Happy 253rd Birthday, Andrew Jackson!

So I'm hoping to come back around and edit the March president's birthdays, but until then. I'm just going to post them, with the pictures and the story and call it a day.  

The Story of Andrew Jackson

2020 Edition

Two-hundred and 53 years ago today (March 15), the future 7th president of the United States of America was born in a log cabin somewhere along the border of North and South Carolina.

Little Andy’s parents, and his two older brother, Hugh and Robert, immigrated from Ireland two years before Andy was born. Tragedy would follow Andrew Jackson his whole life, and it started before he was even born. Just 3 weeks before his birth, his 29 year old father died in a logging accident. That left Andy fatherless, living with his mom, brothers and extended family.

A scrawny freckled faced-redhead, Andy was a fiery as his unruly hair. He was a wild child, who loved fighting and partying, and gambling. He never backed down from a fight, even when kids were bullying him over his high pitched voice and a childhood disability that caused him to drool an inordinate amount. You might say he was just sticking up for himself, but Andy was a kid nobody could really bully. He welcomed any reason to “scrap”, aka kick someone’s ass. He will carry his “never back down” attitude for his whole life.

Andy’s mother was hoping he’d grow up to be a Presbyterian minister, but it was clear early on that Andy, who enjoyed cursing and playing practical jokes on people, would not be going down that path. He had a penchant for moving people’s outhouses in the middle of the night. Long story short: Kid Andy Jackson was a little shit.

Andy grew up in the Waxhaws region of the Carolinas, which ironically was named for the indigenous people who lived there before colonization. But it wasn’t a particularly affluent area of the country. The people there tried unsuccessfully to make a living out of the soil, and had access to very little education.

Andy’s mom sent him to learn with two of the town’s priests. he could read, but that was about it (his spelling was atrocious). A Jackson quote embraces his lack of spelling prowess: “It’s a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell a word.” His pronunciations weren’t on point either. His whole life he would pronounce ‘development’ as ‘devil-ope-ment’.

But for the Waxhaws region, he’s one of the smarter kids. Most of the town couldn’t read at all. So when the Declaration of Independence came through town, a 9 year old Andy read it out loud to the town.

Since a 9 year old Andy was reading the Declaration of Independence, you can probably guess where we’re at in American History: the Revolutionary War. That’s right, the red coats are coming, and Washington is going to kick their asses.

By now, Andy is only 13,  but that doesn’t mean he can’t do his own British ass-kicking. He joins the North Carolina militia, who is like, well, that’s great kid, but we can’t exactly send a 13 year old out there, so they make him and his brother Robert, messengers.

But every job is dangerous during the Revolutionary War. One night they were ordered to stand guard, and warn the colonists if the British were on their way. Once Andy and Robert spotted the British, they fired warning shots before running off. The British took off after them, and capturing both the Jackson brothers.

The British take these kids, and they make them polish their boots. But Andy, who remember, never backs down, gets a scar on his face from a British sword when he refuses.

The British are tempted to execute the boys, but instead they stripped them of their coats and shoes and sent them off to a prison camp where there’s a shortage of food, and blankets, but no shortage of small pox.
Andy’s mother hears her boys have been captured. It’s bad news for her too, because her oldest son, Hugh has also been killed in the Revolution by now. She goes to collect her other boys in a prisoner exchange, slings them over a couple of horses and brings them home to nurse them back to health.

But two days later, Robert is dead from small pox. Adding insult to injury for Andy, his mom contracts small pox as well, and never recovers. So now Andy has a dead father he never met, two dead brothers as a result of the Revolution, a dead mom thanks to one of those terrible 1700’s diseases.

That leaves a 14 year old Andrew Jackson as an orphan. A lot of presidential families have tragic backstories. Some became a shell of their former person, like Ida McKinley. Some rose above it all, like Lincoln. But Andy Jackson had a different way of handling his loss: with a love of vengeance he’d carry for the rest of his life. He’d always blame the British for the death of his brothers and mother, and he’ll come for them, in a cool 15 years or so.

Andrew Jackson had some aunts and uncles to look after him, and he was about to get an inheritance, from a grandfather over in Ireland. By 17 he decided he wanted to be a lawyer, so he apprenticed his way into the job after just a couple of years. His “studying law” was just a curriculum of reading, clerking, fighting, drinking and vandalism. That’s how it worked back then, no crazy law school loans for this guy. But, it also doesn’t pay well, Andy had to work in a grocery store to make enough money to get by.

Young adult Andy isn’t that much different from kid Andy. He continues to screw with people, at one point organizing a Christmas Ball and inviting prostitutes, causing a scandal. He’s still moving outhouses, he still has a legendary temper, and he’s still willing to fight anyone, anywhere.

But Andy was also charismatic, fearless, and ambitious. He’d dance, gamble and drink the night away in taverns with his friends. But now Andy and his drunk friends are taking things to a new level. At one point they destroy a local tavern breaking all the glassware, destroying furniture and then setting the whole thing on fire.

One of Andy’s friends, is elected Superior Court Judge, and quickly appointed a 21 year old Andy as the districts prosecuting attorney. He was working his way up the ladder!

Andy eventually moves to Nashville, Tennessee and stays at the Donelson boarding house, where he meets a lovely girl, Rachel Donelson, daughter of the boarding house’s owner.
Rachel was born in Virginia, to a wealthy family. Her dad was in the House of Burgesses with guys like Ben Franklin and George Washington. A young Rachel even got to meet them!

When Rachel was just 12, her dad led an excursion of several hundred people from Virginia to Tennessee where he co-founded Nashville. Rachel’s family was Nashville’s elite, for sure.

