Andrew Jackson

Brower-Freeman 1
Brenden Brower-Freeman
10/1/2013
King Andrew or Old Hickory?
Some called him King Andrew, others referred to him as Old Hickory. He was known for
his hot temper and he held grudges for life. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United
States, was a man of many descriptions to say the least. Jackson’s story is one filled with
controversy, and while he was known as a simple man in his day, analyzing him from a historical
perspective is quite a complex task. 1
To understand the man and his actions, the observer must start at the beginning of his life.
Andrew Jackson was born in 1767 to a small town of Scotch-Irish immigrants straddling the
border between the Carolinas. Although there is some dispute as to which state he was born in,
Jackson considered himself to be South Carolinian. During his youth, Andrew received only a
basic education and was occupied with working to help support his mother and siblings. Due to
his father’s death before his birth and the position of his family’s home near the frontier, none of
the three Jackson boys were able to pursue work away from the homestead. These factors
combined to limit the family’s wealth and remove any chance they had of gaining entry to the
elite circles of colonial society.2
At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Andrew and his brothers all attempted to
serve the colonial cause in their own ways. His oldest brother fought as a regular and died of heat
stroke at the battle of Stono Ferry, while Andrew and his remaining brother, Robert, fought as
irregulars. They were captured by the British in 1781and both caught smallpox. Upon release,
Robert and the boy’s mother died of the illness. This unfortunate string of events eliminated
1
The Miller Center, American President A Reference Resource
2
The Miller Center, American President A Reference Resource – Life Before the Presidency

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Andrew’s immediate family and pushed him into the life of a wanderer. At the age of fifteen, he
was a battle tested veteran, an orphan, and an off-and-on teacher. He became interested in law
and in 1787 he passed the bar and was offered a position as a public solicitor in the new western
districts of North Carolina.3
The district was headed in the new town of Nashville and in 1788, Jackson moved to the
frontier and opened a legal practice. It was at this time that he also became heavily vested in both
trade companies and land speculation. 4
The period of time that Jackson spent in Nashville would
come to shape many of his political and personal decisions over the rest of his life. At the time,
Nashville was the very edge of western civilization in Appalachia, and the surrounding area was
faced with frequent raids by hostile Indians as settlers pushed further into tribal land. 5
In fact,
Jackson was chosen as Tennessee’s first representative to the house in part because of his ability
to express the concerns of the frontiersmen in the western part of the state and their ongoing
problems with fighting the Indians. 6
Additionally, Jackson gained a dual distrust of banks and land speculation while spending
time in Nashville. Upon his arrival in the territory that was becoming Tennessee, Jackson had
made investments on tens of thousands of acres. With time, he expanded this to hundreds of
thousands of acres, and he eventually sought a buyer while traveling to Philadelphia in 1795.
He found a man on one of his trips named David Allison7
who was willing to buy the
property at twenty cents an acre. Jackson accepted his offer and received several promissory
notes, or checks, for the amount. Andrew was forced to endorsed the notes himself and pass
3
The Miller Center, American President A Reference Resource – Solider, Prisoner and Orphan
4
5
The Life of Andrew Jackson pg 31
6
7

