with Spain. Spain still +had possession of the Floridas, although the United States claimed that +West Florida, extending along the Gulf coast from the Perdido River to +the "Island of New Orleans," was included in the Louisiana purchase. To +drive the Spaniards out of West Florida was an ardent desire of +Jackson's. Ten years before, when the Eastern States had shown little +interest in the development of the Southwest, and had seemed to prefer +commercial privileges with the Spanish colonies to the free navigation +of the Mississippi, which the Western country needed for its +development, Spanish agents had endeavored to stir up disaffection in +the Southwest, looking to the separation of that region from the Union. +At that time, many people in the East, knowing little of the Westerners, +had suspected them of lending an ear to Spain's tempting whispers. That +was one reason why such a panic arose over Burr, for he had always been +a champion of the Southwest, and the pioneers liked him. After the +failure and disgrace of Burr the stage was cleared for another leader in +the southwestward movement. And who so likely to take the role as the +patriotic and warlike general of the Tennessee militia? + +Jackson had a chance to play that role in a small way when Silas +Dinsmore, the United States agent among the Choctaws, whose lands lay in +Mississippi Territory, refused to allow persons to pass through the +Choctaw country with negroes unless they showed passports for the +negroes. Dinsmore had a law of Congress behind him, but a treaty between +the United States and the Choctaws provided for a road through the +Choctaw country which should be "a highway for citizens of the United +States and the Choctaws." Jackson, passing along the road with some +slaves, dared the agent to interfere. He also exerted himself to bring +about the removal of Dinsmore, and, as his wont was, made a personal +matter of the dispute. His feeling was so strong that years afterwards, +when Dinsmore, happening to meet him, made a courteous advance, the +general sternly repelled it. + +The quarrel with Dinsmore occurred in 1812. Andrew Jackson was then +forty-five years old. He was well known in Tennessee as a successful +planter, a breeder and racer of horses, a swearer of mighty oaths, a +faithful and generous man to his friends, a chivalrous man to women, a +hospitable man at his home, a desperate and relentless man in personal +conflicts, a man who always did the thing he set himself to do. But as +yet he had never found anything to do that was important enough to +bring him before the country at large. Outside of Tennessee, few men had +ever heard his name. At Washington he was probably distrusted, so far as +he was known at all, because of his championship of Burr and his quarrel +with Dinsmore, and because he had been for Monroe instead of Madison for +President. He was ardently in favor of war with Great Britain because of +the impressment of American seamen and other grievances which the United +States had borne for years, but there seemed to be little likelihood of +his getting a chance to play a part in the war if it should come. The +war was declared in June, 1812. A member of Congress, on his way home +after voting for the declaration, had a talk with Aaron Burr, who was +now living in retirement in New York. "I know," said Burr, "that my word +is not worth much with Madison; but you may tell him from me that there +is an unknown man in the West, named Andrew Jackson, who will do credit +to a commission in the army." + +It is said, indeed, that Jackson was twice recommended to President +Madison for a commission in the regular army, and twice rejected. Many +years later, Thomas H. Benton told in Congress how he himself, who was +in 1812 a young lawyer in Nashville and a militia officer under Jackson, +found in his mail one morning an act of Congress authorizing the +President to accept organized bodies of volunteers. It was a raw day in +February, but young Benton at once drew up a plan for offering Jackson's +militia command to the government, rode to The Hermitage to find the +general, "and came upon him," so Mr. Benton's story goes, "in the +twilight, sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and a child between his +knees. He started a little, called a servant to remove the two innocents +to another room, and explained to me how it was. The child had cried +because the lamb was out in the cold, and begged him to bring it +in--which he had done to please the child, his adopted son." That is a +far pleasanter picture than the other we saw just now of Jackson the +duellist, but this also is a characteristic picture, and should go into +the gallery; for Jackson, like many another man who has been denied +children of his own, was singularly tender with little folk. It is +certainly good to be able to think of him, fierce man that he was, as +turning from fondling a child to enter on his soldier's career. + +Mr. Benton's account of the matter is questioned, but it is certain that +Jackson offered his services, with those of 2500 volunteers, immediately +after the declaration of war. The government accepted the offer, but +left him in idleness until October, 1812, when the governor of Tennessee +was asked for volunteers, ostensibly to reinforce General Wilkinson at +New Orleans. The governor in turn called upon General Jackson, and he, +setting to work with the utmost enthusiasm, issued to the volunteers the +first of those eminently Jacksonian addresses wherewith he was wont to +hearten his followers. On January 7, 1813, the command set forth, the +infantry by river, the cavalry, under John Coffee, by land. By the +middle of February all were united at Natchez, Mississippi, where the +expedition was halted to await further orders. Week after week passed +by, and finally, late in March, to the general's rage and disgust, he +heard from the Secretary of War that the causes of the expedition had +ceased to exist, and that he was to consider his command "dismissed from +the public service"--and not one word as to any provision for getting +the men home! + +Jackson's resolution was instantly taken and firmly carried out. He +refused to disband the men at Natchez, and marched them home, pledging +his own credit for the necessary expenses. His course commanded the +approval of the State and won him the devotion of the men. It was the +first of many occasions on which, while acting as a military officer, he +dared to do the thing he thought to be right, no matter how irregular it +was. On the journey home, his soldierly behavior in trying circumstances +won him his famous nickname. The men spoke of him as being "tough as +hickory," and so came to call him "Hickory," and finally, with +affection, "Old Hickory." Before he reached Nashville he again offered +his command for service in Canada, but no reply came. In May, he +dismissed it, and it seemed as if he were not going to have any +soldier's career at all. + +Benton, who had served in the expedition as an aid, went to Washington +and with difficulty persuaded the War Department to pay the expenses of +the march from Natchez. When he returned to Nashville, it was to find +that in a duel between Jesse Benton, his brother, and one Carroll, the +general had acted as Carroll's second. A bitter quarrel between Jackson +and the Bentons followed; before it ended, Jackson swore "by the +Eternal" he would horsewhip Thomas Benton on sight. They met at a +Nashville hotel. Jesse Benton was there, and also John Coffee and +Stokeley Hays, friends of Jackson's. There was a rough-and-tumble fight. +Thomas Benton fell down a stairway; Jesse Benton was stabbed; Jackson +was shot in the shoulder and severely wounded. He was put to bed in the +old Nashville Inn, a famous hostelry of the time, and while he lay +helpless from a wound so ignobly won, the call was on its way which +should at last summon him to the work for which he was fittest. He was +to pass from an action such as no biographer can defend to deeds which +none can fail to praise. Jackson the duellist must give place to Jackson +the soldier. Yet all fighting is akin, and it was but a change of scene +and purpose that turned the man of the tavern brawl into the man of The +Horseshoe and New Orleans; for it happened that there was nowhere in the +Southwest, perhaps nowhere in the country, any other man quite so sure +to have his way, whether in a street fight or in a battle. + + + + +III + +TOHOPEKA AND PENSACOLA + + +The call that now came to Jackson was chiefly due to a very picturesque +character of the times: the man who is said to have been the only rival +of Burr and Jackson in the impression he made upon all beholders by his +manner and bearing. The call came, indeed, from the southward, but +probably it would never have come but for the work of Tecumseh (or +Tecumthe), the famous Shawnee warrior and orator, whose home was in the +Northwest. For years Tecumseh had been striving to unite the red men of +the West and South in a supreme effort to roll back the swelling tide of +white immigration. In 1811 he made a pilgrimage to the southern tribes, +and his most fervent appeal was to that powerful body of Indians known +as the Creek Confederacy, who lived in what is now the eastern part of +Alabama and the southwestern part of Georgia. These proud and warlike +Indians were divided into two branches. The Upper Creeks had their homes +along the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, and their villages extended some +distance down the Alabama, which is formed by the junction of those two +streams. The Lower Creek towns were on both sides of the Chattahoochee, +which now separates southern Georgia from southern Alabama. The +so-called Confederacy, a loose sort of alliance, claimed for a hunting +ground the lands extending westward to the watershed between the Alabama +and Tombigbee rivers, which unite to form the Mobile. But in the fork of +these two rivers and along the Mobile and the Tombigbee were growing +settlements of white men. The growth of these settlements was watched +with disfavor and suspicion by the Creeks. A strong party, the Red +Sticks, or hostiles, listened readily to Tecumseh's teaching. When he +left for his home in the distant Northwest many were already dancing the +"war-dance of the Lakes." + +The outbreak of the war with England came in good time for Tecumseh's +plans. He at once put himself in alliance with the British, and in the +summer of 1813 the Creek Red Sticks heard that they could get arms and +ammunition at Pensacola, the capital of Spanish Florida. Spain was at +peace with the United States, but Red Sticks were seen thronging to +Pensacola and returning with arms and ammunition. The whites of the +Mobile and Tombigbee country, then part of Mississippi Territory, +organized for defence, waylaid a party returning from Pensacola, and +were at first victorious, then defeated, in the so-called Battle of +Burnt Corn. Thoroughly alarmed, the settlers now took refuge in +stockades and forts. The military authorities of the United States made +ready to defend Mobile, but recently seized from the Spaniards. At Fort +Mims, near the point where the Alabama and Tombigbee form the Mobile, +five hundred and fifty-three men, women, and children were pent up in an +ill-planned inclosure, defended by a small force under an incompetent +though courageous officer named Beasley. On the morning of August 30, +1813, Beasley was writing to his superior, General Claiborne, that he +could hold the fort against any number of the enemy. At that very moment +a thousand warriors lay hidden in a ravine but a few hundred yards from +the open gate of the stockade. Their principal leader was William +Weatherford, "the Red Eagle," a half-breed of much intelligence and +dauntless courage. At noon, when the drums beat the garrison to dinner, +the Indians rushed to the attack. At the end of the hot August day there +remained of the fort but a smouldering heap of ruins, ghastly with human +bodies. Only a handful of the inmates escaped to spread the horrible +news among the terrified settlers. Swift runners set off eastward, +westward, and northward for help. A shudder ran over the whole country. +The Southwest turned from the remoter events of the war in Canada to the +disaster at home. "The Creeks!" "Weatherford!" "Fort Mims!" were the +words on everybody's lips, while the major-general of the Tennessee +militia still lay helpless from his shameful wound. + +From Mississippi on the west, from Georgia on the east, and from +Tennessee on the north, volunteer armies were soon on the march for the +Creek country. Tennessee, indeed, sent two different bodies of men. One +came from East Tennessee, commanded by General John Cocke; the other +came from West Tennessee, and at its head, pale and weak, his arm in a +sling, his shoulder too sore to bear the weight of an epaulette, was +Andrew Jackson. He had issued his orders from his bed. When a member of +the legislature, come to discuss the expedition with him, expressed +regret that he would not be able to lead it, the sick man muttered, with +the inevitable oath, that he _would_ lead it. But from the beginning to +the end of his military service he was paying the penalty, not merely of +the quarreling which had brought him wounds, but of intemperate eating +and drinking, which had ruined his digestion. Sometimes he was tortured +for hours with pains that could be relieved only by hanging his body, +like a garment hung to dry, face downward, over the back of a chair, or, +if he were on the march, over a sapling stripped and bent for the +purpose. + +By the second week in October, Jackson was at Huntsville, on the +Tennessee River. The entire command numbered about 2700. Its supplies +were to come by water from Knoxville, in East Tennessee, but the upper +part of the river was not navigable by reason of the dryness of the +season. Jackson stormed at the delay, but used the time in drilling his +men and scouring the country with Coffee's cavalry. Then he cut his way +over the mountains to a higher point on the river, hoping to find the +supplies. His energy was great, but without food he could not, as he +desired, dash at once into the enemy's country. He moved southward when +he had food, halted when it gave out, and finally reached the Coosa. +From his camp there, which he named Fort Strother, he dispatched Coffee +to strike a first blow against the Creek town of Tallusahatchee. Coffee +destroyed the town, and not a warrior escaped, for the whites were +bitterly revengeful. A slain mother embracing a living infant was found +among the dead. Jackson himself took care of the child, sent it to The +Hermitage, and he and his wife reared it to manhood. + +The next blow was struck at Talladega, thirty miles below Fort Strother, +where a body of friendly Indians were besieged by a larger body of Red +Sticks. Relying on General White, who was in the neighborhood with a +force of Cocke's East Tennesseans, to protect Fort Strother, Jackson +marched by night to Talladega. There, however, a dispatch reached him +from White, who announced that he must return to Cocke. So at sunrise +Jackson threw himself on the