It’s the 1700s, so Rachel’s education pretty much stops at reading and writing. But, she’s a pretty good horseback rider, and can manage a household just fine. And that makes her a good catch.

At 17, Rachel gets married, to this terrible, abusive guy, Lewis Robards. He’s insanely jealous and he erupts with rage every time a sociable Rachel so much as talks to another guy. What happens next is one of those not-well-documented-so-who-actually-knows situations. Either Rachel left him, fled south running off with Andy, or he became so upset with her flirting with Andy that he left her. But either way, Lewis SAID he was headed off to file divorce papers.

Andy was deeply in love with Rachel, the one and only soft spot he’d have in his heart was reserved for her. And since she was divorced now, they got married!
Except opsies, Lewis never actually filed for divorce. He waited two years before he filed the papers, which was after Andy and Rachel had “gotten married”. When he finally did file the paperwork, he was all “look at her living in sin with another man when she’s still married to me!” It was a real sleaze-ball move, but not surprising coming from an abusive guy like Lewis.

Once the paperwork is filed, Andy and Rachel get married (again) to make sure it’s all legit. But Andy is irate at Lewis. First of all, he treated the love of Andy’s life like complete crap, and second of all, now Lewis is spreading lies about how Rachel had the nerve to cheat on him with Andy. The two guys nearly dueled over it.

But, Andy’s duels would be reserved for other guys, who questioned and belittled his wife, Rachel.

Enter Charles Dickinson, who insulted Rachel and accused Andy of cheating in a gambling bet. Charles was about the best shot in Tennessee and everyone figured Andy was a dead man walking. Dickinson’s shot wasn’t far off, he shot Andy in the chest and the bullet lodged near his heart. It didn’t kill him, but the lodged bullet would stay there for most of the rest of his life and give him breathing issues. Andy fired second, and Dickinson dropped dead. Andy had killed a man, and he was proud of it. Andy is overly fond of dueling.
But people didn’t learn, they just kept on insulting Rachel, calling her all kinds of names for living in sin with Andy and being an adulteress. Even the Tennessee Governor, John Sevier, wasn’t above bashing her. An argument ensued and Sevier claimed “you took another man’s wife!”, with Andy responding “Great God, you mention her sacred name?” Shots were fired, but this time around, nobody was hurt.

Rachel is scarred by the whole event. She’s not the sociable girl she once was. Instead, she prefers to stay at home at the couple’s plantation, the Hermitage. She just wants to dote on Andy and live quietly. They don’t have any biological kids, but they adopt her nephew, who they name Andrew Jackson Jr., and raise as their own. Nobody knows exactly why Andrew Jackson Jr. came to live with them, as he was one half of a twin.

Andy also sent home a two-year old American Indian boy named Lyncoya for Rachel to raise. The boy was found on a battlefield with his dead mother, and Andy, being an orphan himself, said he felt an “unusual sympathy” for him. Lyncoya will die at age 17 of tuberculosis just before Andy is elected president.

They also take in some other kids along the way, becoming a guardian to six boys and two girls.
At the Hermitage, Andy enjoys breeding racing horses (Bolivia, Emily, and Lady Nashville), as well as raising birds for cockfighting. Basically, he used his pets to feed his fondness of gambling. Fun fact: his favorite horse is Sam Patch, named after the 1st person to jump over Niagara Falls and survive. Andy appreciates wild stunts!

Andy is also settling in to married life, and becoming a more focused, more considerate guy. He can be chivalrous and courteous in Rachel’s presence. Rachel has softened his tough heart. He loves her and even builds her a chapel on the Hermitage, since Rachel was a devout Christian.

But Andy isn’t often at the Hermitage, he is off beginning his political career now, he’s had a brief stint in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Rachel is left to manage the Hermitage by herself. Well, not entirely by herself. Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage is being run by slaves. At one point he will have over 160 slaves at the Hermitage. Andy Jackson had worked himself from poverty to wealth because of his slaves, who grew his cotton and tended to his house.

He didn’t exactly treat them well either. Records show he beat them, and subjected them to public whippings. He’d chain his runway slaves up, and at one point took out an ad in a local paper offering a cash reward for anyone who finds his slave Tom. Andy will even throw in an extra $10 for every 100 extra “lashes” doled out to Tom. (Andy, you might have guessed was just fine with slavery, believed slavery wasn’t an issue for “government action” and called abolitionists “monsters”.)

By now were onto the War of 1812, aka Revolutionary War part 2. And Andy is ready to settle the score with the British. After all, remember, they killed his whole family. He is appointed General of the Tennessee militia, and marches through the south killing any hostile Indians, and winning battles against the British. His nickname becomes “Old Hickory” for his toughness (Hickory Tree).

But General Jackson is a ruthless guy too. The last thing you want to do is cross him. He’ll legit kill you if you ignore his orders. At one point his men want to turn back. They’re exhausted and starving, so Jackson rides to the front of the line, pulls out his musket, and threatens to kill the first guy who turns back. Of course, nobody turns back. Because you do not call Andrew Jackson’s bluff. Not if you want to live.

Two star General Jackson went on to beat the British back in the infamous Battle of New Orleans. Andy didn’t just win the battle, he slaughtered the British, and he did it with an army of men half the size of the British. It remains one of the most one-sided victories in American history. General Jackson was a hero!

Except, as it turns out, word just hadn’t made it to him that the war was actually over. The Treaty of Ghent, written by JQA, had been signed ending the war a few weeks earlier. The battle that makes him a hero wasn’t a battle that needed to be fought at all.