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them on in order to pay for supplies required by his trading ventures. Unfortunately, Allison
defaulted on the debt thereby passing it on to Jackson. 8
Initially he tried to escape the debt by saying that he had been unaware that he was
responsible for the debt in an instance such as this, but Jackson inevitably relented and sold his
business for thirty three thousand acres of land which he promptly sold to a political ally in
Knoxville for twenty five cents and acre. This was just enough to cover his debts on his initial
speculation, but not the losses he had felt investing in his business. Due to this, he used the
money to buy more land with the idea of again selling it at a profit in Philadelphia.
By 1796, Jackson had accumulated about thirty thousand acres of land that he intended to
sell.9
He initially had trouble finding a buyer, so he once again turned to Allison. He sold off
nearly all of the land to Allison and a business partner again in exchange for notes that promised
payment and interest on the remainder owed within two years. At this point, Allison already
owed him twenty thousand dollars and he had no way to ensure payment of either the new
payment or the outstanding debt. Jackson was forced to wait the full two years of the note to see
repayment and during this time he could only tell those he was indebted to that they must wait
until he had money. This resulted on his being threatened with debtor’s prison on multiple
occasions until the debt was finally paid off. 10
Many of those pressuring Jackson on his land
deals and debt were bankers, who at the time used their banks funds to back notes and to
speculate on land. 11
An important thing to know about Jackson is that he had a fiery temper, and held grudges
for years. In a famous quote, Jackson showed this by saying "After 8 years as president, I have
8
9
10
11
Enduring Vision pg 227

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only two regrets. That I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun." 12
His nature as
someone who would hold a grudge to his dying breath meant that the dispositions he formed in
his pre-presidential years carried through into his political career. In fact, after his careers as a
congressperson and a judge, Jackson decided to run for Major General of the state militia.
His opponent was the previous governor of Tennessee, John Sevier, a prominent man in
the states politics and a veteran of the revolutionary war. 13
Jackson lost the election and was so
upset that he got into a fight with Sevier during the aftermath of the contest in the streets of
Knoxville. The fallout from the confrontation lead to preparations for a duel between the two,
although nothing came of this posturing due to the intervention of a mutual friend of the two.
From this point forward, Jackson began to take a more methodical approach to politics;
meaning that he engaged with voters on a personal level and became popular with the common
people. 14
He eventually used this approach to become a commander within the Tennessee militia
in 1801, when he won the popular support of those in the militia. 15
At the time, the process of
determining officers in the state militia of Tennessee was fairly democratic, with field officers
being elected by the members of the militia, those officers electing their superiors and so on with
the top rank being major general. 16
His popularity in the ranks increased as he fought Indians
along the frontier in the western portion of Tennessee, culminating with his achieving the post of
major general.
At the outbreak of the war of 1812, Jackson, still a commander, lead a campaign through
much of the south eastern portion of Tennessee that peaked with the battle of horseshoe bend that
12
Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, and the Presidency
13
14
Life of Andrew Jackson pg 38
15
Biography.com
16

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resulted in a lopsided victory for Jackson against a force of Creek Indians and the winning of
some twenty million acres of land for the United States in Georgia and Alabama.17
It was after
this victory that Jackson won his promotion to major general. 18
For Jackson, the war presented a double opportunity. He was able to advance his political
career through victory while also fighting groups that he held grudges against. In the woods of
the south, he could fight the various Indian nations and tribes that had allied with the British.
Seeing as he felt that many of these Indian groups had always been a menace to both him and his
home on the frontier, he focused his forces actions against the Indians for most of the war.
Separately, when fighting the British, Jackson saw a unique chance to avenge the deaths of his
family during the revolution. The war in many ways became a very personal fight for Jackson
which contributed to his ruthlessness and powerful resolve.
These characteristics showed best at the battle of New Orleans, where he masterfully
placed his troops and artillery in such a way that the advancing British were forced to march
through a fairly tight bottleneck. This deepened their ranks and made it incredibly easy for his
ragtag army to devastate the attackers from the safety of their entrenchments. One account
speaks to Jackson’s particularly brutal cunning saying, “One thirty-two pounder, loaded to the
muzzle with musket balls, crashed into the head of the column at point-blank range and leveled it
to the ground, some 200 men killed or wounded in this single salvo.” 19
By the end of the battle, the American casualty report showed that fifty two men had
been wounded or killed in action whereas the British had suffered more than two thousand
casualties. 20
This was not only the greatest victory of the war, but perhaps one of the greatest in
17
Biography.com
18
Biography.com
19
20