enemy, routed him with great loss, relieved +the friendly Indians, and then marched back to camp, to find no +provisions, and the sick and wounded as hungry as the rest. From that +time the struggle with famine was for weeks his principal business. Ill +as he was, he and his officers would have nothing the men could not +have. A soldier coming to him to beg for food, he thrust his hand into +his pocket, drew out some acorns, and courteously invited the man to +share his dinner. + +Jackson was disposed to blame General Cocke for the trouble about +supplies, because Cocke had undertaken to obtain supplies in Knoxville +for both commands; but it seems clear now that Cocke was not to blame. +Soon after the battle of Talladega Jackson's feeling against Cocke was +strengthened. The warriors of the Hillabee towns, a part of the Creek +Confederacy, sent a messenger to Jackson to sue for peace. He gave them +his terms, and the messenger was returning to the Hillabees when General +White, of Cocke's command, ignorant of what was going on, marched upon a +Hillabee town, killed many of the warriors, and captured the women and +children. Jackson, grieved and enraged at a blunder which probably +prolonged the war and certainly made it fiercer, was easily persuaded +that Cocke, his inferior officer, was trying to win laurels for +himself, and in the end his anger led him to do grave injustice to a man +who appears to have been faithful and honorable. + +And now for ten weeks the will of Andrew Jackson was tried to the +uttermost. His starving troops were constantly on the verge of mutiny. +The command was made up of two classes,--the militia, called into +service against the Indians, and the volunteers, who had first enlisted +for the expedition down the Mississippi. The militia, disheartened, +started for Tennessee. Jackson drew up the volunteers across their +pathway, and drove them back to camp. Then the volunteers, in their +turn, prepared to move northward, and he stopped them with the militia. +The mounted men were permitted to go to Huntsville to get food for their +horses, and most of them went on to their homes. The infantry, sullen +and distrustful, were kept in camp only by the promise that in two days +supplies would come from Nashville, whither Jackson was sending letter +after letter to stir up the authorities. At the end of two days nothing +had come. A few brave men volunteered to defend the camp while with the +rest the general marched northward in search of food. The supplies soon +came in sight, and the men were fed; but now they refused to go back to +camp, and again turned northward. Jackson, with Coffee and a handful of +others, threw himself in front of them, and with blazing eyes and +dreadful oaths cowed them into obedience. Again they threatened mutiny, +and once more, alone, on horseback, a musket in his hand, his disabled +arm in its sling, he faced them, and swore he would shoot the first man +who stirred. They hesitated, wavered, yielded. + +Seeing, however, that nothing could be done with the volunteers, Jackson +finally permitted them to go, keeping with him the militia and a small +body of Cocke's men. The militia claimed that their term would expire +January 4, 1814; the term of Cocke's men would expire a week later. +Anxiously awaiting reinforcements, Jackson got, instead, a letter from +Governor Blount advising him to give up the struggle. But he would not +give up; his magnificent spirit rose higher with every blow. He wrote +the governor a letter that taught him his duty. Through the governor, in +fact, that letter roused the whole State, and soon a new army was on the +way from West Tennessee, while Cocke was marching another force +southward from East Tennessee. With some five hundred raw recruits that +reached him before Cocke's first command left, Jackson held Fort +Strother. He even ventured to make a raid into the enemy's country, +aiming at the town of Emuckfau. The Indians attacked him. He repulsed +them, but soon made up his mind to return. On his way back, he was again +attacked while crossing a creek, his rear guard was driven in, and for a +moment a panic and rout was imminent. But the valor of a few men saved +the army, and he got safely back to Fort Strother. + +He did not move again until the middle of March, and then he had five +thousand men. Cocke, for a speech addressed to his troops when they +threatened mutiny, was sent to Nashville under arrest. To stamp out +insubordination among the men from West Tennessee, a youth named Woods, +who had been found guilty of mutiny, was shot before the whole army. The +thirty-ninth regiment of regulars was now a part of the command, and the +general proposed to use them, whenever occasion offered, to suppress +insubordination among the volunteers. But from this time he had little +of that to deal with, and was free to grapple with the Creeks, who had +so far held their own against the Georgians and Mississippians. + +The centre of their resistance was the Hickory Ground, near the fork of +the Coosa and Tallapoosa; but the final blow was struck at a bend in the +Tallapoosa midway between its source and mouth. The spot was called by +the Indians Tohopeka; by the whites, The Horseshoe. Across the neck of a +small peninsula the hostiles had thrown up a rough line of breastworks. +On the banks of the river they had gathered a number of canoes. Within +the defences was a force of Red Sticks estimated at nine hundred, and +several hundred women and children. + +Jackson moved down the Coosa to a point nearly even with Tohopeka, +established a new camp, and by the evening of March 28 he was in front +of the enemy with about three thousand men, including a considerable +body of friendly Indians. Resolving to make thorough work of it, he +dispatched Coffee, with the friendly Indians and the cavalry, to +surround the bend on the opposite bank. The next morning, with the +artillery, he opened fire on the breastworks. Coffee, meantime, threw a +force across the river and attacked the enemy from the rear. The line of +breastworks was carried by assault. The slaughter of Creeks was +dreadful. As usual, they fought to the last. Five hundred and +fifty-seven bodies were found in the bend, and many perished trying to +escape across the river. Jackson's loss was about two hundred killed and +wounded. + +Tohopeka broke down the organized resistance of the Indians. When +Jackson, a few days later, turned southward, he was able to march on to +the Hickory Ground without fighting another battle. The Red Sticks for +the most part fled to their kindred, the Seminoles, in Florida; but some +came in and submitted to the iron hand which had crushed them. Jackson +had been at the Hickory Ground but a short time when Weatherford himself +came in and surrendered. Some of the men, remembering Fort Mims, would +have done violence to the fallen chief, but Jackson protected him. Soon +afterwards, General Pinckney, of the regular army, arrived at Fort +Jackson, which had been built in the river fork, and took command. When +he ordered the Tennesseans to return to their homes, Jackson went with +them, and his fellow citizens at Nashville gave him the first of many +triumphal receptions. His eight months' work in the wilderness had made +him easily the first man of Tennessee. Georgia had had a better chance +than Tennessee to crush the Indians, for the distance and the natural +obstacles were less; but Georgia had no such leader as Andrew Jackson. +Another reward soon reached him. In May, General William Henry Harrison +resigned his commission, and in his place Jackson was appointed +major-general in the army of the United States. He was put in command of +the southwestern district, including Mobile and New Orleans. + +But on his way to his post he had to stop again at Fort Jackson and +complete his work among the Creeks. Acting under orders from the +government, he compelled the chiefs there assembled, practically all of +whom had been friendly to the United States during the war, to sign an +"agreement and capitulation" by which they ceded to the United States +all the land which they had claimed to the west of the Coosa. He carried +the matter through with a high hand, but the Creeks themselves admired +him and put into the agreement a cession of land to himself. It was, of +course, not permissible for a negotiator to accept such a gift from the +other party. However, the land was part of the region claimed by the +United States and surrendered by the Creeks, and as a matter of fact, +Jackson never got possession of it. This "treaty," as it was improperly +called, was signed August 9, 1814, and then Jackson was free to take up +his new duties as the defender of the Southwest against the British. + +Up to this time, except for the war with the Creeks and the bloodless +capture of Mobile, the Southwest had taken little part in the contest. +On land, the war had been mainly an affair of the North, where the +Americans had been trying to wrest Canada from the mother country, and +of the Northwest, where the British and the Indians had taken the +offensive. The death of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, in +November, 1813, had made an end of that combination, and General William +Henry Harrison had won some honor by his management of the campaign. But +the several attempts at invading Canada were neither successful nor +glorious. On the whole, the land campaigns of the Americans had been +utterly disappointing. The little American navy had indeed covered +itself with glory, both on the high seas and on the Great Lakes; but +from the seas, where it was vastly overmatched by Great Britain's +immense naval resources, it had practically disappeared by the autumn of +1814. Only a few privateers still preyed on British commerce. And now, +by the overthrow of Napoleon, Great Britain was left free to employ +against America all those ships with which Nelson had won for her the +empire of the sea, and those superb soldiers who, under Wellington, had +driven the French out of Spain. Regiments of these veterans were sent to +Canada. In August, an expedition under General Ross landed on the coast +of Chesapeake Bay, defeated an American force at Bladensburg, took +Washington, and burned the capitol and the President's mansion. The +enemy was stronger than ever, and the United States were at the point of +exhaustion. + +Moreover, the ruling class in one important section of the country was +rather inclined to weaken than to help the government. The Federalist +leaders in New England were against the French, against President +Madison, against the war. They had been in opposition ever since +President Jefferson went into office in 1801. Distrusting the Southwest, +and opposing the expansion of the country in that direction, they had +talked about a breaking up of the Union when Louisiana was purchased in +1803, and again when the State of Louisiana was admitted in 1811-12. +When the war began, the governors of several New England States refused +to turn their militia over to the Union generals. In 1814, several +legislatures, the Massachusetts legislature in the lead, were arranging +a convention to propose far-reaching changes in the Constitution of the +United States, and many feared that the outcome would be the disruption +of the Union and a separate New England confederation. True, New England +men were fighting bravely by land and sea for their country, but the +leading Federalists of New England were, as a rule, disaffected. A +notable exception was John Quincy Adams, who, distrusting the leaders of +his own party, had gone over to the party of Jefferson. + +The time was now come for the Southwest, the region so long distrusted, +to show whether or not it was loyal to the Union. The British were +aiming at that quarter a powerful military and naval force. Evidently +believing the stories of disaffection in the Southwest, they had sent +ahead of their expedition printed invitations to the Southwestern people +to throw off the yoke of the Union. The Spaniards of the Gulf coast, +probably not ignorant of the American designs on both the Floridas, and +resenting the seizure of Mobile, were no better than passive allies of +the British, who were thus enabled to use Pensacola as a base for their +campaign against Mobile, New Orleans, and the great Mississippi Valley +beyond. + +When Jackson reached Mobile, in the middle of August, he was already +thoroughly angered with the Spaniards for harboring refugee Creeks and +giving them arms. He had always been in favor of seizing the Floridas; +that had been the real object of the expedition down the Mississippi in +1813 which he had commanded. The true reason why he and his army were +dismissed at Natchez was that the authorities at Washington had changed +their mind about seizing West Florida. In July, 1814, he wrote to +Washington for permission to take Pensacola, but no reply came, for the +War Department was occupied with General Ross. The absurd conduct of a +British officer, Colonel Nichols, who was at Pensacola with a force of +British and Indians, occupying one of the two Spanish forts there, and +issuing fiery proclamations, was enough to make Jackson act at once, +even if he had hesitated before. He answered the colonel's proclamations +with others equally fiery. But he had to wait for troops, which were to +come from the neighboring States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and +Louisiana. Meantime, in September, a British squadron made a determined +attack on Fort Bowyer, at the entrance to Mobile Bay, and was repulsed, +with the loss of its flagship, by Major Lawrence and a small +garrison,--a gallant achievement, which made a good beginning of the +campaign. At the end of October, Coffee, now a general officer, with +nearly three thousand Tennesseans, reached the neighborhood of Mobile. +With these, and about a thousand of the regulars he had already, Jackson +promptly marched on Pensacola. One of the forts, and the city itself, he +took; the other fort, Barrancas, was blown up by the British before he +could reach it. The enterprise kept him but a week. It was all over +before he received, in reply to his own letter of July, a letter from +the Secretary of War forbidding him to attack Pensacola. Once again he +had taken the responsibility to do what he felt to be necessary. + +By this time the government at Washington was alive to the great danger +of the Southwest. Hurried orders were sent to the governors of the +various States whose militia must be the main reliance for defence. It +was suspected that New Orleans would be the first objective of the +enemy, and a warning came to the city from Jean Lafitte, the leader of a +gang of smugglers, whom the British had tried to win over. But the +warning was not properly heeded, and Jackson himself was slow to make +up his mind where the enemy would strike. He lingered at Mobile until +November 22, and four days later Sir Edward Pakenham, with a large army +and a great fleet, sailed from Jamaica for New Orleans. It was not until +December 2 that a worn, thin man, tired and ill, whom nobody, failing to +observe the look in his eyes, would have taken for the conqueror