The war is over, but General Jackson’s work is not done. Now he’s headed to Florida to fight off the Seminole tribes to claim Florida for the United States, taking Florida from it’s current “owners”, the Spanish.  President Monroe tells General Jackson to back off. But, Andy doesn’t back down. He invades Florida anyway, and captures Pensacola. Along the way, he  kills a ton of Native Americans and 2 British agents he has executed, which is quite the incident, and everyone in Washington has an opinion about it.

Monroe isn’t pleased, Andy went against his orders. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams says Andy did the right thing, thinking it was time to invade Florida, and maybe Spain would finally agree to sell Florida to the US (Spoiler alert: they did). There’s a Congressional investigation, headed by Speaker of the House, Henry Clay. Andy is cleared of wrong doing, but he’s pissed at everyone who questioned him, especially Henry Clay.

Spain does sell us Florida, of course, and Andy gets rewarded with being the first territorial governor of Florida, which lasts a whopping four months.

Heading back to the Hermitage, Andy’s a bit of a mess. He’s physically exhausted, that bullet lodged near his heart is giving him trouble. He’s coughing up blood. He’s pretty sure he’s near death, and he spends a couple of years in bed, passing the time by reading newspapers (and saving all the ones that talk about the “Hero of New Orleans”).

He’s also becoming more and more interested in national politics, and when he rallies from his ailments, becomes a Senator for the state of Tennessee once again (with 25 years between his two stints in the Senate). But now he’s ready to try his hand at the highest office in the land: President of the United States.

It’s 1824 now, and we’re just ending the “Era of Good Feelings” we had with Monroe. Basically everyone is getting along. The Anti-Federalists, and the Federalists are no more. The party was defunct after the War of 1812, and now, we’ve just got a bunch of Democratic-Republicans duking it out.

There’s a couple of things worth noting, here. First of all, we’ve got a new generation of leaders. There’s no elder statesmen, and for the first time, no candidates from Virginia. But with just one political party these guys don’t differ too much on their beliefs about how the Government should run. Instead the candidates will distinguish themselves on a basis of personality and sectional issues.

In the beginning there are 7 candidates. But two drop out, and one drops dead, and now we’re down to four.

With everyone in the same party, we can’t just have a caucus to decide who should be the nominee. “King Caucuses” as they were called back then, were small, elite groups that hand picked their parties nominees. The delegates weren’t picking a candidate based on popular vote, but instead were free to support any candidate they wanted.

But public sentiment was changing. Caucuses were being seen as too elite. Times were changing. The new “western” states like Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Illinois want a more direct say. They want a popular vote to determine the delegates/electors. Basically they wanted to oust the aristocratic guys and trade them in for an “everyday” guy.

Case and point: Davy Crockett, a half-literate coon skin capped guy had been elected to Congress. Basically, people were starting to say “hey our guy is as good as your aristocrat from Virginia!”

So without caucuses most of the candidates will simply be endorsed by party conventions, state caucuses, mass meetings and straw votes (which are just unofficial votes).

The national caucus isn’t completely dead, just on is last legs. Everyone boycotts the caucus but one guy, Monroe’s current Secretary of the Treasury, good looking, sociable, William Crawford. He’s a dream candidate, endorsed by Monroe himself, and other heavy hitters like Thomas Jefferson. He’s served in the U.S. Senate, was minister to France, and was Secretary of War under James Madison. He’s the early frontrunner. But the caucus is a bit of a disaster. Only 61 out of the possible 261 caucus goers even show up and vote, and it looked kind of bad to accept the nomination with so few delegates voting.

Crawford is not the only guy with a pedigree. Nominated by Maine and Massachusetts, we have John Quincy Adams. He’s the current Secretary of State, he helped write the Monroe Doctrine and the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. He’s served the United States in various roles for decades, and it doesn’t hurt that his dad was the 2nd president of the United States.
Endorsed by Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri we’ve got the current Speaker of the House of Representatives, a brilliant guy, an ardent patriot, Henry Clay.

And finally, endorsed by Tennessee, we have the tall, handsome, ruthless, hero of New Orleans, current Senator Andrew Jackson. Jackson isn’t so much on the ballot because he’ll win, but because there is a belief he’s going to help the “down ballot” guys.

Personalities, not issues will dominate this 4-sided campaign. But, that’s not all that’s dominating the election of 1824: this is going to be a nasty, total train wreck of an election. Four guys, just means four times the insults. Without a party presence, they are all going to go after each other with a vengeance.

There will be personal attacks printed in pamphlets, and newspapers that are distributed throughout the country. In fact, newspapers play a huge role in the election of 1824. The paper’s glorify the candidates they back in the most extravagant of terms, but they also vilify opponents with hurtful, abusive language.

William Crawford’s honesty is questioned. There’s accusations of malfeasance in his role as Treasury Secretary. Crawford will end up suffering a strong during the campaign that leaves him paralyzed and nearly blind. So he’s not so much the front runner anymore.

John Quincy Adams might be the son of John Adams, but rumors swirl that John Adams disagrees politically with his son, and finds him to be an embarrassment. Plus, John Quincy Adams is married to a FOREIGNER! His English born wife is not a good look so soon after the Revolution and the War of 1812. Plus, this guy is a weird, crazy, eccentric dresser who ties a black ribbon around his neck.

Henry Clay is depicted as a drunkard, and a gambler. To be fair, the guy was a pretty savvy gambler known for hosting all-night card games. But, he did take issue with the ‘drunkard’ part.

And then there’s Andrew Jackson. Take your pick of insults here. He’s a simplistic (read: stupid) military man. He’s also a murderer (Dickinson duel). Plus he’s unruly, refuses to listen, is a volcano of anger, and comes after people with a vengeance.

Ex-presidents come out and say Jackson is totally unfit for the job. He’s “dangerous” and a “barbarian”. Jefferson says “I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson president. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.”