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American military history, especially in its time. The battle of New Orleans even earned Jackson
his nickname, Old Hickory, for his tough and tenacious demeanor in the face of overwhelming
odds. 21
The victory at New Orleans propelled Jackson to a prominent place on the national stage.
He was known as the nation’s greatest war hero since Washington and he was awarded a gold
medal by congress for his distinguished service. He further built on this success by leading an
unauthorized invasion of Spanish Florida in pursuit of Creek and Seminole fighters who had
continued to raid American territory following the conclusions of both the War of 1812 and the
signing of the treaty of Fort Jackson that had come from Jackson’s earlier victory at horseshoe
bend. Jackson captured several Spanish and Indian positions before overthrowing the Spanish
Governor and forcing Spanish agreement to the Adams-Onis Treaty which officially ceded
Florida to the United States. 22
Upon conclusion of the treaty, Jackson was named military governor of the territory and
presided over it until 1821. This reintroduction to the political sphere suited Jackson, and lead
him to running for re-election to the Senate in 1822, which he achieved. 23
By this time, his
popularity had grown to the degree that various state groups propelled him toward a presidential
nomination at a Pennsylvania convention in 1824. 24
Because Jackson was so popular, it was
widely perceived that Jackson would easily win the election. 25
Unfortunately for Jackson, the constitution required a majority of the popular vote in
order to win, which was functionally impossible because there were four major candidates
21
Biography.com
22
Biography.com
23
Biography.com
24
Biography.com
25

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running for the position that were all from the same party. Running against Jackson were John
Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. All of these men where respected
politicians of their time and they presented a serious hurdle even for an esteemed war hero. 26
Ultimately, Jackson won the greatest percentage of both the popular vote and the
Electoral College votes, but still held less than the fifty one percent that is required to win the
election outright. This meant that the election was to be decided by the House of
Representatives. 27
What occurred next has been called the corrupt bargain. It consisted of a deal
between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in which in return for an appointment as the
secretary of state, Clay would endorse Adams which effectively gave all the votes cast for Clay
to Adams. The resulting alignment in the house meant that the representatives were able to say
that the man who had received, even if indirectly, the majority vote had won. 28
Some modern observers may think that the election was somehow rigged because of the
complexity of the situation, and how different it is from the way that presidential elections
happen today. In reality, the election functioned exactly as it was supposed to under the
understood legal and social conventions of the day. (If Jackson had won fifty one percent or
more of the vote, there would not have been an issue at all. Moreover, Jackson had the same
opportunity to strike a deal with any of his opponents. Realistically, even if the result seems
distasteful at first glance, the administration of John Quincy Adams contained within it the two
candidates that together represented a majority of both the public vote and the electoral vote. 29
Despite outwards appearances, the real loser of the 1824 election was not Jackson. It was
in fact, the political procedure that had been the norm through American history up until then
26
27
28
29
Enduring vision pg 223

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that would see its end. The complicated and closed off nature of the 1824 election touched off a
popular reformation of the American party system that was led by a man named Martian Van
Buren. He envisioned a two party system that would necessitate that in nearly all situations there
would be a clear winner that had a majority of votes on their side. 30
Immediately following the election of 1824, Jackson supporters began to assemble a
political machine that resembled those of today. It revolved around local organization and
outreach. This combined with a popular dissatisfaction regarding the Adams administration to
create the perfect foundation for Van Buren’s new system. By 1828, the pieces were firmly in
place for a new national political party to form around Jackson, and they called themselves the
Democratic Party. 31
In the 1828 Election, Adams, representing the National-Republican party, ran for re-
election against Jackson, who represented the newly minted Democratic Party. The election
focused on Jackson’s history as a man of the people as compared to Adam’s aristocratic roots.
(m) Despite a close election in terms of popular vote, Jackson won in an electoral landslide with
sixty eight percent of the Electoral College going in his favor. 32
Obviously, something about Jackson was appealing to people throughout the country, but
what was it? At the time, the nation was undergoing a metamorphosis; changing from a colonial
society on the edge of civilization defined by rural living and a frontier culture to a modern,
industrialized nation that could compete with European nations on the international stage. This
transformation, like any, brought with it questions and uncertainty. Some people reacted by
embracing education, advancing market systems and industrial society while some were very
30
31
32