of the +Creeks, rode into the curious little city that had been the French and +then the Spanish capital of Louisiana, and which was not yet half like +an American town. The bulk of its population was still French Creole and +African; but among the Americans there was at least one man who already +knew something of Andrew Jackson, and who was to know a great deal more. +The leader of the New Orleans bar, and the most active of all the +citizens in making ready for the enemy, was no other than that Edward +Livingston, who, with Duane and Burr, had been friendly to the Tennessee +Congressman eighteen years before at Philadelphia. He invited the new +commander to his house, where Mrs. Livingston, a social leader in the +town, soon discovered that the Indian fighter knew perfectly well how to +deport himself in a drawing-room. + + + + +IV + +NEW ORLEANS + + +A glance at the map will give the reader some idea of the doubts that +must have beset Jackson concerning the point at which the enemy would +probably attack New Orleans. The island on which the city stands was +accessible from the sea by at least three general routes. The British +might approach by the Mississippi River, which flows by the city on the +west, or over Lake Pontchartrain, which stretches out to the north, or +over Lake Borgne, from the southeast. Jackson first inspected Fort St. +Philip, sixty miles below, on the river; besides the fort, there were, +for river defences, the schooner Carolina and the sloop Louisiana. His +next move was to Lake Pontchartrain, and he was still in that quarter +when news came that the enemy had chosen the third route and was +already on Lake Borgne. The British found there six American gun-boats, +which were all destroyed or taken after a brief but gallant struggle. +That was December 14, and New Orleans was not yet in any good posture of +defence. The most natural route from the lake to the immediate +neighborhood of the city was up the Bayou Bienvenu, which led to the +southern end of a level plain bounded on the west by the river and on +the east by a dense cypress swamp. At the northern end of the plain lay +New Orleans, and the distance was but six or seven miles; the plain was +in most places about a mile wide. Between the head of the bayou and the +city there was not a fort or even a line of intrenchments. For this +state of things Jackson has not escaped blame from military critics. + +But if illness or any other cause had robbed him of his usual energy, +the news of the disaster on Lake Borgne was the signal for a change in +him and in the situation. Coffee, with part of the Tennessee volunteers, +was up the river at Baton Rouge. A hurried summons brought him a +hundred and twenty miles in two days, and on the 19th he was in camp a +few miles above the city with eight hundred men. Two days later came +General Carroll and a brigade of Tennessee militia, two thousand strong; +with them came also a squadron of mounted Mississippi volunteers. +Louisiana furnished a thousand militia; the city of New Orleans five or +six hundred volunteers, of whom about a third were mulattoes. Jackson +had also two incomplete regiments of regulars numbering together about +eight hundred rank and file. A Kentucky brigade of twenty-five hundred +men was on the way, but without arms. Of Carroll's men, only one in ten +had a musket. To provide arms for these new troops was a difficult +matter, and many of the Kentuckians were still unarmed when the final +struggle came. The city became panic-stricken and disorderly, and +Jackson promptly placed it under martial law. + +Such was the situation when, on the morning of December 23, the British +advance party, numbering about seventeen hundred, conveyed in small +boats over the shallow Lake Borgne and up the Bienvenu, landed six miles +below the city and seized the mansion of Major Villere, a Creole +gentleman of the neighborhood. Villere was captured, but escaped, and at +half past one o'clock Jackson knew in New Orleans that the enemy was at +hand. By good luck, Major Latour, a French engineer, and the best +historian of the campaign, was among the first to view the invaders, and +he gave the general a correct idea of their position and numbers. As in +all other crises, Jackson's resolve was taken at once. "By the Eternal," +he exclaimed, "they shall not sleep on our soil!" He set his troops in +motion for a night attack. + +Had the British marched on to New Orleans without stopping, it seems +probable that they would have taken it that evening. But at nightfall +upwards of two thousand Americans were between them and the city. +Jackson was on the American right, near the river, with the regulars and +the Louisiana contingent. Coffee, with his Tennesseans and the +Mississippi horsemen, was on the left, next the cypress swamp. Carroll's +brigade and the city militia were left to guard New Orleans on the +north. The Carolina had crept down the river opposite the enemy's +position, and at half past seven one of her guns gave the signal for +attack. + +What followed, in the fog and darkness, is not clearly known. The +British were surprised; but British soldiers are proverbially hard to +drive from their own position. The Americans had the advantage of making +the attack; but they were nearly all raw troops. Each side was confused +and uncertain of its own and the enemy's position. Coffee, on the left, +drove the British back towards the river, where they were protected by +an old levee, while the new levee on the bank shielded them from the +Louisiana's fire. On the right, the Americans were repulsed. +Reinforcements reached the British army during the action. At half past +nine the attack ceased. The enemy lost two hundred and sixty-seven +killed, wounded, and missing; the Americans, two hundred and thirteen. +The night attack, however, strengthened the Americans. The enemy, +overrating Jackson's force, became too cautious to advance at once, but +waited until the entire army should be landed. The Americans gained time +to build defenses. + +Jackson chose a line two miles above the battlefield, marked by a +shallow canal or ditch which crossed the plain at its narrowest point, +from the swamp to the river. Behind the ditch he threw up a parapet. In +some places cotton bales were used, for the soil was but three feet +deep; at that depth one found water, as indeed one found water almost +everywhere,--in the foggy air, in the bayous, the river, the swamps, of +that low land about New Orleans. In a few days Jackson's arrangements +for defence were completed. Fifteen guns were disposed at intervals +along the line, some of them manned by Lafitte and his buccaneers. The +whole force numbered about three thousand, and the Kentuckians, though +not all armed, were used as a reserve. On the river the Louisiana and +the Carolina gave the enemy much trouble. + +The British army, when completely disembarked, seemed to justify the +Duke of Wellington's confidence that it could rout any American army he +ever heard of. Seven thousand trained British soldiers, seamen, and +marines, and a thousand West Indian blacks, were assembled at Villere's +plantation, with from twenty-five to thirty guns. There were regiments +which had helped Wellington to win Talavera, Salamanca, and Vitoria, and +within a few short months some of these same regiments were to stand at +Waterloo in that thin red line which Ney and Napoleon's guard could +never break. Their general, Pakenham, Wellington's brother-in-law, was a +distinguished pupil of his illustrious kinsman. Could frontiersmen who +had never fought together before, who had never seen the face of a +civilized foe, withstand the conquerors of Napoleon? But two branches of +the same stubborn race were represented on that little watery plain. The +soldiers trained to serve the strongest will in the Old World were face +to face with the rough and ready yeomanry embattled for defence by the +one man of the New World whose soul had most of iron in it. It was +Salamanca against Tohopeka, discipline against individual alertness, the +Briton of the little Isle against the Briton of the wastes and wilds. +But there was one great difference. Wellington, "the Iron Duke," was not +there; "Old Hickory" was everywhere along the American lines. A grave +and moderate historian, comparing the defense of New Orleans with the +defence of Washington, finds the two situations not unlike. "The +principal difference," he remarks, "was that Jackson commanded." + +Pakenham's first concern was to get rid of the Carolina and the +Louisiana. Heavy guns were with great labor hauled from the fleet, and +on December 27 the Carolina's crew were forced to abandon her, and the +Louisiana was with difficulty got out of range; but meanwhile Commodore +Patterson had mounted a battery across the river which in a measure made +up for the ships. On the 28th, Pakenham advanced with his whole army, +but retired, without making any assault, to await the result of an +artillery duel. This was fought on New Year's day, 1815. The British +used at least twenty-four guns, throwing some three hundred and fifty +pounds of metal; the Americans, fifteen guns, throwing two hundred and +twenty-four pounds. On both sides novel defences were employed,--cotton +bales by the Americans, barrels of sugar by the British. The bales +quickly caught fire, and from that time were discarded; the barrels +proved as useless as if they had been empty. The result of the action +would have been utterly surprising but for the discovery already made in +Canada that Americans were better marksmen than British regulars. Three +American guns were damaged; every one of the British batteries was +silenced and abandoned. The American loss was thirty-four killed and +wounded; the British, somewhat heavier. + +Pakenham waited a week for General Lambert to come up with two of his +regiments, and then made his supreme effort. His plan was to advance on +both sides of the river. During the night of January 7, Colonel +Thornton, with 1200 men, was thrown across to the left bank, where +General David Morgan had 450 Louisiana militia, reinforced at the last +moment by four hundred Kentuckians. Both British divisions were to +attack before dawn. But the dawn came before Thornton was ready. He was, +however, successful in his part of the programme. Morgan was driven +back, his guns taken, and the British on the west bank passed up the +river a mile beyond Jackson's line. Jackson never forgave the +Kentuckians, although military critics incline to think they did all +that should have been expected. + +But on the east bank it was a different story. At six o'clock the main +body of the British rushed upon the American lines. General Gibbs, with +2200, sought to pierce the defenses near the swamp. General Keane led +1200 along the river bank. General Lambert, with the reserve, brought up +the rear. The whole force engaged was over 5000. Gibbs first came under +the American fire. The head of his division melted before it. Gibbs +himself fell, mortally wounded. Pakenham, dashing forward to rally the +column, was killed three hundred yards from the lines. Keane, on the +British left, was wounded and carried from the field. Nowhere did the +enemy pierce or break the line of defense. A brave major did indeed +cross the ditch and lift his head above the breastworks; but he lived +only long enough to send back word that he died on the parapet like an +English soldier. In truth, Pakenham's assault was a desperate venture, +such as British commanders, relying on the valor of their men, have been +too often led to make. At eight o'clock Jackson walked from end to end +of his works, and not a British soldier was anywhere to be seen in an +attitude of offence. The smoke of the artillery, clearing, discovered +the enemy far distant, in full retreat to his camp, and the battlefield +littered with piles of dead and wounded. "I saw," said Jackson, "more +than five hundred Britons emerging from the heaps of their dead +comrades, all over the plain, rising up, and still more distinctly +visible as the field became clearer, coming forward and surrendering to +our soldiers." + +Here was revenge, indeed, for the sufferings of little Andy in the +Waxhaws, for the sabre cut on his head, for his brothers, for his +mother. But it is not known that any low word of vengeance passed his +lips at the awful sight before him. The British dead were seven hundred, +their wounded twice as many, and five hundred were taken. In the +American lines on that side of the river eight were killed and thirteen +wounded. Such a victory, so cheaply bought, is not paralleled in the +warfare of civilized men. Lambert, succeeding Pakenham, recalled +Thornton and gave up the important advantage the British won on the +western bank. For ten days the armies lay as they were, and then the +enemy withdrew as he had come. A few days later, Fort Bowyer, on Mobile +Point, was taken, and then the fighting ceased. + +During the closing weeks of January, by the slow methods of travel +prevalent in those days, three messengers were hastening to Washington +with tidings which the wearied President awaited with eagerness or fear +according to the quarter from which they came. From Hartford, Conn., +where the convention of New England malcontents had sat, he was to learn +what demands were made by Americans who chose a time of war to change +and weaken, if not indeed to destroy, the constitution of their country. +From the American commissioners at Ghent he hoped against hope for news +of a peace. To the Southwest he looked with dread, for few had dared to +believe that New Orleans could be defended. The three messages arrived +almost together, and all three were to stick in men's minds for years to +come, and to mould men's thoughts about their country. From Ghent came +tidings of a peace, not, indeed, glorious, or such as we had gone to war +to win, but better than we had a right to expect. From New Orleans, +tidings of a victory so splendid that it stirred the blood and +brightened the eyes of every true American, and made it hard to +remember that the war had not been altogether glorious. The threatening +message from Hartford lost its terrors. In the great balance of the +sections, the Northeast sank, the Southwest rose. When men recalled the +war with shame, it was because of Hartford; when they spoke of it with +pride, as in time they came to do, it was because they saw, on the +parapet of New Orleans, looking out over heaps of British dead, the +thin, tall figure of the horseman in Lafayette Square. True, the victory +might seem worthless, for the peace was made before the battle was +fought; but the victor had won for his countrymen something dearer than +anything set forth in treaties. He had won them back their good opinion +of themselves. In the prosperous years that were to follow, Andrew +Jackson, the man of the Southwest, was to stand as no other man could +for the American's faith in his country against the world. + +But the victorious general was still the same Andrew Jackson; he did not +leave New Orleans without exhibiting some of the characteristics that +were so well known in Tennessee. Relaxing none of his vigilance, he