But Andrew Jackson fans are excited about him. He’s the first “backwoods” presidential candidate! Supporters say he’s “the solider, the statesman, and the honest man”.

The mudslinging is new, and some Congressman are appalled. A random politician announces “If all these charges are true, our presidents, secretaries, and Senators are all traitors and pirates.”

The Election of 1824 might be our first true ugly contest, but it’s also the first time there is any semblance of a popular vote. Not every state held a popular vote, and even in the states it was allowed, voting was pretty light. But 153,544 votes are cast for Andrew Jackson, 108,740 for John Quincy Adams, with Henry Clay and William Crawford both getting around 47,000 votes.

We have a clear popular vote winner. But, that’s not how we decide elections. So let’s go to the electoral count. We’ve got Henry Clay with 37, an ailing William Crawford with 41, John Quincy Adams with 84, and Andrew Jackson with 99.

So the winner is clearly Andrew Jackson!


Except wait, let’s check the fine print of the Constitution. If no candidate gets 51% of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives gets to pick the president! Jackson supporters are like, wait, what? He has the most electoral votes and the most popular votes, who cares what the Constitution says! He should be president. But, that 12th Amendment clearly lays out what to do in this scenario. Nobody got the 51%, or 132 electoral votes, needed to win, so to the House we go!

Here’s how it’s going to work. Each state gets one vote, no matter how many representatives you had. Rhode Island you get a vote! And Virginia, you also get a vote! New York, a vote for you! But just the one vote for everyone. It’s like telling California and Wyoming you each just get one vote for president. This is bananas!

Per the 12th Amendment (the one that fixed the second place guy becoming Vice President, you know the reason we don’t have Trump and Hilary Clinton in office), only the top three vote getters will be up for a vote in the House. Sorry Henry Clay, that means your out.

But, remember Henry Clay’s CURRENT position is SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. So he might not be president. But he has a lot of say in who DOES get to be president.
It’s no surprise, Clay is going to throw his support behind John Quincy Adams. William Crawford is barely functioning at this point, and therefore totally disqualified in Henry Clay’s mind.

Everyone knows Henry Clay hates Andy. Clay believes Andy’s a rash, boneheaded, military thug. He’s got too little experience, too much of a temper, and is just too crazy to be president. Clay can’t even believe Jackson got this far: “I cannot believe that killing 2,500 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various, difficult, and complicated duties of the chief magistrate”.

So Henry Clay works his friends, the votes are cast a whopping 3 MONTHS after the election, and John Quincy Adams becomes the 6th president of the United States after winning neither the popular vote, or the electoral college. But hey, 13 states cast their one vote for him (7 states for Jackson, 4 for Crawford).

Andrew Jackson is not the “oh well, gave it the old college try” kind of guy. Oh no, he’s pissed, and now he’s coming for you John Quincy and Henry Clay. The Election of 1824 just cemented Jackson’s belief that DC is full of “dandified, overeducated crooks”. He knows immediately he’ll be back in four years for round two.

Jackson spouts the “Corrupt Bargain” Henry Clay and John Quincy struck to make JQA President. Jackson claims JQA promised Henry Clay Secretary of State if Clay worked his magic and made JQA President. It wasn’t a reach, JQA’s first appointment was Henry Clay as Secretary of State.

In all likely hood, even without an offer, Clay would have supported JQA. They both supported strengthen the West (after all, we’ve made the Louisiana Purchase), and providing money for new roads and canals. Clay as Secretary of State is a good, logical choice, but it will be a political blunder for John Quincy Adams.

That’s because Jackson will not shut up about the ‘Corrupt Bargain’, calling Clay ‘the Judas of the West’ and claiming there has never been “such a bare faced corruption in any country before.”

Henry Clay wants to clear his name of any wrong doing. First of all, he challenges a Virginia Senator to a duel when he too accuses Clay of shenanigans. A comedy of errors ensues though, with misfires and misses and the two shake hands and go on their way. More than that, though, Henry Clay demands a Congressional Investigation to prove his innocence. The investigation will turn up no wrong doing.

But that didn’t matter. Signs of the “Corrupt Bargain”, “Bargain and Sale”, “Bargain & Corruption” went up right after the election and stayed there for 4 years. But more than that, the “Corrupt Bargain” is a hyperbole that will stand the test of time. If you had a history book, Corrupt Bargain would be in your list of terms.

Before we leave the election of 1824, let’s talk about Vice President. Between the days of the second place guy becoming Vice President, and today where the nominees choose their running mates, there was a brief period where we just voted on who would be our Vice President, like voting on any other candidate,  separate from the president. Remember the guys that dropped out early? Well, one of them was John C. Calhoun, a guy from South Carolina that defended slavery, and was consumed with ambition. He was easily elected Vice President. No need to get the House involved. So he sat there for three months wondering exactly who he would be Vice President to.

The next four years Andrew Jackson would work on his comeback, he resigns his Senate seat in October of 1825, returns to the Hermitage to prepare his revenge. The state of Tennessee is right there with him, announcing Jackson as their choice for the 1828 election three years before the election even takes place. Jackson, meanwhile urges Constitutional changes to have future presidents elected by popular vote. It doesn’t work. Sorry Samuel Tilden, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton.
We’ll cover JQA’s next 4 years in October, but things aren’t easy for him.  For now, though, we move on to the Election of 1828, and if you thought 1824 was ugly, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Worth noting, this election is going to be the first time basically any white man who wants to vote, can. Before 1828, you had to own land to vote, but for this go around, that requirement has been removed. As much as we think DC today is controlled by rich guys, it was ONLY controlled by rich white guys for the first 50 years. Now, even poor white guys can have a say! Progress!