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conservative and preferred rejecting change. By running as a common man who was opposed to
the rich elites that were tied to the changes occurring primarily in the northeastern urban centers,
he was able to prey on people’s sense of nostalgia. For voters, Jackson represented a promise of
a return to the good ole’ days during which everything was simpler and they didn’t have to worry
about change. 33
To be fair, the people’s negative reaction to change was not without merit. The nation
was definitely controlled by a small group of elites that were totally distinct and disconnected
from the general populace, and Adams represented this. The fact that he was elected based on a
political deal struck without regard to what the voters may say about what was being done with
their vote’s assuredly characterized Adams as a member of the elite. Viewing the politics of the
time through this lens, it is very easy to see Jackson as a defender of democracy and the average
citizen. The best way to describe the Jacksonian Democrats would be to say that they were
nostalgic agrarians who felt that their rights were threatened by the economic and political orders
of the time. 34
So what was Jackson? Was he King Andrew the tyrant, or was he Old Hickory, a Classic
American hero? To determine that, his actions as president must be analyzed to determine not
only what he did, but why he did it. Jackson’s actions as president can be broadly divided into
two categories; fighting with people and fighting with institutions.
As has been touched on in this paper, Jackson had a knack for taking things personally.
From his duels to in the streets to the way he commanded armies, Jackson invested every ounce
of spite and rage he had into destroying his enemies. The difference between his past and its
quarrels, and his time as president, was that as president, he viewed himself as a living
33
34

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embodiment of the law and its enforcement. 35
When it came to dealing with what Jackson
viewed as institutions, such as state governments, Jackson exercised restraint and operated on a
fairly level headed paradigm. This is best exemplified by the way Jackson handled the
Nullification Crisis of 1832.
During the crisis, South Carolina reacted to an increased federal tariff by nullifying it
within the states borders. This effectively meant that customs agents could not collect the tariff
under criminal penalty. This reaction was largely due to negative economic consequences that
would likely impact the states already depressed market in ways that could damage it for years.
Jackson, who himself was personally opposed to the tariff, would not abide South Carolina’s
attempt at working around federal law, despite threats of secession by the state, Jackson pressed
the issue, which caused a split between he and his vice president, John C. Calhoun.36
Based on his history, one might expect a heavy handed approach by Jackson, but instead,
he offered both the carrot and the stick. He was able to get a set of bills passed that included not
only a threat of use of force against South Carolina in the Force Bill, but also a reduced tariff in
the compromise tariff. South Carolina accepted the compromise, and the crisis was averted.37
Jackson’s handling of the crisis shows that when dealing with institutions that he
perceived as legitimate authorities, he could be flexible and set personal grievances aside. When
dealing with those that Jackson perceived as people and their pet projects, he was far less
amicable.
Take, for example, the second bank of the United States. Jackson carried a great amount
of suspicion for banks, land speculation, and money lending from his involvement with Allison.
35
Biography.com
36
37