kept +the city under martial law after the British had sailed, and even after +the British admiral had sent him word of the peace. Many New Orleans +people protested, and certain of them claimed exemption from the work of +defense on the ground that they were citizens of France. All such he +ordered out of the city. Mr. Louaillier, a leading citizen, published a +protest, and Jackson promptly arrested him. Judge Hall, of the United +States District Court, issued a writ of habeas corpus for the prisoner, +and Jackson as promptly arrested the judge himself, and did not release +him until, early in March, official notice of the peace was received. +The judge fined the general a thousand dollars for contempt of court, +and nearly thirty years afterwards the American Congress voted money +enough to repay the sum with interest. Between the battle and the news +of peace, Jackson also signed the order for the execution of six +militiamen whom a court-martial had found guilty of mutiny and +desertion. There were circumstances which seemed to recommend these men +to mercy, and in after years the order was cited along with other things +to prove that Jackson was a cruel and arbitrary commander. + +However, the War Department gave him only the mildest of reproofs for +his treatment of the civil authorities at New Orleans, and when he +returned to Tennessee it was to a welcome even more heartfelt and +stirring than the one he got on his return from the Creek war. In the +autumn he was called to Washington to consult with his superiors about +putting the army on a peace footing, and on the journey and at the +capital he was universally received as the hero of the war. The army was +reduced to ten thousand men, and distributed into a northern and a +southern department. The command of the northern department was given to +General Jacob Brown; Jackson got the southern department. + +It was about this time that Governor Alston, of South Carolina, got a +letter from his father-in-law, Aaron Burr, of New York, concerning the +approaching presidential election. Burr thought Monroe, the leading +candidate and the man preferred by President Madison, too weak a man for +the great office. He wanted a man of firmness and decision, and he +added, "that man is Andrew Jackson." But as yet Jackson himself had no +such ambition. As late as 1821, in fact, he said, in reply to a +suggestion that he might be President: "No, sir; I know what I am fit +for. I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit to be +President." He cordially supported Monroe in 1816, and after his +election wrote to him and made a few suggestions about his +administration. One of these suggestions was to appoint a Federalist, +Colonel William Drayton, Secretary of War. Jackson declared that, had he +been in command in New England, he would have hanged the leaders of the +Hartford Convention; but he was in favor of recognizing the loyalty of +such Federalists as had served the country faithfully during the war. +That letter to Monroe was "copied" for the general by his neighbor and +friend, William B. Lewis, as were hundreds of others. The general +himself was a poor writer, and Major Lewis was a skilful man with a pen. +He was also an exceedingly clever politician, and he showed his +cleverness by keeping a second copy of the letter to Monroe for future +use. In the course of the correspondence, Monroe let Jackson know that +he himself might be Secretary of War if he chose; but Jackson was +content with his command. + + + + +V + +THE SEMINOLES AND THE POLITICIANS + + +For three years General Jackson was mainly occupied with the duties of a +military officer in time of peace; but he was also employed to make +treaties with several Indian tribes, and won another royal welcome home +from the Tennesseans by throwing open to settlement large areas of +Indian lands. Even in peace, however, he found an opportunity to display +his readiness to do the right thing in a way to make trouble. Being +several times annoyed by orders issued direct from the War Department to +his inferiors, and seeing clearly that this was not the proper +procedure, he issued a general order forbidding his subordinates to obey +any commands which did not reach them through him. Calhoun, who became +Secretary of War soon afterwards, conceded the justice of the general's +position, but Jackson's course in the matter was certainly rather +high-handed. General Winfield Scott criticised it in private +conversation, and a mischief-maker brought his words to Jackson's +attention. The result was some fiery and abusive letters to Scott, and a +challenge to a duel, which Scott, on religious grounds, very properly +declined. Jackson also carried on an angry correspondence with General +Adair, of Kentucky, who defended the Kentucky troops from the charge of +cowardice at New Orleans. + +It was late in the year 1817 before General Jackson was again called to +active service in the field. Once more the call was from the southward, +and his old enemies, the Red Sticks, the English, and the Spaniards, +were all in some measure responsible for it. A number of Red Sticks had +taken refuge with their kinsmen, the Seminoles, in Florida. Colonel +Nichols and a small force of British had also remained in Florida some +time after the war ended, and had done things of a nature to stir up the +Indians there against the Americans across the border. Negro slaves, +escaping from American masters, had fled to the Spanish province in +considerable numbers, and a body of them got possession of a fort on the +Apalachicola River which had been abandoned by the British. To add to +the disorder of the province, it was frequented by adventurers, some of +them claiming to be there in order to lead a revolution against Spain, +some of them probably mere freebooters. The Spanish authorities at +Pensacola were too weak to control such a population, and Americans near +the border were anxious to have their government interfere. The negro +fort was a centre of lawlessness, and some American troops marched down +the river, bombarded it, and by a lucky shot blew up its magazine and +killed nearly three hundred negroes. Troubles arose with the Indians +also, and Fowltown, an Indian village, was taken and burned. A +considerable body of Indians took to the war-path, and Jackson was +ordered to the scene. + +Impatient as ever with the Spaniards, he wrote to President Monroe: +"Let it be signified to me through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that +the possession of Florida would be desirable to the United States, and +in sixty days it will be accomplished." Monroe was ill at the time, and +for some reason did not attend to the general's letter for a year. The +President was trying to get Florida peaceably, by purchase, and not by +conquest. Jackson, however, got the idea that his suggestion was +approved, and acted accordingly. + +Raising troops in Tennessee on his own authority, he marched rapidly to +the scene of trouble, crossed the border into Florida, and in a few +weeks crushed the Seminoles. Of fighting, in fact, there was very +little; what there was fell almost entirely to the friendly Indians, and +not a single American soldier was killed. But Jackson's actions in the +campaign brought on the bitterest controversies of his career. By his +order four men were put to death, and he captured Pensacola again, +claiming that some Indians had taken refuge there. Two of the four men +were Creek Red Sticks. The other two were white men and British +subjects. One was Alexander Arbuthnot, an old man of seventy, a trader +among the Indians, and, so far as is known, a man of good character. He +was taken prisoner, however, and it is supposed a letter he wrote to his +son, telling him to take their merchandise to a place of safety, warned +some Indians of Jackson's approach. The other British subject was an +Englishman named Robert Ambrister, who had been a lieutenant in the +British army. He was nephew to the governor of New Providence, one of +the British West Indies, and seems to have been in Florida rather in +search of adventure than for any clearly ascertainable purpose. A +court-martial found Arbuthnot guilty of inciting the Creek Indians to +rise against the United States, and of aiding the enemy. Ambrister was +found guilty of levying war against the United States. He was first +sentenced to be shot; then, on reconsideration, the court changed the +sentence to fifty stripes and hard labor for a year. Jackson firmly +believed that both were British emissaries, sent to Florida to stir up +the Indians. He disapproved the change of Ambrister's sentence, and +ordered him to be shot and Arbuthnot to be hanged. + +Such fierce and energetic measures, whether justifiable or not, put an +end to the disorder on the border, and Jackson was again free to return +home a victor. The country was disposed to approve what he had done, but +the President and Cabinet saw that grave international questions would +be raised; for Jackson had invaded the soil of a country at peace with +the United States, taken possession of its forts, and put to death +citizens of another country also at peace with the United States. John +C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, the Secretary of War, was in favor of +censuring the general for his conduct; but John Quincy Adams, of +Massachusetts, the Secretary of State, thought his acts necessary under +the circumstances, and declared himself ready to defend them. In the end +he did defend them so well that neither Spain nor Great Britain made +serious trouble over them. The President and his Cabinet followed +Adams's advice instead of Calhoun's, and Calhoun himself, as Jackson's +superior, wrote to him about the campaign in a friendly way. Jackson +naturally thought that Calhoun had been his friend in the Cabinet, and +had no reason to suspect that it was Adams who defended, and Calhoun who +wished to censure him. He did not learn the truth for many years. Had he +known it sooner, there is no telling how different the political history +of the next twenty years might have been. + +For henceforth Jackson was to be a great figure not in warfare but in +politics. His military career was practically ended. He kept his +commission until July, 1821, but from this time he fought no more +battles. He had not, as a soldier, given such evidence of military +genius as to set his name alongside those of the great captains of +history, but he had shown himself a strong and successful leader of men; +in his masterful, often irregular and violent way, he had done his +country good service. Were his place in history merely a soldier's, it +would be a safe one, though not the highest. But his actions in the +field soon gave him the leading part on a different stage. One day in +January, 1819, he rode up to the house of his neighbor, Major Lewis, who +had just bought a new overcoat, and asked him to get himself another; +the general wanted the one already made to wear on a long journey. +"Major," he said, "there is a combination in Washington to ruin me. I +start to Washington tomorrow." + +The chief of those who, as Jackson firmly believed, were combined to +ruin him, was the man who could with best reason be compared to the hero +of New Orleans for the place he had in the affections of the Western +people and as the representative of the new American spirit, born of the +second war with Great Britain. If Jackson was the hero of the war, Henry +Clay was its orator; if it was Jackson who sent from one quarter the +news of a glorious victory, it was Clay who, with Adams and Gallatin, +had secured the peace. Leaving Ghent, Clay was lingering in Paris when +he heard the news of New Orleans. "Now," he exclaimed, "I can go to +England without mortification." But the great orator was not in sympathy +with Monroe's administration. His enemies declared he was in opposition +because he was not asked to be Secretary of State, and because he feared +that Adams, who had the place, would become President four years later. +However that may have been, it was Clay who led the attack on the +administration about the campaign in Florida. Protesting his deep +respect for "the illustrious military chieftain" who commanded there, he +yet condemned the hanging of the two Red Sticks, the execution of +Arbuthnot and Ambrister, the taking of Pensacola. + +From the moment Jackson read that speech he was Clay's enemy, and a +warfare began that lasted twenty-five years. Every man, in fact, who in +the course of the long debate that followed condemned the acts of +General Jackson in Florida was written down an enemy on the tablets of +his memory. He remained in Washington until the House had voted down +every resolution unfavorable to his course, and he had thus won his +first victory over Clay. Then he set forth on a northern journey which +showed him the immense popularity he had in places like New York, +Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and gave him an opportunity to increase it +by the fine appearance he made in public. He returned to find that a +Senate committee had reported unfavorably on his conduct, but the Senate +never acted on the report, and on his journey homeward the people gave +him every reason to believe that the great majority of his countrymen +approved the votes of the lower house. As if to complete his triumph, he +was soon called once more to Florida; and this time he entered +Pensacola, not as a soldier invading a foreign province, but as the +chief magistrate of an American territory. In February, 1821, after so +many years of negotiation, Florida was bought by the United States. +President Monroe appointed Jackson governor and commissioner to receive +the province, and he, bidding farewell to the army, entered again upon +the duties of a civil office. + +Even in his farewell to his troops, Jackson took occasion to attack a +policy recently favored by his superior, General Jacob Brown, and any +one who knew Jackson might have guessed that the holding of a civil +office would never keep him from violent courses, particularly in +Pensacola. He held the office only a few months, for he was in wretched +health. His wife, who was with him, tells in one of her letters how pale +and solemn he was when he rode into Pensacola for the third time, and +how ill he was while he was there. He resigned in October, but before he +resigned he had made another cause of dispute with Spain. The retiring +Spanish governor, Callava, was accused of attempting to carry away +papers which were necessary to establish the property rights of a +quadroon family. The correspondence on the subject led to a series of +misunderstandings, and General Jackson was soon convinced that villainy +was afoot. The upshot of the dispute was that the American governor put +the Spanish governor in jail; and when the United States judge of West +Florida, a curious character named Fromentin, tried to mend the matter +with a writ of habeas corpus, he fared little better than Judge Hall of +New Orleans had fared before him. + +Mr. Parton's laborious investigation of this comical affair enables him +to show that the estate over which the trouble arose