This is so exciting, that voter participation is going to quadruple from 1824! King Caucus is dead, and we’re going to need a new official way to nominate guys. They’ll be decided in a series of nominating conventions, and meetings at the state level.  It’ll help that we’re not all the same political party anymore. John Quincy Adams is still a Democratic-Republican, but people will start referring to it as the “Adams-Clay Republicans”. Andrew Jackson, well, he’s gone off and formed his own party: the Democrats. He’s taking over Thomas Jefferson’s Republican party, and renaming and rebranding it. But he does share some of Jefferson’s ideas: The government should be simple, frugal, and accessible.


Even with different parties, this campaign will be very little on the issues. Jackson was known for being evasive in his opinions in public. And everyone knows where John Quincy Adams stands. He’s been president for the last four years, after all.

Nobody can hear anything about the issues over all the noise though. This will be the first true mudslinging campaign our country has ever seen. Both parties have newspapers in their pockets, and pay them to disperse the papers and spread lies.

An Anti-Jackson pamphlet covers it all: “You know Jackson is no jurist, no statesman, no politician, that he is destitute of historical, political, or statistical knowledge. You know he is a man of no labor, no patience, no investigation. He is wholly unqualified by education, habit and temper for the station of the President”.

Another anti Jackson Pamphlet titled “Jackson’s Youthful Indiscretions between the age of 23-60” chronicles all his supposed duels, fights and brawls. They charge he’s a gambler, a cockfighter, a slave trader, a drunkard, a thief and a liar.

Then there was the article that features six coffins with the headline that read “Some account of the bloody deeds of General Jackson”.
During the War of 1812, there was a mutiny of 200 militia men who believed their term was up, but the US Army disagreed. Most guys were given a fine, but the six ringleaders were sentenced to death, in an order signed by General Jackson. There was little objection at the time, but now those six coffins were painting Andrew Jackson as bloodthirsty and merciless.

Whatever, Jackson can take it. But then the insults cross a line. They attack his dead mom saying “General Jackson’s mother was a common prostitute brought into this country by British soldiers”, and Andrew Jackson is reduced to tears.

It gets even worse from there. Now they’re about to go after Rachel. Bible Thumping Democratic-Republicans call her a “whore” and a “dirty black wench” who is given to “open and notorious lewdness”.  The Cincinnati Gazette questions if Rachel should even be allowed to be First Lady: “Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest office of this free and Christian land?”
Oh, and she’s fat. Look at Andy’s fat ugly, wife!

The smears aren’t just about pissing off Andrew Jackson, Adam’s fans are trying to bait him into a duel. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll kill someone, or get killed!
Andrew keeps it together enough not to challenge anyone to any duels, and he does his best to shield Rachel from it all, he knows she’s sensitive about her 1st marriage and how it ended, or didn’t.

But nobody bullies Andy without being bullied right back. His “campaign manager” is Martin Van Buren, who has a plan to go after JQA with a vengeance. Candidates can’t just go out there saying these things, they need people to do it on their behalf. Friends of Jackson are called the “Hurra Boys” and they write political songs, and print pamphlets to promote their guy. They spread rumors about JQA’s “foreign born” wife, and of course they spouted about the Henry Clay “Corrupt Bargain.”

They also twisted whatever they could into slanders. John Quincy Adams *gasps* travels on the Sabbath! He’s anti-religious, get him!  He’s misusing tax payer money, buying “gambling tables and gambling furniture for the White House” (which is actually just a pool table and a chess set). And they claim he pimped out his wife’s maid to some minister of Russia, when all he did was introduce them.

Voting takes place September through November, on different days in different states. John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adam’s vice president isn’t going anywhere. He’s going to win the Vice Presidency yet again, easy peasy.
But for the presidency, it’s an election of Democracy vs. Aristocracy, Jacksonians vs. Adamites, and it’s Andy’s revenge game. And he knocks it out of the park, winning 178 to 83 in the electoral college, and garners nearly 150,000 more popular votes.

Andrew Jackson has finally defeated his nemesis! He couldn’t be more thrilled. Rachel, however, was clear about how she felt, she never had any desire to be first lady: “For Mr. Jackson’s sake, I am glad. For my own part, I never wished it.” Rachel noted she would “rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington”, and this was before she was shopping for her ‘First Lady clothes’ when she happened to see a campaign pamphlet attacking her. She becomes hysterical at the charges that she was an adulteress, of a bigamist. Rachel is deeply religious and cannot take the vicious attacks on her morals.

The 1824 election was the first real contest where wives had become fair game. It was also probably one of the most malicious in US History. It kills a woman for godsakes. Or at least that’s how Andy Jackson sees it when Rachel drops dead of a heart attack within a month of seeing the pamphlet.

Andy grieves Rachel hard. He dresses in a black suit and tie, a black armband, and a black band around his tall beaver hat. He has a tomb built for her that resembles the wall paper she loved so much and had put up in the entry way of the Hermitage. He wears a picture of her on a black cord tied around his neck, and visits her grave nightly to talk to her. A-not-so-religious Andy even takes to reading from her prayer book nightly.

In all actuality, Rachel was in poor health and overweight. Obviously the stress may have contributed, but Andy still felt JQA and Henry Clay were responsible for the death of his wife. They didn’t stop the attacks on her, and even at Rachel’s funeral he said “Those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for Mercy”, and “May God Almighty forgive her murders, as I know she forgave them. I never can”.  She was buried at the Hermitage in her inauguration dress and shoes.

