Andrew Jackson
By Reau E. Folk
Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, gave the name “Hermitage” to his home. In his inspiring memory it is preserved.
Youth
Andrew Jackson’s father, for whom he was named, died several days before he was born. His mother, Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, to whom tribute should be paid as a truly remarkable woman, heroically met the hard situation of rearing and educating her three small sons. Young Andrew was nourished in the Revolutionary sentiment, which was rife in the late sixties and early seventies, bursting into flame in 1775. He and his mother and brothers were patriots from the inception of the Revolutionary movement. These fires of patriotism in the Waxhaws were fanned by the fact that there was much Tory sentiment. When in August, 1776, a newspaper reached the Waxhaws carrying the Declaration of Independence young Andrew Jackson, then in his tenth year, was called upon to read it to an assemblage. In 1781, at the age of fourteen, he enlisted with the South Carolina forces and was later made prisoner and struck down by a sword in the hands of a British officer whose boots he refused to black. His two brothers also enlisted in the war and gave up their lives. His mother, as a result of a mission service to Charleston to nurse prisoners from the Waxhaws there on shipboard, contracted yellow fever and died. At the successful end of the struggle of the Colonies young Andrew Jackson, in his fifteenth year, emaciated from desperate prison illness, found himself alone in the world, an orphan of the Revolution.
Early Career
Military
New Orleans
The victory at New Orleans, one of the most decisive defensive victories of history, will always be celebrated as an illustrious feat of the American arms and of the military genius of Andrew Jackson. Jackson mobilized incongruous elements, every available resource, into defense against the enemy attack. The forces thus assembled, consisting of Tennessee militia, Kentucky militia, Louisiana militia, and small contingents of regulars, Baratarian privateers, free men of color, Mississippi Dragoons, and friendly Choctaw Indians, numbered in all a little over five thousand. The invading army consisted of about twelve thousand seasoned British regulars. The British soldiers fought bravely, as British soldiers always do, but they could not stand against the well-planned, unerring fire from the American breastworks. The assault continued for twenty-five minutes, and then the British retreated in confusion, having lost in killed, wounded, and captured over twenty-five hundred of their number, including General Pakenham, chief in command, and General Gibbs, second in command, both having been killed. The American loss was put at thirteen killed and wounded. On the west bank of the river the British succeeded in capturing a small redoubt, but owing to the catastrophe of the main attack, this was abandoned.
Jackson was too prudent to yield to the impulse to pursue the retreating enemy, which he knew still outnumbered him by two to one, but kept in readiness against a return assault. The British ten days later broke camp and retired to their ships, and on January 28 set sail for the Dauphine islands. Jackson maintained himself in constant readiness against possibility of a return attack.
The Judge Hall Fine
Interim
In 1823-24 General Jackson again represented Tennessee in the United States Senate. In 1824 he was a candidate for President of the United States and received a plurality of the votes in the electoral college, but no candidate having received a majority, under the Constitution the election went to the House of Representatives, where John Quincy Adams was chosen.
The President
His administrations were the first to be classed as “Democratic.” Those of Washington and John Adams were known as “Federal,” those of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams as “Democratic-Republican.”
General Jackson’s two administrations were marked by the force and power of his great personality. One of his memorable achievements was his prompt and effective dissipation of the cloud that hung over the Union when South Carolina sought to nullify the Tariff Act, which her citizens claimed was oppressive. President Jackson’s great proclamation in this crisis electrified the nation. South Carolina repealed the nullification act. Another outstanding feature of President Jackson’s administration was his veto of the act passed by Congress to re-charter the United States Bank. Congress declined to pass the bill over his veto, and the Bank went out of existence as a Federal institution at the expiration of its twenty-year charter in 1836. President Jackson, by direct instruction in October, 1833, caused the removal of the Government’s deposits from the U. S. Bank. This led to the establishment of the sub-treasury system, by which the government became the custodian of its own money and disbursed it in accordance with specific appropriations by Congress. The removal of these deposits from the U. S. Bank created a great furor. It was resented by the Bank and its friends. The U. S. Bank, operating under charter from Congress, was undoubtedly a strong political factor. It was the head of what was called the money power, and represented an opposition so strong that no public man in America, save Andrew Jackson, could have overcome it. An adverse Senate, under the leadership of Messrs. Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, adopted a resolution March, 1834, censuring the President for the removal of the public money from the U. S. Bank. The resolution provoked great resentment among the followers of Jackson throughout the country. Many States, through their Legislatures, instructed their Senators to vote to expunge the unwarranted resolution from the Senate records. On January 16, 1837, after a prolonged debate, in which Clay, Calhoun, and Webster sought to stem the tide, a majority of the Senate voted to strike from the record the offensive resolution. Then and there the journal of June, 1834, was produced and the Senate’s Secretary drew heavy ink lines around the resolution and wrote across the face thereof the words, “Expunged by order of the Senate.”
In December, 1834, President Jackson announced the extinguishment of the public debt.
In 1835, one Richard Lawrence, afterwards pronounced insane, attempted to assassinate President Jackson on the steps of the Capitol. The brave-hearted President rushed upon his assailant with uplifted cane, exclaiming: “Let me get to him, gentlemen; I am not afraid.” He would not desist until the would-be assassin was overpowered.
March 4, 1837, General Jackson ended his notable administration as Chief Magistrate, leaving a Government practically free from debt and the country in a highly prosperous condition. He retired to his beloved Hermitage, which became a mecca for the leaders of his party. He continued to exercise a potent influence upon the affairs of the nation until his death, June 8, 1845.
The direction which Andrew Jackson gave to our national life and the marked impress he made upon it are still manifest. In every crisis his memory has been, and is still being, invoked as an inspiration to courage, honesty, and patriotism.