was of no value +whatever, and that Jackson's chivalrous impulse to defend a family he +thought wronged led him into a very arbitrary and indefensible action. +As usual, his motives were good, but his temper was not improved by his +illness or by the fact that Callava, who seems to have been a worthy +gentleman, was a Spaniard, and had been governor of Florida. Jackson had +a rooted dislike of Spanish governors, and doubtless congratulated +himself and the country that there would be no more of them in Florida, +when, for the last time, he turned northward from Pensacola to seek The +Hermitage and the rest which his diseased body sorely needed. + +The Hermitage was by this time a good place to rest in, for it had grown +to be a Southern plantation home, quite unlike the bare homes which +sheltered the first settlers of that neighborhood, and it had its full +share of the charm that belonged to that old Southern life. It was the +seat of an abundant hospitality. The fame of its master drew thither +interesting men from a distance. His benevolence, and the homely charity +of his wife, made it a resort for many of the neighborhood whom they two +had befriended, for young people fond of the simple amusements of those +days, and for ministers of the Gospel, whom Mrs. Jackson, an extremely +pious woman, liked especially to have about her. For his wife's sake, +the general built a tiny church on the estate, and always treated with +profound respect the religion which he himself had not professed, but +which he honored because Mrs. Jackson was a Christian. Indeed, there is +nothing in the man's whole life more honorable than his perfect loyalty +to her. She was a simple, uncultivated, kind-hearted frontier woman, no +longer attractive in person, and a great contrast to the courtly figure +by her side when she and the general were in company. It is certainly +true that the two used to smoke their reed pipes together before the +fire after dinner, and that custom, to one ignorant of American life in +the Southwest, would stamp them as persons of the lowest manners. Yet it +is also true that "Aunt Rachel," as Mrs. Jackson was commonly called by +younger people of the neighborhood, was loved and honored by all who +knew her. The general had not merely fine manners, but that which is +finer far than the finest manners: he had kindness for his slaves, +hospitality for strangers, gentleness with women and children. Lafayette +was at The Hermitage in 1825, and his noble nature was drawn to Jackson +in a way quite impossible to understand if he was nothing more than the +vindictive duelist, the headstrong brawler, the crusher out of Indians, +the hater of Britons and Spaniards, which we know that he was. Lafayette +found at The Hermitage the pistols which he himself had given to +Washington and which, with many swords and other tokens of the public +esteem, had come to the hero of New Orleans. The friend of Washington +declared that the pistols had come to worthy hands, notwithstanding that +his host was equally ready to display another weapon with the remark, +"That is the pistol with which I killed Mr. Dickinson." + +It seems clear that Jackson honestly meant to spend the rest of his days +at the Hermitage. His friend Eaton, a Senator from Tennessee, had +already written his life down to New Orleans, and probably he would have +been content, so far as his public career was concerned, to let _finis_ +follow the name of his greatest victory. But Eaton himself, and Major +Lewis, and other friends, and the vast public which his deeds had +stirred, would not let him alone. Within a year of his retirement, a +group of his friends were working shrewdly to make him President of the +United States. In 1823, John Williams, who was an enemy to Jackson, came +before the Tennessee legislature for reelection to the United States +Senate. Jackson's friends were determined to beat him, and found they +could do it in only one way. They elected Jackson himself. In that, as +in all the clever political work that was done for him, Major Lewis was +the leading man. Before the time came to choose a successor to President +Monroe in 1824, Tennessee had declared for her foremost citizen, and +Pennsylvania, to the surprise of the country, soon followed the lead. +The sceptre was about to pass from the Virginian line, and from all the +great sections of the Union distinguished statesmen stepped forward to +grasp it. From Georgia came William H. Crawford, a practiced politician; +from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, the subtlest of reasoners; from +Kentucky, Henry Clay, the orator; from Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams, +the best trained of public servants. Only Tennessee offered a soldier. + +It was twenty-six years from the end of Jackson's first service in +Congress to his second appearance in the Senate. Again he showed himself +unfit to shine as a legislator, but in spite of that he was now clearly +the most marked figure in the upper house. None of his rivals were +Senators. Clay was the Speaker of the House; Adams, Crawford, and +Calhoun were in the Cabinet. Jackson probably did not occupy more than +ten minutes of the Senate's time during the whole session, but his fame +and his candidacy made his votes on the tariff and internal improvements +important data to politicians. The country was already entered upon the +second period of its history, in which there was to be no French party +and no English party; in which a voter should choose his party on +account of its position on such questions as the tariff, internal +improvements, and the bank, or on account of the general view of the +Constitution which it favored. But as yet no clear division into such +parties had come about. The old Federalist party was no longer in the +field, and no other had arisen to take its place. It was a time of +personal politics. The first question was, Who is to succeed Monroe? and +the next question, Who is to succeed the successor of Monroe? + +Jackson found some firm friends awaiting him in Washington, and he soon +added to their number by becoming reconciled to some old enemies. Among +the old friends was Livingston, now Congressman from Louisiana. One of +the old enemies was the Senator from Missouri, whose chair was next his +own; for the Senator from Missouri, a rising man in Washington, was +Thomas H. Benton. According to Benton's account, Jackson made the first +advance, and they were soon on friendly terms, though Benton continued +to support Clay, whose niece he had married. General Winfield Scott made +an overture, and Jackson cordially responded. Even with Henry Clay he +was induced by mutual friends to stand on a footing of courteous +friendliness, though there never was any genuine friendship between +them. + +Against Crawford, the Georgian candidate, and at first the leading +candidate of all, he had a grudge that dated from 1815. Crawford was +Secretary of War at that time, and, contrary to Jackson's advice, had +restored to the Cherokees certain lands which Jackson had got from the +Creeks by the treaty of Fort Jackson, but which the Cherokees claimed. +When Crawford offered himself against Monroe in 1816, Jackson was +ardently for the Virginian; and now, when it was apparent that the +caucus of Republican Senators and Representatives would probably +nominate Crawford, Jackson's friends joined the friends of other +candidates in opposing the caucus altogether, so that in the end only +sixty-six persons attended it, and its action was deprived of the weight +it had formerly had in presidential contests. Before the election, +Crawford was stricken with paralysis, and this greatly weakened his +chances. + +Both Calhoun and Adams were on friendly terms with Jackson. Jackson +still supposed that Calhoun had defended the Florida campaign in the +Cabinet. His good feeling toward the South Carolinian was doubtless +strengthened when Calhoun, who had relied on the support of +Pennsylvania, gracefully yielded to Jackson's superior popularity in +that quarter, and withdrew from the contest. It was then generally +agreed that he should be Vice-President, and probably General Jackson, +like many others, was willing that he should restore the old order of +things according to which the Vice-President, instead of the Secretary +of State, stood in line of succession to the presidency. + +Adams was Secretary of State, and as such he had rendered Jackson +important services by defending his actions in Florida. Adams, in +diplomacy, believed in standing up for his own country quite as +resolutely as the frontier general did in war. Nor were they far apart +on the tariff and internal improvements, the domestic questions of the +day. Adams's diary for this period shows a good feeling for Jackson. In +honor of the general, Mrs. Adams gave a great ball January 8, 1824, the +anniversary of New Orleans. + +The election turned, as so many others have turned, on the vote of New +York, which Martin Van Buren, an astute politician, was trying to carry +for Crawford. He did not succeed, and there was no choice by the people. +Jackson led with ninety-nine votes in the electoral college; Adams had +eighty-four, Crawford forty-one, Clay thirty-seven. In some States the +electors were still chosen by the legislature. Outside of those States +Jackson had fifty thousand more votes than Adams, and Adams's vote was +nearly equal to Crawford's and Clay's combined. For Vice-President, +Calhoun had a large majority. + +Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives had now to choose a +President from the three leading candidates. Clay was Speaker, and had +great influence over the House, but his own name had to be dropped. +Beaten himself, he had the power to make any one of his three rivals +President of the United States. + +It was a trying situation for him and for the three citizens whose fate +he seemed to hold in his hands. Crawford was so ill that Clay could not +seriously consider him. Adams had never liked Clay, though they +generally agreed about public questions, and the ardent Kentuckian +could never have found the cold manners of the New England statesman +attractive. But from the first he preferred Adams to Jackson, thinking a +mere "military chieftain" unfit for the office. On the 9th of February, +Adams was elected. That evening he and Jackson met at a presidential +reception. Of the two, the defeated Westerner bore himself far more +graciously than the successful candidate from New England. + +Up to this time, no unseemly conduct could be charged against any one of +the four rivals. But the human nature of these men could not bear to the +end the strain of such a rivalry. For many years the jealousy and hatred +and suspicion it gave birth to were to blacken American politics. +Jackson was guilty of a grave injustice to Clay and Adams; and they, by +a political blunder, delivered themselves into his hands. Jackson and +his friends charged them with "bargain and corruption." Adams, by +appointing Clay Secretary of State, and Clay, by accepting the office, +gave their enemies the only evidence they ever had to offer of the truth +of the charge. Every other semblance of a proof was shown to be +worthless, and the characters of the two men have convinced all candid +historians that the charge was false. But there was no way to prove that +the charge was false. Jackson believed it, and from this time he made +war on Clay and Adams. He believed he had a wrong to right, a +combination of scoundrelly enemies to overthrow, a corrupted government +to purify and save. The election had shown him to be the most popular of +all the candidates, and his friends, of whom Benton was now the +foremost, contended that the House ought to have chosen him in obedience +to the people's will. Until he should be elected, he and his followers +seemed to feel that the people were hoodwinked by the politicians. + +Hitherto, since his second entrance into public life, he had borne +himself as became a soldier whose battles were already fought. Webster +had written of him: "General Jackson's manners are more presidential +than those of any other candidate. He is grave, mild, and reserved." +But now he was once more the Jackson of the tavern brawl, of the +Dickinson duel. Politics had come to be a fight, and his friends had no +more need to urge him on. He resigned his place in the Senate, and was +at once, for the second time, nominated for President by the Tennessee +legislature. With untiring industry and great political shrewdness, +Lewis, Eaton, Benton, Livingston, and others of his friends set to work +to get him elected. The campaign of 1824 was no sooner ended than the +campaign of 1828 was begun. + +It was an important campaign because it went far to divide the old +Republican party, to which all the candidates of 1824 had belonged, into +the two parties which were to battle for supremacy throughout the next +quarter of a century. The division was partly a matter of principles and +policies, but it was also a matter of organization. + +As to principles and measures, Adams was disposed to revive those +policies which the old Federalist party had adopted in the days of its +power. He had left that party in 1808, not because he had given up its +early principles, but because he believed that its leaders, particularly +in New England, in their bitter opposition to Jefferson, had gone to the +point where opposition to the party in power passes into disloyalty to +the country. In the Republican party he always acted with those men who, +like Henry Clay, favored a strong government at Washington and looked +with distrust on any attempt of a State to set up its own powers against +the powers of the United States. As President, he wished the government +to take vigorous measures for defense, for developing the country by +internal improvements, for protecting American industries by heavy +duties on goods imported from other countries. He thought that the +public lands should be sold at the highest prices they would bring, and +the money used by the general government to promote the public welfare. +He had no doubt as to the government's power to maintain a national +bank, and thought that was the very best way to manage the finances. + +Jackson himself was not a free-trader, and had committed himself to a +"proper" tariff on protection lines; but during the campaign he was made +to appear less of a tariff man than Adams. He had also voted for certain +national roads and other internal improvements, but he had not committed +himself sweepingly to that policy. He doubted the constitutionality of a +national bank. As to the public lands, he favored a liberal policy, with +the object of developing the western country by attracting settlers +rather than raising money to be spent by the government. On the general +question of the powers of the government he stood for a stricter +construction of the Constitution and greater respect for the rights of +the States than Adams believed in. So, notwithstanding Jackson's tariff +views, the mass of the people held him a better representative of +Jeffersonian Democracy than his rival. + +But a party is an organization, and not merely