ExclusiveAndrew Jackson: Old Hickory

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannan. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories. But here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous, and some are obscure. But each person deserves to be discovered, because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. It takes many people to make a successful organization of any size, and that certainly is true of a government, especially one like the United States of America. It took so many people hundreds of years to create the nation which we have today. Far beyond the founding fathers, many different men and women played huge roles in preserving the idea of freedom in this new nation. Those people are remembered as American legends. Today we're going to talk about the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, and the role he played in making the country's government run the way it does today, while preserving some of the ideas of the first presidents. Andrew Jackson stood right in the middle of two different eras of the United States' history. He was after the first four or five presidents who were the founding fathers, yet before the better-known incidents of the Civil War in the mid-19th century. Serving two terms as president, from 1829 to 1837, he played some pivotal roles in bringing the country toward the later political structure it continues to have to some degree to this day. He was the first president from west of the Appalachias. Born in the area of Tennessee, 1767, he was the son of very poor Scottish and Irish immigrants. In fact, his father died a few weeks before he was born, so no one is sure exactly where he was born as his mother was traveling at the time. He had the reputation of a common man of the people. While he started many of the things which would become the Democratic Party's ideas, I would consider him, in many ways, a second George Washington. He was the only president since George Washington up to that point who had not attended college. He also was a military man, a great general in battle which led him then to political prestige. Like Washington. Jackson's political opponents, as he was running for president, sometimes referred to him as a barbarian who couldn't even write his name, but that was doing a disservice to the very resourceful Mr. Jackson. Although he didn't have much of a formal education, he did study with a minister, actually, up until the age of 13 as his private tutor because his parents were hoping he might become a minister at one point. He realized he had too hot a temper for that, but he did learn a lot from that man. And later, he actually became a teacher himself, teaching other boys to read and write. And he always was fond of the ideas of learning, although he didn't have the formal education of many of his colleagues and competitors by going to Harvard or some other school. Despite that, he ended up studying law and becoming a member of the Bar. He served as a lawyer, he served as a judge on the Supreme Court for many years before eventually being in the Senate and, finally, the White House. As I mentioned, he gained great favor in the United States because of his role as a general. He fought in three important wars. The Creek Wars, against the Creek Indians, the Seminole Wars, and, most famously, the War of 1812. He would often spend his own money to gather different soldiers together and keep paying them so that they wouldn't disperse. Even when he was sometimes ordered to disband his troops, he marched with them for miles, bringing them back despite the great difficulty of this. The reason he was such a determined general was because he was a man who believed in fighting for what you feel to be right. And he applied this very literally to his private life. He participated in over a hundred duels throughout his life, and these would often involve guns. Because of this, by the time he was president, he had two bullets in him. One in his chest, very close to his heart, which actually shattered on his breastbone, and another in one of his arms. He killed a few people in duels and almost got killed himself many times. Sometimes duels would just involve shooting guns in the air, not at each other. But if someone insulted him, or insulted a member of his family, or challenged something which he felt was an important idea, he would challenge him to a duel, and he wasn't afraid to back it up with risking his life. He was the first president to face an assassination attempt. The would-be assassin tried to fire two shots at him, but his gun wouldn't fire. Jackson was so angry about this that he walked over to the attempted assassin and hit him with his cane. Jackson first attempted to run for president in the 1824 election. He was running against John Quincy Adams, who at that time was also a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Although Jackson won the Electoral College vote, he did not win the popular vote, so then when it was put to the House of Representatives, as described in the 12th Amendment, Adams ended up winning. But four years later, by which point John Quincy Adams wasn't that popular, Jackson won by a landslide as president. His first vice president was John C. Calhoun, who had also been vice president under John Quincy Adams. But they quickly began to disagree on many points. There were two main points of contention. One of them was the petticoat affair, an incident involving cabinet member Eaton, whose wife was much disliked by the other cabinet wives and the vice president's wife. There was some rumors about the fact that perhaps the Eatons had lived together in an immoral relationship before their marriage, and all the petticoats of the cabinet thought that Mrs. Eaton was not a fit lady to be in their society. Jackson sided with the Eatons, whereas Calhoun and most of the other cabinet members sided against them. But this was just one of the issues which created a good deal of bad feelings between these two men. Much like John Adams with Thomas Jefferson as his vice president, Andrew Jackson found himself in the unenviable position of having a vice president who was trying to go directly against what he had in mind for policy. The big source of contention was over tariffs. Calhoun, who was from South Carolina, thought that the tariffs, which Andrew Jackson was approving, were very detrimental to the South and their agriculture, but they were intended to profit the North and their industry. He believed that states should be allowed to disregard federal rules if they thought that they were unfavorable to their