Andrew Jackson

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 rôle as the patriotic and warlike general of the Tennessee militia?

Jackson had a chance to play that rôle 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.