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38
To make matters worse, a political alliance between the banks President, Nicholas Biddle, and
a man who Jackson viewed as one of those who had stolen the 1824 election from him, Henry
Clay, meant that Jackson was not only suspicious of the bank but also had a grudge against those
behind it. Jacksons grudge meant that when congress passed a bill that would have re-chartered
the bank, Jackson promptly and unapologetically vetoed it, despite the fact that it was the sole
regulator of the state banks ability to print money. That meant that even though Jackson felt that
supplies of unbacked currency were bad, he actively caused more of it to be produced in pursuit
of getting back at someone who had crossed him years before.39
Understanding that Jackson would act on grudges without regard for the consequences is
important to identifying what kind of a president Jackson was. He even went so far as to say he
had “to destroy Calhoun regardless of what injury it might do to me or my administration” when
referencing his discovering that his trusted colleague had at one point called for his punishment
for the invasion of Florida. That said, how did Jackson react when he had to resolve an issue
regarding both a grudge and a legitimate institution?40
To find the answer, it is useful to look at Jackson’s reactions to the decisions in Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia and Worchester v. Georgia as well as the Indian Removal Act. In both of the
court cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the Indian nations were all distinct political
communities that were equivalent to domestic independent nations that were entitled to federal
protection from states claims to their lands. 41
While Jackson viewed the Supreme Court as a
legitimate institution, he believed that Congressional action that sided with the states was more
legitimate. In addition, Jackson had been actively fighting against many of the Indian nations in
38
39
40
41

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the southern United States for most of his life. For Jackson, his hatred of Indians extended to the
point that the only piece of legislation that Congress worked on at his request through his entire
time in office was the Indian removal act. 42
Jackson’s push to remove the Indians culminated in his refusal to enforce the Supreme
Court’s decision, going so far as to mock the court saying “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has
made his decision, now let him enforce it” This outright disrespect of institutional authority
points to strong personal motivations regarding Indians and potentially state sovereignty guiding
his decisions. That means that Jackson’s decision calculus was not a question of right versus
wrong or what is best for the most people but rather what made the world around him closer to
his ideal world. 43
That brings the discussion full circle to the question, what was Andrew Jackson? Was he
a hero of the people or a tyrant? After analyzing the actions that King Andrew took throughout
not only his reign but also the years leading up to it, it is only fair to conclude that Andrew
Jackson was very much a selfish individual who governed by impulse and felt that his say was
final. If that is not the description of a tyrant, then it is surely the description of tyranny.
Regardless, Andrew Jackson, despite making some positive impacts on history and being an
inspirational figure in his time, was a net negative force in history. Some called him King
Andrew, and they were very much right.
42
43

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Bibliography
Baliles, Gerald. "American President: Andrew Jackson: Life Before the
Presidency." Miller Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.
<http://millercenter.org/president/jackson/essays/biography/2>.
Gerald Baliles is the head of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia and the
former governor of the same state. He organized the team of authors and historians from the
University that writes the biographies for the Miller Center. I chose this source because it gave a
very detailed description of Andrew Jackson’s life outside of war and politics that the enduring
vision does not have. Life before the Presidency gave a significant amount of information on the
events that shaped the man Jackson became.
"Andrew Jackson." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Oct 01 2013,
04:58http://www.biography.com/people/andrew-jackson-9350991.
The Biography Channel is part of a larger television network and offers a range of
biographical information on almost every one of historical or cultural significance. This article
primarily helped me with information pertaining to Jackson’s actions in office. In addition, I was
able to pull some quotations of Jackson from this source.
U.S.A. PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.
<http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/alife/war_hero.html>.
PBS is the Public Broadcasting Service and it frequently does documentaries on various
historical figures. This website was meant to accompany a documentary about Jackson. It
provided me with detailed analysis on Jacksons thought processes with bits even taken from his

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personal journals. This was helpful in constructing an idea of the reasoning he had in taking
certain actions.
Remini, Robert V. The Life of Andrew Jackson. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2001. Print.
Robert Remini is a biographer and historian and this work provides a great amount of
detailed description of Jackson’s personal life and middle aged experiences. This was especially
helpful in writing about the battle of New Orleans and Jackson’s early days in Tennessee. In
addition, this was the best source I could find on the Allison affair.
Boyer, Paul S. The Enduring Vision. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2009. Print
Paul Boyer is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who teaches history.
This book is very good at covering the basic information that is required to write this paper. I
found it useful as a starting point for my research. I would learn a bit about what I wanted to
research from the book and then I would attempt to find detail elsewhere. That said, some of the
best information on the Indian Removal act came from this book.

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