With such a volatile election, it’s no surprise there’s no congratulatory calls, and JQA won’t show up for Andy’s inauguration. He’s just following in his father’s footsteps, after all, John Adams didn’t go to Jefferson’s. (Andrew Johnson won’t go to Grants, for a total of 3 times in American History where the outgoing guy skipped the incoming guy’s inauguration.)

But such a lack of coordination between the outgoing president and the incoming president creates a bit of anarchy. There is zero White House security measures in place for Jackson on March 4, when he is inaugurated.
Washington D.C. is celebrating hard today. Every hotel room is booked, with five people in every bed. Boarding houses are price gouging, that’ll be $20 a week! The streets are filled with people from all over, who came to see the first guy who wasn’t a rich aristocrat be sworn in.

Daniel Webster, future Whig candidate for president (of the ‘three little Whigs’) is at the inauguration and he can’t believe the crowds. He’s irritated people had come some 500 miles to see Jackson: “They really seem to think that the county has been rescued from some dreadful danger”. But Webster, and other “Adamsites” see Jackson as the great danger, and they are already resolving to throw him out four years from now.

The party followed Jackson from the capitol to the White House. Any riff raff or vagrant came to the White House that afternoon. They poured in windows and doors, tracked mud all over the carpet, broke antique chairs, glassware and thousands of dollars in White House China. Women “feared for their virtue”, tobacco juice was spit all over the White House, and fights broke out over barrels of orange punch that were spilled everywhere.

Andrew Jackson was nearly suffocated by the crowds descending upon him, and eventually slipped out and found himself some inn that cleared some room for him, fed him ox, and gave him a place to sleep, while the White House kitchen staff managed the crowd by putting all the alcohol on the lawn and then locking out the crowds once they followed the orange punch.

At least Andrew Jackson cleaned up the White House and got it some running water, functioning bathrooms, a formal garden, and a piano. He used his redoing the White House funds well, his $25,000 salary, however, went mostly to keeping the White House “party ready” with liquor and wine. Andy could hold his liquor, but the White House staff, not so much. It’s said the doorman was always so drunk he couldn’t answer the door.

As Andrew Jackson begins his presidency, friends are going to see him as loyal and generous, while enemies will see him as mean spirited and spiteful. It’s true Andy is a difficult guy who has a combative nature, and rubbed people the wrong way. And Andrew Jackson without Rachel became increasingly cold, and unbending, with fits of rage. He was a hallow man whose opponents gave into, because they were scared of him.

And Andy knew it. He’d turn his temper on and off to scare people into doing what he wanted. His anger became legendary. He simply sounded out of control with his high pitched shrieking Basically, don’t get on Andy’s bad side, because you’ll be effed. This guy is as bitter and vengeful as they come.
Once Jackson got into office, and was ready to clean house. Andy takes one look at the highest government jobs and says “any idiot can do these!” and he fires a bunch of guys, replacing them with his friends, more specifically his Democratic friends. Jackson called this a “rotation”, out with the old and in with the new. But, “rotation” won’t make it into the terms column in the history books, instead we have the “spoils system”, aka hooking up you buddies with jobs.

And he also goes veto crazy. Here’s how a veto works. The Constitution says that the president has the authority to reject legislation, even after it has been passed by the House and the Senate. While we call it a ‘veto”, the word itself, Latin for “I forbid”, doesn’t appear in the Constitution.

If Congress doesn’t like what that the President vetoed one of their bills, they can override the president. But it’s hard to do. You need 2/3 votes in the House and Senate, so good luck with that.

The Constitution also doesn’t specifically state the circumstances that would allow the president to use his veto. It was kind of implied early on that a president should only veto a bill if he believed the bill to be unconstitutional.

But then along came President Jackson. He starts vetoing any bill he doesn’t like for any reason. He was amassing presidential power for himself outweighing the power of Congress.

Jackson didn’t always outright veto a bill either. Once a bill lands on the president’s desk he has 10 days to sign it. If he doesn’t sign it in that time, it’s considered a “pocket veto”, meaning you didn’t outright veto it, but you killed the bill simply by not signing it.

The most famous pocket veto in history award goes to Andrew Jackson, when he refuses to sign a bill re-chartering (aka the renewal contract) for the Second Bank of the United States.

Andrew Jackson hated paper money. Ironic, because his face is going to land itself on the $20 bill. But, he thinks of the federal bank as a “mammoth monopoly”, a threat to American liberties. But, let’s stick a pin in the National Bank debate for a moment.

Take everything you know about Andy so far, the temper, the bitter enemies, the dead wife due to public humiliation, and we’ll arrive at the biggest issue in his first term: the Peggy Eaton Affair, aka the Petticoat Affair. (Named aptly for a bunch of petty women.)

Andy Jackson’s Secretary of War is this guy, John Henry Eaton, and he’s in love with the less-than-virtuous Peggy, daughter of a tavern keeper. But scandal alert, Peggy’s first husband was John’s friend. In fact, when husband number #1 got into financial trouble, John bailed him out. But then husband #1 died, and 9 months later John married Peggy, which was considered “unproper” at the time. Nine months isn’t long enough to mourn a dead husband!

But Andrew Jackson believes in love, and encourages Eaton to marry Peggy. The other members of Jackson’s cabinet are less than supportive though. Worse than that are the wives of those cabinet members, they all blackball Peggy. There will be no invitations to public events for her. They’ll shun her in public. They’re mean and petty, and the ringleader of all the mean girls is John C. Calhoun’s wife.

Andy Jackson has flashbacks to how Rachel was treated, and he’s siding hard with Eaton. He’s losing his patience for many guys in his cabinet including Vice President Calhoun. Plus, as it turns out John C. Calhoun was Secretary of War when Jackson invaded Florida and wanted General Jackson censured, which Andy is just now finding out.