policies. So he was encouraging South Carolina to oppose these tariffs to the point of even seceding from the union. Jackson fought vehemently to keep the union from splitting up, and he was extremely angry with Calhoun for trying to encourage South Carolina from seceding. It involved many different situations called the Nullification Act, and although South Carolina ended up not seceding, this was an important step in the beginning of the rift that would happen between the North and South, leading to the Civil War in a few decades. In 1832, near the end of Jackson's first term, Calhoun ended up resigning as vice president. He later would serve in the Senate, becoming a very important member of the Southern political parties who were pushing different agendas and working on some legislature which ended up being very vital to the country. That makes Calhoun the only vice president to resign from his role. For his second term, Jackson had a more friendly political ally, Martin Van Buren, as his vice president, who would go on to be the next president after him. After John Quincy Adams lost his bid for re-election and Andrew Jackson won, the Democratic-Republican Party began to have a division. John Quincy Adams had beliefs which were more akin to the former Federalist Party or the New Whig Party, so that formed into the National Republican Party, and supporters of Jackson broke off into the Democratic Party. When Andrew Jackson was running for president in 1828, many of his opponents called him Jackass because of his name Jackson, and that would later go on to become the logo of the Democratic Party. He took it as a compliment, and he made it one of his running logos. He put a donkey on his flyers because he was a very stubborn man, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was as stubborn as a mule. His nickname was Old Hickory. He was so determined and so strong and tough that his men under him in war would say he's as strong as an old hickory tree. In his later years, people said he rattled like a bag of marbles because he'd sustained so many serious wounds. He was the last president to serve in the War for Independence. Now you might think, how could he have done that? If he was born in 1767 and the war started in 1776, wasn't he much too young? Well, he had two older brothers. His oldest brother was old enough to actually fight, and he ended up dying in the War of Independence. But Jackson's mother was a proud Scottish and Irish woman who was very angry at the British for their mistreatment of the Scottish and Irish people for years back in the old country, and she didn't feel much more friendly toward them in the new world. So she encouraged all her sons to be part of the fight, and young Andrew actually became a courier, and he would deliver letters even though he was just a boy. And as such, he was even wounded and grew sick during this time, but his mother was able to nurse him back to health, unlike his other two brothers. At one point, some British soldiers were lodged at the Jackson home. One of the officers demanded that the young boy polish his boots. Andrew said that he wouldn't polish his boots, and as a result, the officer struck him on the head with his sword, and for the rest of his life, Andrew Jackson had a scar on his head and on his hand from that blow. In the War of 1812, the decisive battle was the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, in December. It seemed that the odds were insurmountable. New Orleans had a lot of Spanish and natives there who were oftentimes more sympathetic to the British than to the American troops. But he gathered troops that involved not only white men, but some black men and some Indians as well. Jackson had around 4,000 men, whereas the British troops had 10,000. But despite this, Jackson used such brilliant military tactics that he ended up killing or wounding 2,000 of the British soldiers, whereas only 71 Americans sustained any injuries. It was an amazing battle, and it effectively ended the war, even though none of the Americans knew at the time that the war had already been ended in Europe because the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. But despite this, in the New World, he was lauded as a hero, and that was a big part of what promoted him to the White House. One of the lasting impacts which Jackson made was the cabinet. You see, before that, the cabinet had been more elected, or they would continue. But Jackson started the principle of firing many of his cabinet members, largely because of the Petticoat Affair, and appointing new people. And he tried to do it on a merit basis, yet he also appointed people whom he knew would be friendly to his ideas. And since then, many presidents have continued this practice of appointing their own cabinet. It's become a standard part of the government procedures. When he was running for president, Jackson was considered a man of the people, and that was why he was very popular. In fact, he was the first president to have an open inauguration day, so anyone could come into the White House to congratulate him. This turned out to be not such a good idea, because so many people were so excited to come in and see him that they ended up destroying a lot of the furniture in the White House and breaking things, and eventually the president had to slip out the back way, and some of his aides put bowls of punch on the lawn to lure the people out of the White House and lock the doors. So in the future, they knew maybe that's not such a good idea. But he was very welcoming and open to the public because he wanted them to see him as one of them. Jackson's legacy is one which is controversial, torn between the two ideas that, on the one hand, he established a lot of the principles which have made the Democratic Party what it would continue to be, a party for the people, and creating a lot of things for the rights of the individual and the common man, as opposed to the elite. He was very much against the ruling elite. But on the other hand, he has a controversial background because of his treatment of the Native Americans. Now, in all these presidents before the Civil War, there's the controversial issue that most of them were slave owners. Although he was from the South, Jackson was not born into a slave-owning family. He was much too poor. But he did end up purchasing many slaves throughout his lifetime, and he eventually became a plantation owner, having the plantation, the Hermitage, which eventually made him very wealthy and became one of the most successful cotton plantations in Tennessee. Two of his most decisive