Not until Patrick Henry and Dabney Carr and Thomas Jefferson and James Otis and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, the hot-headed young lawyers, had fired the woods, and the flames were leaping onward with a rush which none could stop, did those more cautious and conservative citizens, Franklin, Dickinson and Washington, commit themselves to the movement of the Colonies against the Mother Country.
The lawyer lit the signal fires of that Revolution, the lawyer wrote the Declaration of Independence, the lawyer framed the Constitution, the lawyer organized the Government. The lawyer struck down Feudalism in America, wrote the statute for Religious Liberty, swung wide the doors of individual opportunity, and forged, ready for use, every weapon against tyranny which a free people need to protect themselves from oppression.
Even at that early period there was another side to the shield, not so bright as that which I have presented, but, throughout the Revolutionary Era, the patriotic service of the lawyer was so splendidly conspicuous that the reverse side of the shield was as the spot on the sun.
When Andrew Jackson rode into Salisbury, N. C. (1785), and put up at the Rowan House, the old-fashioned tavern, he was eighteen years old, and had already gone to the school of experience, to an extent which few of his future competitors for national honor had equaled.
His boyhood had breathed in the hot atmosphere of war. The sound of musketry, of rifle fire, of cannon play, had been familiar to his ear. The sight of bloodshed, scenes of carnage, the ruthless deeds of Tory hate and Whig revenge had burnt their impressions upon mind and heart. The dangers amid which he had lived, the hardships which he had endured, the lust of victory and the panic of defeat, the sudden flight from the deadly attack, the narrow escape from awful death, the loss of his brothers and mother, the imprisonment and maltreatment of himself, the wild disorders and appalling cruelties of foreign invasion added to Civil strife—all these things were factors in the molding of Andrew Jackson.
When he entered the office of Spruce McCay to read law under that influential attorney, he had already given evidence of the traits of character which afterward made him one of the best loved and best hated men that ever lived.
It had already been shown that he would fight at the drop of a hat; that he was headstrong, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing. Weaker boys who turned to him for protection got it. He would “take up” for the small boy, and, if need were, wage his battle. He was high-tempered, quick as powder, hard to get along with—and the boy who laughed at him because he had what was called “a slobber mouth” had to run or fight.
He had shown that he was fond of outdoor life, outdoor sport games, and recreations. He loved to hunt, was a good shot, an expert horseman and rode admirably, excelled in running and jumping. Some say that even when thrown by a stronger man he “wouldn’t stay throwed”; others relate that John Lewis could out-jump him and throw him down; and that when John Lewis threw him, Andy did “stay throwed.” That he was believed to have a generous nature is proven by the fact that he is said to have been a great friend to this same John Lewis.
The eighteen-year old Jackson had already shown his fondness for gambling at cards, on chicken fights and horse races, on the throw of a dicebox, on almost any sort of game or contest. He was known also as a wild young fellow who would drink too much whisky, indulge in too many coarse practical jokes, and who, when inflamed by anger, could out-curse anybody in all the regions round about.
During his stay of two years in Salisbury Jackson’s character continued to unfold itself along those lines. He was not much of a student; it is not recorded that he did any office work for Spruce McCay; nor does any biographer explain how it was that he paid for his board and lodging.