a list of principles. It +is, as some one has said, a crowd, and not merely a creed. Jackson's +managers so organized his supporters that they became a party in that +sense much more clearly than in the sense of holding the same views. +Committees were formed all over the country somewhat on the order of the +committees of correspondence of Revolutionary times. Newspapers were set +up to attack the administration and hold the Jackson men together. +Everywhere Jackson was represented as the candidate of the plain people +against the politicians. In all such work Major Lewis was active and +shrewd, and before the end of the campaign, from another quarter of the +union, Jackson won a recruit who was already a past master in all the +lore of party politics. Martin Van Buren was a pupil in the political +school of Aaron Burr, and was recognized as the cleverest politician of +a State in which the sort of politics that is concerned with securing +elections rather than fighting for principles had grown into a science +and an art. New York was then thought a doubtful State, and the support +of Van Buren was of the utmost value. + +It is probable that so far as Adams and Jackson differed on questions of +principle and policy, a majority of the people were with Jackson. But it +is also clear that the campaign was fought out as a sort of personal +contest between the Southwestern soldier and the two statesmen whom he +accused of bargain and corruption. It was a campaign of bitter personal +abuse on both sides. Adams, perhaps the most rigidly conscientious +statesman since Washington, was accused of dishonesty, of extravagance, +of riches, of debt, of betraying his old friends, the Federalists, of +trying to bring Federalists back into power. Against Jackson his enemies +brought up his many fights and duels, his treatment of Judge Hall and +Judge Fromentin, the execution of Woods and the six militiamen, of the +two Indians, of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. Handbills were distributed, +each decorated with a coffin bearing the name of one of his victims. His +private life was attacked. The scandal of his marriage was blazoned in +newspapers and pamphlets. Even the unknown grave of his mother was not +spared. + +So it became largely a question of the two men, and which the people +liked best. Adams, coldly virtuous, would not turn his finger to make +himself better liked; even if he had attempted the arts of popularity, +he was, of all the eminent men of our history, the least endowed with +charm of manner, speech, and bearing. He sternly refused to appoint any +man to office for supporting him, or to turn any man out of office for +opposing him. He could not be winning or gracious on public occasions. +Ezekiel, the shrewd old brother of Daniel Webster, wrote to him after +the election that even in New England men supported Adams "from a cold +sense of duty, and not from any liking of the man." It took a New +England conscience to hold a follower in line for the New England +candidate. The man of the Southwest won many a vote where the voter's +conscience did but half consent. Wherever he went, he made bitter +enemies or devoted friends, rather than cold critics and lukewarm +admirers. Adams was an honest man, but nobody had ever called him "Old +Hickory." He was an ardent patriot, and could point to many wise state +papers he had written, to a report on weights and measures which had +cost him four years of patient labor; but he could not, like his rival, +journey down the Mississippi and celebrate the anniversary of a great +victory in the city he had saved. His followers might ably defend his +course on public questions, but what was it all worth if the people kept +on shouting, "Hurrah for Jackson"? + +Of all the sections of the country only New England gave Adams a solid +support. Jackson swept the West and South and carried the great States +of Pennsylvania and New York. In Tennessee, nineteen men out of twenty +voted for him. There is a story of a traveller who reached a Tennessee +town the next day and found the whole male population pursuing with tar +and feathers two reckless citizens who had voted against "the general." +In the electoral college he had one hundred and seventy-eight votes to +Adams's eighty-three. Calhoun was again chosen Vice-President. + +The poor boy had won his way to the White House, but it was a worn old +man, bowed down with a heavy sorrow, who journeyed across the mountains +to take the great prize. The cruel campaign scandal about his marriage +had aggravated a heart trouble from which his wife had long suffered. +She died in December, and his grief was appalling to those who gathered +at The Hermitage to do honor to "Aunt Rachel." It was not in Jackson's +nature, as indeed it would not have been in the nature of many men, to +forget, in his grief, the enemies who had helped to cause it. His old +age, like his youth, was to be cursed with hatred and the thought of +revenge. + + + + +VI + +THE WHITE HOUSE + + +March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson became President of the United States. A +great crowd of strange-looking men went to see him inaugurated. "They +really seem to think," wrote Webster, "that the country has been rescued +from some great danger." Whoever else may have thought so, Jackson +certainly held that opinion. As his wont was, he saw the danger and the +villainy which he thought himself commissioned to destroy in the person +of a man; and that man was Henry Clay. Martin Van Buren was to succeed +Clay as Secretary of State in the new Cabinet, but he did not reach +Washington until after the 4th of March. Jackson accordingly sent his +friend, Colonel Hamilton, of New York, to the State Department, ordering +him to take charge there the instant he should hear the gun which was +to announce that the new President had taken the oath of office. + +Jackson and Clay were, in fact, the leaders of the two parties into +which the old Republican party was now divided. Their rise to leadership +meant that a new set of public men and a new set of questions had come +to the front; it meant a more thoroughgoing experiment of democracy than +had yet been tried in America. Adams's administration is properly +considered to have been the last of one series and Jackson's the first +of another. Under the earlier Presidents, national affairs were +committed mainly to a few trained statesmen, the people simply approving +or disapproving the men and the measures brought before them, but not of +themselves putting forward candidates for the higher offices or in any +wise initiating policies. The rule of the people was thus a passive sort +of rule, a rule by consent. But with the wide prevalence of manhood +suffrage, and the prominence of domestic questions,--of questions +concerning the business and the daily life of the Republic,--and with +the disappearance of the profound questions concerning the organization +of the government and the nature of government in general, the people +began to assert themselves. Under Jackson and his successors, they made +themselves felt more and more at Washington; their opinions and +sentiments, their likes and dislikes, their whims and prejudices, were +projected into their government. Henceforth, public men were to be +powerful not so much in proportion to their knowledge of statecraft as +in proportion to their popularity. They must represent the popular will, +or commend themselves and their policies to popular favor. The public +men of the old order, like Adams, might be wise and faithful, but they +lacked Clay's and Jackson's sympathetic understanding of the common +people. And of the two new leaders Jackson had by far the stronger hold +on the popular mind and heart. The people had sent him to Washington +because he was of them and like them, and because they liked him. Both +he and they felt that he was their President, and he held himself +responsible to them only. + +It seemed, too, that with the new questions and the new men there was +coming a new sort of politics. Jackson meant to serve the people +faithfully, but he entered upon the duties of his great office in the +spirit of a victorious general. The sort of politics most in accord with +his feeling was the sort of politics which prevailed in New York and +Pennsylvania. Jackson once declared, "I am not a politician, but if I +were, I should be a New York politician." Before long, a leading New +York politician, Senator Marcy, expressed the sentiment of his fellows +when he said, "To the victors belong the spoils." That was a sentiment +which a soldier President could understand. In that letter to Monroe +which Major Lewis wrote for him twelve years before, and which won him +votes, he had urged that partisan considerations should not control +appointments; but before he had been President a year he removed more +men from office than all his predecessors had removed since the +beginning of the government. When he left Washington, the practice of +removing and appointing men for political reasons was so firmly +established that the patient work of reform has not to this day +destroyed it. That, to many historians, was the gravest fault of +Jackson's administration. It was, however, merely New York methods +applied to national politics, and it was a perfectly natural outcome of +Jackson's conviction that the people had sent him there to drive out the +men who had control of the government. + +In fact, unless we understand President Jackson himself, we cannot +possibly understand his administration; for President Jackson, though he +was now somewhat subdued in manner, and "By the Eternal" was not quite +so often on his lips, was still Jackson of the duelling pistol and +Jackson of the sword; and he was also still the Jackson whom Benton saw +with the lamb and the child between his knees. All men were still +divided for him into friends and enemies. The party opposed to him came +soon to call itself the National Republican Party, and later the Whig +Party, while his own followers were called Democratic Republicans, or +Democrats. But to Jackson the National Republicans were the friends of +Henry Clay, as the Democrats were his own friends. So, too, of the great +questions he had to deal with. In every case he was fighting not merely +a policy or an institution but a man. + +For a time, however, his arch-enemy, Clay, disappeared from the scene. +Until the autumn of 1831, he was in retirement in Kentucky. Jackson had +the field to himself, and was at first occupied with his friends rather +than his enemies. + +Van Buren, as Secretary of State, was the head of the new Cabinet. The +other members were not men of great distinction. They had, however, one +thing in common: in one way or another, they had all opposed Mr. Clay. +On other points they differed. Half of them were friends of Calhoun, and +wished to see him President after Jackson. They were also divided into +married men and a widower, Mr. Van Buren being the widower. That, as +things turned out, was a very important division indeed. + +Jackson did not treat his Cabinet as other Presidents had treated +theirs. He had a soldier's idea of organization, and did not think it +necessary to consult the Cabinet members about all the measures he +planned. He treated them somewhat as a general treats his inferior +officers, though with several of them, especially Van Buren and Eaton, +his relations were very cordial and intimate. When he wished advice, +however, he was more apt to seek it of his friend, Major Lewis, whom he +had persuaded to accept an appointment, and who lived with him at the +White House, or of Isaac Hill, who had come to Washington after fighting +the Adams men in New Hampshire, or of Amos Kendall, who had dared to +oppose Clay in Kentucky, or of General Duff Green, editor of "The +Telegraph," the Jackson organ. These men, personal friends of the +President, came to be called the "Kitchen Cabinet;" and at least three +of the four were shrewd enough to justify any President in consulting +them. Hill and Kendall were both New England men by birth, and had all +the industry and sharpness of mind proverbially characteristic of +Yankees. Even Major Lewis did not surpass Kendall in political +cleverness and far-sightedness; he was a "little whiffet of a man," but +before long the opposition learned to see his hand in every event of +political importance anywhere in the country. If a Democratic convention +in Maine framed a resolution, or a newspaper in New Orleans changed its +policy, men were ready to declare that it was Kendall who pulled the +wire. Historians are fond of saying that it was such men as Kendall and +Lewis who really ruled the country while Jackson was President; and it +is true that by skilful suggestions, by playing upon his likes and +dislikes, much could be done with him. But it is equally true that when +he was once resolved on any course his friends could no more stop him +than his enemies could. A clerk in the State Department won his favor by +a happy use of the phrase, "I take the responsibility," and from that +time was safe even against the displeasure of Secretary Van Buren. A +member of Congress began a successful intrigue for office by begging for +his father the pipe which the President was smoking, ashes and all. A +clerk in the War Department attracted his attention by challenging a man +to a duel, and so started himself on a career that ended in the Senate. +Secretary Van Buren called on Peggy Eaton and supplanted Calhoun as the +heir apparent to the presidency. Jackson in good humor was the easiest +of victims to an artful intriguer; but, unlike the weak kings whom +scheming ministers have shaped to their purposes, he could not be +stopped when once he was started. + +It was Peggy Eaton who made a division between the married men and the +widower of the Cabinet. She was the wife of Senator Eaton, who was now +Secretary of War, and the widow of a naval officer named Timberlake. Her +father was a tavern-keeper named O'Neill, and both Jackson and Eaton had +lived at his tavern when they were Senators, and Mrs. O'Neill had been +kind to Mrs. Jackson. The O'Neills had no place in Washington society, +and there were ugly stories about the conduct of Mrs. Timberlake with +Senator Eaton before the death of Timberlake, who killed himself at sea. +Washington society believed these stories. President Jackson refused to +believe them, and became Mrs. Eaton's champion. His zeal in her cause +knew no bounds, and he wished his secretaries and their wives to help +him. But the Cabinet ladies would not visit or receive Mrs. Eaton, and +their husbands refused to interfere. Calhoun, the Vice-President, also +declined to take up Mrs. Eaton's cause. Mr. Van Buren, a widower, showed +the lady marked attention. + +For once in his life, Andrew Jackson was defeated. Creeks and Spaniards +and Redcoats he could conquer, but the ladies of Washington never +surrendered, and Peggy Eaton, though her affairs became a national +question, never got into Washington society. Jackson, however, did not +forget who had been his friends in a little matter any more than if it +had been the greatest affair of state. + +It