wars, the Seminole War and the Creek War, were against different Native American tribes. And he is regarded by many as being quite cruel in his killing of not only the men, but the women and children, and trying to move them out of parts of the United States, particularly the eastern part. He also was largely responsible for the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which he called the Final Solution, which led to thousands of Indians being forced to move off of their territory to the new territory of Oklahoma, resulting in the death of thousands of them, and this was known as the Trail of Tears. It could be seen as especially controversial because the tribes who were forced to move were known as the Five Civilized Tribes. They had adopted mostly Western practices, and many of them were even practicing Christians, so it was in especially questionable taste to force them to leave. Scholars are divided on the point as to whether this was done simply in response to political pressures of the day, or as a result of deep-seated racism and prejudice against the natives. The one point which has been made in his favor, to counter that he was a bigot, is that he actually took in at least three wards who were orphaned in the Creek Wars. Part of the Muscogee tribe, these were three children whose parents were killed by his own troops, most notably Ninkoya, which means Abandoned One. It's not really an Indian name, but it's sort of a white man's version of some Indian words. Apparently this boy was 10 to 12 months old when he was found dead next to his mother, so Jackson and some other officers took him in and sustained him, and then eventually Jackson brought him back to his plantation and had his wife raise him as his son. Apparently he referred to him as his son. He was one of many wards whom Jackson had whom he called his son, and he saw that he was well-educated, and at one point he wanted him to go to a military academy, but he ended up being apprenticed to a saddler. Whether this was a result of an actual affection and compassion for this boy, or simply as a national emblem, is again a point of debate. What we do know about Jackson is that he was a man who believed in the idea of the United States and certainly wasn't afraid to risk his life to defend it. Whether that was in battle, as the president, opposing many of his former political allies, he wasn't afraid to alienate people, and he was very determined in everything he did, so it's no wonder that the people of the time really admired him. It's funny that although he was called the man of the people, and he wasn't from the Virginia dynasty, he wasn't a wealthy landowner, when he started out his life, partly because he was so stubborn and so strong, he would make decisions oftentimes with very little support from others. A lot of what he did is very common with presidents now, but at the time it wasn't as common. Such as the appointment of the cabinet members and firing people if you didn't like them. As a result, many people called him King Andrew the First, because he was unafraid to just make his own decisions and be really bold and vocally opposed to other people who sort of were supposed to be on the same side as him. But he thought that there's really only one side. It's not about your political party, Democrat, Republican, it's about we've got to preserve this nation, no matter what it takes. This is reflected by one of his quotes, peace above all things is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equitable and lasting terms. Perhaps reflecting his determination in dueling and getting in arguments with others, you see how he said, when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. He also said, I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me. That was good, because he didn't inherit a calm. There was definitely a storm when he was in the White House, with the potential of South Carolina ceding, being in all those battles and wars. First against the British continuing to fight, the Spanish with Florida, he was very instrumental in making Florida become a state, as well as Tennessee. And fighting against the native tribes who sometimes were attacking the settlers, even fighting against his own cabinet. He believed in fighting no matter what and facing the storm. Yet he had, despite his lack of as much education or traveling abroad, that innate sense, that public spirit and a winning personality, which was able to make him a very successful president for two terms. He was the last two-term president for many years, as a matter of fact until Abraham Lincoln. Because after him, there was quite a contentious period of time with many one-term presidents. So as the seventh president, he was, only two men had had single terms before him, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, but there'd be many after him who did not have two terms. So that his period was a period of some security, because there were those two terms of the same president, and during those times, he was able to accomplish a good many things with the banking system, keeping the nation together, and working out different deals with the tariffs. I think Andrew Jackson is a good example of someone who is unafraid. He was just fearless, absolutely fearless, and so bold. He would have been a great general if he'd been old enough in the original war of independence. And it was perhaps less popular wars in which he fought, more controversial, less decisive, but that same spirit, that same spirit of 76, which was necessary to help us declare our freedom, made men like him be very instrumental in preserving the freedom in future wars and in the government. Perhaps he was a little hasty in some of his decisions, too warlike, maybe a little more violent than could be recommended, but the thing that's admirable about him is that he put himself out there. He wasn't just sending off troops, and he didn't try to just destroy his enemies. If he had a fight to fight, he fought it himself. He put himself in the battle, and I think he's a good example to all of us that if you believe in something, you need to be willing to fight for it, or don't make bold statements if you won't risk your life, and I don't necessarily mean your physical life, but maybe your reputation. If you believe in something, don't be afraid to say you believe it, even if it makes you unpopular. So I encourage you today to maybe learn a little more about Andrew Jackson and his complicated but inspiring legacy of fighting for your beliefs. Thank you for spending this time with me. I hope you enjoyed American Legends.