So Andy takes to meeting with an unofficial cabinet of advisors in the kitchen of the White House, aptly named “The Kitchen Cabinet”. One of those guys is former campaign manager, current Secretary of State, and Andy’s friend: Martin Van Buren.

And MVB has an idea to squash this all. He’s going to resign along with Eaton, with the idea that Andy can then ask for the resignations of the entire cabinet (Andy keeps his Postmaster General, but that’s it). The plan works and issue is resolved.

But Martin Van Buren will be back. Enter: the election of 1832.

First of all, originally Andrew Jackson said he was just going to serve one term as president. But he still has John C. Calhoun as his Vice President, and Jackson loathes him now. If he doesn’t run, Calhoun will, and Andy can’t let that happen.

About the same time as the election is going on, there’s an argument over tariffs in South Carolina. (Tariffs = taxes on imported and exported goods). It’s not a new complaint, it’s been ongoing since JQA. But, it’s not getting better under Jackson and South Carolina says the federal tariff is disproportionately effecting the south, and they’re pissed about it!

Remember, John C. Calhoun is from South Carolina, and he has their backs. He “anonymously” (every knew it was him!) publishes a pamphlet directing South Carolina to a little loop hole in the Constitution, where a state can nullify a federal law if they believe it to be unconstitutional.

If we’re talking key words in your history books, you’re going to want to note NULLIFICATION.

So lets talk about nullification, as in something is “null and void”. Thanks to states rights guy Thomas Jefferson putting it in there, the Constitution says states have the right to “nullify” any federal law the state has determined to be unconstitutional.  Now things will get murky about if you can be prosecuted by federal authorities even if a state says something isn’t against the law, that the federal government says it is. But, the states can use their nullification power to get bypass having to obey a federal law.

And now South Carolina was threatening to nullify the tariff of 1832. They’re super pissed about those import/export taxes and they announce they’ll nullify the law and even secede from the union if need be! South Carolina, always the trouble maker.

Essentially, Jackson agrees to lower the tariff but also basically throws in a “don’t cross me” and puts in a “force bill” saying, if you don’t pay the lower tariffs, I’m sending armed guys to collect. He’s also Andrew Jackson so it should come as no surprise that he threatened to hang South Carolina’s Congressman if any blood is shed over the tariff. The lower tariff appeases South Carolina, for now. But Jackson feels betrayed by John C. Calhoun. And Calhoun is about to feel the wrath of Andrew Jackson.

So instead of just being a one-and-done president, Andrew Jackson is going to have another go at it, just to keep John Calhoun from being the next guy up. And not only that, he wants Calhoun out as Veep.

The Convention for the Democrats is not about Andrew Jackson, he is going to be the nominee for president. He wants it, so he gets it. But it is about Vice President, and Andrew Jackson is throwing his support behind Martin Van Buren.

The Election of 1832 is going to see some firsts. There’s the first party conventions, and the 1st party platforms. Remember, a platform is the changes, the values a candidate is going to run on. But the parties aren’t really going to decide the candidates at their conventions, they’re going to vote on their party platforms.

The Democrats encouraged local groups to meet and pass resolutions to adopt their platform. On the other side, the National Republicans, who had formed as an Anti-Jackson party, have a platform that consists of 10 resolutions covering everything from protection of the American industry to the spoils system.

And the National Republicans have their guy in the one, the only, Henry Clay. (Fun fact: the National Republicans will splinter off into the Whigs by the next election)

It’s Andy’s hated rival back again after costing him the election 8 years ago. Jackson hasn’t forgiven him: “(Clay) is certainly the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraced the image of God, nothing too mean or too low for him to  condescend to.” Jackson and Henry Clay disagree on everything. The only thing they’ll ever have in common will be their hatred for James Buchanan.

Fun fact: Jackson makes James Buchanan Minister to Russia to get to get him out of his hair. Andy: “It was as far as I could send him out of my sight, where he could do the least harm. I would have sent him to the North Pole if we had kept a minister there.”

This election won’t be as heated, intense, or exciting. People are actually pretty uninterested in it as a whole. A deadly cholera epidemic struck the east coast in the summer of 1832, and people were more concerned with staying alive than voting for president.

Plus, the main issue is the Bank of the United States. After all, Jackson vetoed the re-charter. It’s an important concern, but it’s not the kind of issue that exactly drives voter turnout.

Henry Clay really pushed the banking issue, thinking he could win on that. But he also attacked Jackson for his spoils system of hiring all his friends (which is a little rich coming from the “corrupt bargain” guy). Andy counters- not a “spoils system” just a “rotation”. (In actuality, Andy only replaced 1 in 10 people with Democrats.) But he didn’t help the image of a spoils system when he said “If you have a job in your department that can’t be done by a Democrat, then abolish the job.”

And then of course, Clay brought up Andy’s treatment of Native Americans. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall, had declared Cherokee Nation in Georgia as sovereign, meaning the state of Georgia has no right to enforce their state laws in Cherokee territory. Clay cried that Jackson refused to enforce the decision, and Jackson acted like a two year old saying “well, nobody ever actually asked me to enforce it!”

The National Republicans call Andy “King Andrew the first”, “petty tyrant”, and bring out Calhoun who says Jackson is deranged.

An now we have the 1st political cartoons making their appearance; the National Republicans are good at them. Cartoonists salivated at Andy’s woody-woodpecker look. They draw pictures of him with a crown and a septor, stomping on the Bank Charter and Constitution. Andy was drawn as a pig being dissected at a barbecue by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. And then there was the cartoon of Andy, a decrepit old man, playing poker with cards that read: intrigue, corruption and imbecility.