was already a question whether Calhoun or Van Buren should lead the +Jackson party at the end of the one term which Jackson had declared to +be the limit of his stay in the White House. Calhoun's friends in the +Cabinet, and General Duff Green, of "The Telegraph," were active in his +interest. Van Buren, however, was constantly growing in favor with the +President. When at last Jackson discovered that Calhoun, as a member of +Monroe's Cabinet, had wished to censure him for his conduct in Florida, +he and the Vice-President broke forever. Meantime, a great public +question had arisen on which the two men stood out as representatives of +two opposite theories of the Union. The estrangement begun over Peggy +Eaton widened into a breach between a State and the United States, +between the nullifier of the laws and the defender of the Union. + +For the pendulum had swung, and it was no longer the Federalist +merchants of New England, but the planters of the South, and +particularly of South Carolina, who were discontent with the policy of +the government. New England had turned to manufactures some of the +energy she had formerly given to commerce and seafaring, and was now in +favor of a protective tariff. Webster, her foremost man at Washington, +had voted against the tariff of 1816, but had changed his mind and +supported a higher tariff in 1824, and a still higher in 1828. The +planters of the South had not found it easy to develop manufactures with +their slave labor. They had little or nothing, therefore, to protect +against the products of European countries. On the contrary, they +exported much of their cotton to England, and imported from England and +other countries many of the things they consumed. Accordingly, they +were, as a rule, opposed to the whole system of tariff taxation, and +desired free trade. Many of them also opposed the system of internal +improvements, both on constitutional grounds and because they felt that +the tariff made them pay more than their share of the expense of such +undertakings. + +On the question of internal improvements Jackson soon took a stand +entirely pleasing to the opponents of the system. In his first message +to Congress he declared against it, and when Congress passed a bill +subscribing money to the stock of the Maysville and Lexington road, one +of the chief internal improvements so far undertaken, and an enterprise +specially favored by Clay, he promptly vetoed it. Other such measures he +vetoed unless it was clear that a two-thirds majority in each House +would pass them over his veto. He preferred that the money received from +the sale of public lands should be distributed among the States, +believing that they, instead of the general government, should undertake +the improvements necessary to the development of the country. + +Jackson had, indeed, great respect for the rights of the States under +the Constitution, and warned Congress not to go beyond the powers which +were clearly given to the general government. The State of Georgia had +long been discontent because the Indians were not removed from her +borders, and the President sympathized strongly with her feeling. As +soon as he was elected, the Georgia legislature passed an act dividing +up the Cherokee country into counties, and extending over them the civil +laws of the State. The act was plainly contrary to treaties between the +Indians and the Federal government, but the President refused to +interfere. On the contrary, he withdrew all United States troops from +the Indian country, and left the State to deal with the Indians as it +chose. Later on, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the +Georgia law was unconstitutional because it took away the treaty rights +of the Cherokees. "John Marshall has made his decision," said Jackson, +"now let him enforce it." The President, in fact, was heartily in favor +of removing the Indians, and before he went out of office the last of +the Southern tribes had given up its old home for a new one in the +West. + +Jackson's collision with Chief Justice Marshall over this question had +very far-reaching effects, which historians have somewhat neglected in +their study of the consequences of his course on other questions. No +statesman, no President, had done so much as the great Chief Justice to +make the general government strong and to restrain the States. Jackson, +disagreeing with some of Marshall's views, never lost an opportunity to +put on the bench a man of his own way of thinking. The result was that +many years later, when, in a great crisis, the supporters of the +national government and the leaders of States about to break away from +the Union looked to the Supreme Court to decide between them, the voice +that came from the august tribunal spoke words which Marshall and Story +would never have uttered, but which the champions of the States heard +with delight. + +On these important questions, then, President Jackson acted like an +extreme Jeffersonian Democrat. But the South Carolinians soon found that +if he was ready to keep the general government from interfering with +any right that could reasonably be claimed for a State, he was equally +ready to stand up for the Union when he thought a State was going too +far. + +He had nothing to do with the tariff of 1828. In his first message he +suggested that some modifications of it were desirable, and pointed out +that the public debt would soon be paid, and it would be advisable to +reduce certain of the duties. But modification was too mild a word to +suit the South Carolinians. The law was the outcome of the clamor of +many selfish interests, and Congressmen opposed altogether to protection +had helped to make it as bad as possible, hoping that it might in the +end be defeated. When it passed, the South Carolina legislature +vigorously protested, and began at once to debate about the best plan of +resistance. The plan finally preferred was for the State to declare the +law unconstitutional, and therefore null and void, and call on other +States to join in the declaration. If the national government tried to +enforce the law in South Carolina, she would protect her citizens, and +as the final resort withdraw from the Union. The plan was first placed +before the American people in an "Exposition and Protest" adopted by the +South Carolina legislature in 1828; and the real author of that famous +document, though the fact was not then known, was the Vice-President, +Calhoun. The associate of Clay in those acts which had made a beginning +of internal improvements and of protection, long a statesman of the +strong-government school, Calhoun had been led by the distress and +discontent of his own people to examine the Constitution again, "in +order," as he said afterwards, "to ascertain fully the nature and +character of our political system," and had now come to a change of +views. + +The nullification doctrine came before Congress in the winter of +1829-30, and was debated in the most famous of American debates. Clay +was not there to speak for his tariff system, but a greater orator than +Clay took up the challenge. In the greatest of all American orations +since Patrick Henry spoke for liberty, Webster spoke for union _and_ +liberty, and Americans will never forget his words until liberty and +union are alike destroyed. Jackson was the last man in the country to +miss their force. No orator himself, he yet knew how to give words the +power of a promised or a threatened deed. Not long after the debate, +there was a public dinner of the States'-Rights men in Washington to +celebrate Jefferson's birthday. Jackson did not attend, but he sent a +toast, and probably the seven words of his toast were more confounding +to the nullifiers than all the stately paragraphs of Webster's oration. +It was: "Our Federal Union: it must be preserved." Calhoun's toast was: +"The Union,--next to our liberties the most dear,"--and Jackson, who was +just learning that he had been mistaken about Calhoun in 1818, began now +to see clearly that the great South Carolinian was in sympathy with the +nullifiers. Many South Carolinians, however, were still hoping that the +President would not take any active measures to defeat their plan. Some +of them went on hoping until the Fourth of July, 1831, when there was +read, at a public dinner of Union men at Charleston, a letter from +Jackson which left no doubt of what he meant to do if they kept on. He +was going to enforce the laws and preserve the Union. + +Having by this time broken utterly with Calhoun, he desired to rid +himself of those cabinet members who were Calhoun's friends, and to that +end took the bold and unexampled step of changing his cabinet +entirely,--only Barry, the postmaster-general, being kept in office. Van +Buren fell readily into the plan, gave up his portfolio, and was at once +appointed minister to Great Britain. Edward Livingston took his place. A +change in the "Kitchen Cabinet" followed. General Duff Green would not +desert Calhoun, and so "The Telegraph" ceased to be the organ of the +administration. Instead, Francis P. Blair, of Kentucky, who, like Amos +Kendall, had been first the friend and then the enemy of Clay, was +called to Washington, and set up "The Globe," which soon became a power +for Jackson. Nor were these the only consequences of the break with +Calhoun. Jackson and his closest friends were by this time bent on +making Van Buren, instead of Calhoun, President after Jackson, but were +doubtful of their ability to accomplish it at the next election. The +President was therefore persuaded to run again. The Democrats in the +legislature of Pennsylvania, acting on a hint from Lewis, sent him an +address urging him to stand. If for a time he hesitated, he ceased to +hesitate when it became apparent that Clay was going to be the candidate +of the National Republicans. Clay, yielding to the appeals of his party +friends, reappeared in the Senate at the opening of Congress in +December, 1831, and now the duel between the two great party leaders +grew fiercer than ever. + +Clay returned to the Senate to find his tariff policy attacked by the +nullifiers, his internal improvements policy blocked by the President's +vetoes, and still a third policy which he and his party firmly supported +vigorously attacked by the terrible man in the White House. The +National Bank was in danger. Its charter expired in 1836, and the +President in both his annual messages had gravely questioned the wisdom +of granting another. He questioned the constitutionality of setting up +such an institution, and he questioned the value and safety of the Bank +as it existed. December 12, 1831, the National Republicans, assembled in +their first national convention at Baltimore, nominated Clay for +President, and called on the people to defeat Andrew Jackson in order to +save the Bank. Jackson dauntlessly accepted the issue and gave the +country to understand that either he or the Bank must go to the wall. +For the time, even Calhoun and the nullifiers yielded the first place +among his enemies to Clay, Biddle, and the Bank. + +Biddle was president of the Bank, a handsome, accomplished man, a +graceful writer, and a clever, though not always a safe financier. His +ready pen first brought him into disfavor. Isaac Hill and Levi Woodbury, +the Democratic Senators from New Hampshire, made complaints of Jeremiah +Mason, an old Federalist, who was president of the Branch Bank at +Portsmouth. Their charges were various, but they and others gave Jackson +the idea that the Branch Bank in New Hampshire had used its power to +oppose his friends and to help the Adams men. Biddle was called on to +investigate. He did so, and defended Mason against all the charges. A +long correspondence ensued, and Biddle went from Philadelphia, where the +head Bank was, and made a visit to Portsmouth. His letters to the +Secretary of the Treasury were courteous, well written, but also +defiant. It was the Jackson men, he said, who were trying to draw the +Bank into politics, and the Bank had constantly refused to go into +politics in any way. He made out a very good case indeed, but the longer +the correspondence lasted the stronger grew Jackson's conviction that +the Bank was in politics, that it was fighting him, that it was corrupt, +that it was dangerous to the liberties of the plain people who had sent +him to the White House. Congress took up the matter, and committees of +both Houses reported in favor of the Bank. The Supreme Court had already +decided that the act establishing it was constitutional. + +Clay boldly determined to force the fighting both on the tariff and on +the Bank. The great measures of the Congress of 1831-2 were a new tariff +law and a new Bank charter. The public debt was now nearly extinguished, +and it was clearly advisable to reduce the revenue; but Clay and his +followers made the reductions almost entirely on articles not produced +in America, and so, in defiance of the nullifiers, made the new tariff +as protective as the old. Jackson had gradually given up most of his +protection ideas, and so the tariff did not please him. Clay, in fact, +declared that for his "American system," as he called it, "he would defy +the South, the President, and the Devil." Jackson was further defied by +the Senate when it refused to confirm the nomination of Van Buren to be +minister to Great Britain. The struggle raged through the whole session. +Benton sturdily defended the President; Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were +all, in one way or another, against him. It was a great session for the +orators, and so far as Congress was concerned Clay had his way. But +Lewis and Kendall were not idle; they were working not on Congress but +on the people. In May, the Democrats nominated Jackson for President and +Van Buren for Vice-President. In July, Congress finished its work with +the Bank charter, and Jackson promptly answered with a veto, and so the +two parties went to the country. + +Jackson went into the campaign with an advantage drawn from his +successful conduct of two foreign negotiations. His administration had +secured from England an agreement by which the trade with the West +Indies, closed to Americans ever since the Revolution, was opened again, +and from France a promise to pay large claims for spoliations on +American commerce which had been presented many times before. He was +also undoubtedly supported by the great majority of the people in the +stand he took against the nullifiers. What the people would decide about +the tariff was doubtful; but as between a system, even though it were +called the American system, and an old hero, the Democrats were not +afraid of the people's choice. The great fight was over the Bank, and on +that question Jackson was supported by the prejudices of the poor, who +thought of the Bank merely as a rich men's institution, by the fears of +the ignorant, who believed the Bank to be a mysterious and monstrous +affair, and by the instinct of liberty in many others, who, though they +did not believe the charges against Biddle, did feel that there was +danger in so powerful a financial agency so closely connected with the +government. + +Moreover, the opposition was divided. A party bitterly opposed to Free +Masonry had sprung into existence, and Jackson was a Mason. But the +Anti-Masons, instead of supporting Clay, nominated a third candidate. +South Carolina threw her votes away on a fourth. + +Jackson got 219 electoral votes to 49 for Clay, 11 for Floyd, the +nullification candidate, and seven for Wirt, the Anti-Mason candidate. +His popular vote was more than twice Clay's, and he actually carried the +New England States of Maine and New Hampshire. If, during his first +term, he exercised his great office like a general, he entered upon the +second with even a firmer belief that he ought to have his way in all +things. The people had given an answer to Clay and Biddle and Calhoun +and Marshall; to the corrupters of the government and the enemies of the +President; to the nullifiers of the law and the slanderers of Peggy +Eaton. He understood his overwhelming victory as the people's warrant to +go on with all he had begun. + +But neither the nullifiers nor the Bank were willing to give up. In +November, 1832, a South Carolina convention passed an ordinance, to go +into effect February 1, 1833, nullifying the tariff law, and took +measures to defend its action by force. Jackson promptly sent Winfield +Scott to South Carolina to make ready for fighting, employed a +confidential agent to organize the Union men in the State, and called on +Edward Livingston to help him with an address to his misguided +countrymen. The pen of Livingston and the spirit of Jackson, working +together, made the Nullification Proclamation a great state paper. It +was a high-minded appeal to the second thought and the better nature of +the Carolinians; an able statement of the national character of the +government; a firm defiance to all enemies of the Union. It was the most +popular act of the administration, and brought to its support men who +had never supported it before. Benton and Webster joined hands; even +Clay, who, like Jackson, loved his country with his whole heart, +supported the President. Calhoun, alone of all his famous +contemporaries, stood out against him. He left the Vice-President's +seat, came down upon the floor as a Senator, and defended nullification +against all the famous orators who crowded to assail it. + +The President called on Congress to provide the means to enforce the +law, and a so-called force bill was introduced. The Carolinians were +defiant, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war; but Clay, by +the second of his famous compromises, avoided the struggle. A new tariff +law, providing for a gradual reduction of duties, was passed along with +the force bill. The Carolinians chose the olive branch instead of the +sword. The nullifiers first postponed and then repealed their ordinance. + +Jackson was a national hero as he had never been before. In the summer +of 1833, he made a journey to the Northeast, and even New England made +him welcome. Harvard College made him a Doctor of Laws. As he rode +through the streets of Boston, a merchant of Federalist traditions, who +had closed his windows to show his principles, peeped through, and +Jackson's bearing so touched him that he sent a child to wave the old +gentleman a handkerchief. Andy of the Waxhaws was at the summit of his +career. No other American could rival him in popularity; no other +American had ever had such power over his countrymen since Washington +frowned at the whisper that he might be a king. + +But the great man was only a man, after all. He was in wretched health +throughout his first term, and at times it did not seem that he could +possibly live through it. His old wounds troubled him, and one day he +laid bare his shoulder, gripped his cane with his free hand, and a +surgeon cut out the ball from Jesse Benton's pistol. He was too ill to +finish his New England tour, and hastened back to Washington. + +But his opponents had little reason to rejoice in his illness. The +summer was not spent before he had made up his mind to do the most +daring act of his public life. He had vetoed the Bank's new charter, but +the Bank itself was not destroyed. The public funds were still in its +keeping; its power in the business world was as great as ever. He +believed, moreover, that Biddle was using money freely to fight him, and +would sooner or later get what he wanted from Congress. He prepared, +therefore, to crush the Bank by withdrawing the deposits of public money +and giving them into the keeping of other banks throughout the country. +Blair, in "The Globe," set to work to convince the people that the Bank +was not sound, and that the public funds were unsafe. Kendall was sent +about the country to examine other banks. Congress voted against +removing the deposits, but the old charter authorized the Secretary of +the Treasury to do it, and the Secretary of the Treasury was now William +Duane, of Philadelphia, a son of Jackson's early friend. There had been +some changes in the cabinet after the second inauguration, Livingston +had been appointed minister to France, the Secretary of the Treasury +transferred to the State Department, and Duane called to the Treasury. + +But Duane would not fall in with the President's plan. He did not +believe the deposits were in danger, and refused to sign an order for +removal. Jackson argued, then grew angry, and finally dismissed him. +Duane defended his course ably. Lewis also advised against removal. +Benton favored it, but in this he was almost alone among the leading +public men. Jackson, however, was started, and he could not be stopped. +Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, the Attorney-General, was made Secretary +of the Treasury, and on September 26, 1833, three days after Duane's +dismissal, the order was signed and a series of changes began that did +not end until the whole financial system of the country was changed. + +When Congress met, it proved to be, everything considered, probably the +ablest legislature ever assembled in America. There were brilliant men +of a new generation in the lower House, and Adams also was there. In the +Senate, the great three were still supreme, and were now united against +the President. The debates were long and furious. A panic throughout the +country added to the excitement. Clay led the attack, Calhoun and +Webster supported it; Benton bore the brunt of it. In the House, the +Jackson men had a majority; in the Senate, the opposition. The Senate +refused to confirm the nomination of Taney to be Secretary of the +Treasury, and voted that the President had taken upon himself powers not +given by the Constitution. The President sent in a fiery remonstrance, +and the Senate voted not to receive it. Benton at once moved that the +resolution of censure be expunged from the record, and declared he would +keep that motion before the Senate until the people, by choosing a +Jackson majority of Senators, should force it through. + +The session closed with nothing done for the Bank, and nothing ever was +done for it. When its charter expired in 1836, it got another from +Pennsylvania, and kept going for some years. But Jackson had given it a +deathblow. It fell into dangerous financial practices, failed, started +again, failed a second time, staggered to its feet once more, and then +went down in utter ruin and disgrace. + +Its ruin was not accomplished without great disturbance to financial +conditions. The country had been prosperous a long time. Money had been +plentiful. Speculation had been the order of the day. The "pet banks," +chosen to be the depositories of the government money, were badly +managed. The surplus, distributed among the States, strengthened the +impulse to wild speculation. Paper money was too plentiful. A dangerous +financial condition prevailed, into whose causes and consequences we +cannot here inquire. That and many other aspects of Jackson's +administration can be satisfactorily treated only at considerable +length. Jackson himself attributed all the trouble to Biddle and Clay; +Biddle, he declared, was trying to ruin the country for revenge. The +President even suspected Clay of setting on an insane person who +attempted his life. He took no measures of a nature to restore health to +business until near the end of his term. Then, acting as usual on his +own responsibility, he issued a circular commonly called the "Specie +Circular," requiring payments for public lands, which had formerly been +made in bank paper, to be made in coin. That was like the thunderclap +which precedes the storm: but the storm broke on his successor, not on +him. + +For a time it seemed as if he might also bequeath to his successor a +foreign war. France had agreed to pay the spoliation claims, but the +French Chambers failed to appropriate the money. Louis Philippe, the +king, suggested to Livingston, the American Minister, that a stronger +tone from the United States might stir the Chambers to action. Jackson +was the last man in the world to hurt a cause by taking too mild a tone. +In his message of 1834 to Congress, he took a tone so strong that it +made the French Chambers too angry to pay. Thereupon, he suggested +reprisals. The House, led by Adams, who never fell behind Jackson on a +question of foreign relations, sustained the President. The Senate took +no action. The French Chambers finally passed an appropriation, but with +a proviso that no money should be paid until satisfactory explanations +of the President's message were received. Jackson had no notion of +apologizing, and feeling was rising in both countries. Diplomatic +relations were broken off, and war was apparently very close, when, in +the winter of 1835-6, England offered to mediate. An expression in +Jackson's message of 1835, not meant as an apology, was somehow +construed as such by the French ministry, and France agreed to pay. + +The final settlement came at the very end of Jackson's administration. +The presidential election of 1836 had fulfilled his wish that Van Buren +should be his successor. In January, 1837, the resolution of censure was +solemnly expunged from the records of the Senate. That body being now +controlled by his friends, and his enemy, John Marshall, being dead, he +named Taney Chief Justice, and the nomination was confirmed. He issued a +farewell address to the people, after the manner of Washington, and +stood, a white-haired, impressive figure, to watch the inauguration of +Van Buren; then he journeyed home to The Hermitage to receive his last +glorious welcome from his neighbors. + +It was the most triumphant home-coming of them all. He had beaten all +his enemies. Clay, wearied out with politics, was again in retirement; +Adams, whom he found a President, was leading a minority of +representatives in a new sectional struggle, the fight against slavery; +Calhoun, whom he found but one step from the presidency, was a gloomy +and tragical figure, the Ishmael of American politics. As for his +friends, he left them in power everywhere,--in congress, on the bench, +in the White House. To friends and enemies he had been like fate. + +There was left for him a peaceful old age, and a calm and happy +deathbed. Neighbors, political associates, old comrades, famous +foreigners, visited The Hermitage to see the man who had played so great +a part in history. Like Jefferson at Monticello, he guided with his +counsel the party he had led. The long struggle over slavery was now +begun, and soon the annexation of Texas took the first place among +public questions. The old man had encouraged Houston to go to Texas, and +had done all he could, and more than any other President would have +dared, to forward the movement for independence. Now that Texas was +ready to come into the Union, he heartily favored annexation. In 1844, +Clay and Polk were candidates for the presidency, and Jackson's +influence, still a power, was freely exerted for Polk and annexation. It +was as if Clay, now an old man also, were once more about to lift the +cup to his lips, and the relentless hand of Andrew Jackson dashed it to +the ground. + +Yet Andrew Jackson declared before he died that he forgave all his +enemies. He had promised his wife, whose picture he wore in a great +locket next his heart, whose Bible he read every day at the White House, +that when he should be free of politics he would join himself to the +church; if, he said, he made a profession while he was still before the +people, his enemies would accuse him of hypocrisy. He kept his word. +Trembling and weeping, he stood before the altar in the tiny church he +had built for her and took the vows of a Christian. It had been hard for +him to say that he forgave his enemies; hardest of all, to say that he +forgave those who had attacked him while he was serving his country in +the field. But after a long pause he told the minister he thought he +could forgive even them. + +June 8, 1845, in his seventy-ninth year, he died. His last words to +those about him bade them meet him in heaven. + + * * * * * + +What is the rightful place in history of the fiery horseman in front of +the White House? The reader must answer for himself when he has studied +for himself all the great questions Jackson dealt with. Such a study +will surely show that he made many mistakes, did much injustice to men, +espoused many causes without waiting to hear the other side, was often +bitter, violent, even cruel. It will show how ignorant he was on many +subjects, how prejudiced on others. It will show him in contact with men +who surpassed him in wisdom, in knowledge, in fairness of mind. It will +deny him a place among those calm, just great men who can see both sides +and yet strive ardently for the right side. + +But the longest inquiry will not discover another American of his times +who had in such ample measure the gifts of courage and will. Many had +fewer faults, many superior talents, but none so great a spirit. He was +the man who had his way. He was the American whose simple virtues his +countrymen most clearly understood, whose trespasses they most readily +forgave; and until Americans are altogether changed, many, like the +Democrats of the 'Twenties and 'Thirties, will still "vote for +Jackson,"--for the poor boy who fought his way, step by step, to the +highest station; for the soldier who always went to meet the enemy at +the gate; for the President who never shirked a responsibility; for the +man who would not think evil of a woman or speak harshly to a child. +Education, and training in statecraft, would have saved him many errors; +culture might have softened the fierceness of his nature. But untrained, +uncultivated, imperfect as he was, not one of his great contemporaries +had so good a right to stand for American character. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Andrew Jackson, by William Garrott Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDREW JACKSON *** + +***** This file should be named 31068.txt or 31068.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/0/6/31068/ + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, Barbara Kosker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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