National Republicans also went after Andy for his health. And that was a fair argument. He had frequent headaches, diarrhea, stomach aches, and coughing fits in which he brought up sludge. His legs and feet would swell, his teeth were rotting out of his head, and it was all made worse by his “tonics” and all you can chew and smoke tobacco. Many thought he was most likely to die in office.



But Jackson won’t die! Instead he’ll win the election handily, 219 to 49, and he’ll beat Henry Clay by about 150,000 in the popular vote too. But, it will be the only time in American history a president wins re-election while receiving a less percentage of the popular vote than he had a previous election (55% in ’32 to his 56% in ’28) Andy never had a doubt he’d win re-election, telling friends “it’s already done” and “it’ll be a walk” before the votes were even counted.

And Jackson brought Martin Van Buren along with him, as Van Buren is elected Vice President. John C. Calhoun wouldn’t even finish his term and stay on until the inauguration after all of this, instead he resigns the month after the election.

Jackson sees his win as an approval on his bank stance. He’s going to keep on keeping on, and proceed against the Bank.

So, let’s talk about the Bank. Alexander Hamilton had established the Bank of the United States to accept tax deposits, to issue paper money and to fund the national debt.

Andrew Jackson was the one and only president to wipe out the national debt, so he didn’t need the bank for that!

We already talked about how Andy hated paper money, and the bank, but he also hated the president of the bank, Nicholas Biddle. Biddle was an old Republican money man who hated Jackson as much as Jackson hated him. Biddle did use bank money to help fund Henry Clay during the campaign. So just think about that for a minute. The US Government puts money into the bank, and Biddle uses that money to fund Andy’s opponent. Scandal alert!

Andy, obviously, is pissed about that. But he also thinks the bank itself is too elitist, and has too much power. Stop me if you’ve head this before but the bank is just making the rich richer!

So Jackson vetoes the bank charter, which we know, and Republicans are pissed about it.

Andy refuses to deposit tax revenues into the National bank. Instead he puts that money into his own “pet banks” run by his cronies. Jackson’s first two Treasury Secretaries are like ‘um, this is a no-no’, so Andy kept firing guys until he found one that would cooperate. The pet banks, however, make some pretty unwise loans, and government revenues were lost. So much for paying off the national debt.

Jackson’s bad bank plan will come around to bite Martin Van Buren in the ass, as it partially causes the Panic of 1837, which partially costs Martin Van Buren the presidency, but we’ll get to that in December.

For the meantime, we have one more major thing to discuss regarding Andy Jackson’s presidency. And that’s the “Indian Removal Act of 1830.” You, however, might be more familiar with it as the ‘Trail of Tears’.

Basically, Andy is going to remove several tribes from land in existing states. He’s all, ‘sorry about this guys, but you’re just collateral damage in a grand push to achieve progress for the white man’, and don’t worry “my red children”, you can move to land out west.

But native American tribes made their lives from the land they lived on, making them move to different land with different resources and different challenges will spell disaster for them. Andy removed 60,000 “savages” (as he called them), opening up 25 million acres for the white guys to move in on.


He gave them two years to leave on their own, but many refused. So he sent in state militias, in a ‘if you’re not going to move, we’re going to make you move’ type of situation. Eventually the US military came in and announced that the Native American were trespassing on the land that now belonged to white people. Too bad if you’ve been here for centuries. It’s not yours anymore.

In the long journey from the southeast to west of the Mississippi over 4,000 Native Americans would die thanks to disease, and as the Native American were forced to assimilate with the white people around them, whole languages and cultures will die out.

Andrew Jackson leaves office in 1837 with a mixed legacy. For over a century, he’d be remembered as the first guy from humble beginnings to ascend to the presidency, if Andy Jackson can be president, anyone can be! He had been born into poverty but worked himself into wealth. He’s a symbol of the people’s will, the first guy popularly voted into office and the very first Democrat!

But, he’ll also leave behind some cheese. 1,400 pounds of cheese to be exact. With 2 weeks left in his term, he invited the public to come eat the giant wheel that he had gotten to celebrate Washington’s birthday. The stinky cheese smell welcomed Martin Van Buren to the White House when he was inaugurated as the 8th president of the United States.
Andrew Jackson will go back to Hermitage where he can visit Rachel’s grave nightly again.  He has his slaves, and his parrot Poll to keep him company. Poll will be known for her use of curse words, but she was simply parroting Andy. That guy was always a first rate curser (probably only rivaled by LBJ).

In 1835, he’ll return to D.C for a funeral, where he’ll be a target of the first assassination attempt when a mentally disturbed house painter shot at him, the gun misfired twice (a 1 in 125,000 chance), and Andy will beat the guy with his cane.

Andy’s health will decline over the next seven years. By the time he dies he has one functioning lung, is blind in one eye, and has to sleep propped up. He also dies in debt, the bad market for cotton has left him with little money. His dying wish is to meet friends “both black and white” he notes, in heaven. He’s buried next to Rachel in the garden just outside his house.

For years, Jackson would be seen as one of the great presidents. The Democratic Party was his child, and his legacy: the two party system. He defined the role of the presidency. Using the veto the way he did, set a precedent that the executive branch was more powerful than Congress. He’s known as the “populist king”, who represented the will of the people. He forever changed the republic into a more democratic entity.
But the guy was also vengeful, hateful, and at times had a “volcanic personality.” He never shied away from using federal powers against non-whites. He had an authoritarian will, and an eagerness with the veto pen rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Jackson’s legacy is often contradictory. Every new generation of historians reshape and revise our understanding of Jackson. It seems like only a matter of time before his face falls off the $20 bill. He’d likely not be too mad about it, though. He always hated paper money, anyway.