The Good and the Bad, The Bitter and the Sweet - Andrew Jackson

While passing through Tennessee on my way down to Georgia I stopped at The Hermitage, home of former U.S. President Andrew Jackson.

Admission was $20, audio tour headphones were available but I don't like blocking out the sounds of the real world so I passed.  The admission gets you access to the museum and the plantation that was his home. I didn't want to wait more than an hour in line to get in to the home, so I satisfied myself with walking the grounds and taking in the information in the museum.

Jackson was born in 1767 in South Carolina to recent immigrants from Ireland. His father died before he was born, and at the age of 13 he and his brothers joined the fighting against the British in the Revolutionary War. His brothers died during the war, one from heat stroke and the other from smallpox, and his mother died from cholera while nursing sick soldiers.  Andrew Jackson was orphaned at the age of 14.

From the Hermitage website:
After the war, Jackson briefly resided with members of his mother’s family but soon went to Charleston and embarked upon a campaign of youthful adventure and mischief.

About this time, Jackson received a modest inheritance from a grandfather still in Ireland. When his money ran out, Jackson finished school and, although he disdained studying, worked as a schoolteacher for a short period. Tall and lanky with red hair and piercing blue eyes, Jackson was known for his fiery temper, fearlessness, playful personality and daring spirit.

At the age of 17 he decided to become a lawyer and by the time he was 21 (sure took a lot less time to become a practicing lawyer in those days!) he was appointed the district prosecuting attorney in the "Western District" and that is how he came to Tennessee. When Jackson moved to Nashville he met the already married Rachel Donelson Robards. Believing her first husband had divorced her, Rachel and Andrew visited Natchez with friends and the two of them returned married in 1791.  Jackson and Rachel never had children of their own, but Jackson became the legal guardian to a number of children including a nephew they named after him and an orphaned Native American child he found in battle. The boy, Lyncoya, was sent back to the Hermitage and was educated along with Andrew Jr., and Jackson had aspirations of sending him to West Point as well. Unfortunately, political circumstances made that impossible and he instead trained as a saddle maker in Nashville. He died of tuberculosis in 1828.

School field trip kept the line long to the museum

The fact that he adopted and obviously cared deeply for a Native American child is such a contradiction to his attitude toward the removal of the Native American tribes east of the Mississippi.

Virginia bluebells

According to the Hermitage website, Jackson argued that the United States policy of attempting to assimilate the tribes into white society had failed and the Native Americans’ way of life would eventually be destroyed. Furthermore, he recognized that whites desired their lands and feared if the Native Americans remained in those areas they would eventually be exterminated. Opposition groups fought Jackson’s removal policy in Congress, but their efforts failed by a handful of votes. Congress’ authorization of the Indian Removal Act in 1831 empowered Jackson to make treaties with the tribes in arranging for their displacement.  The Indian Removal process was completed two years after Jackson left office with great loss of Native American life due to this corruption, inadequate supplies and removal by force.

That explanation sounds a little too noble to me, and I find it hard to believe his actions were to keep the Native Americans safe from extinction due to fighting over land with the white man.  I intend to do more research on the subject because of course every side has a different take on such a complex situation and the outcome after all affected my family since I have a Cherokee ancestor.  So much to know, so little time to read!  Still, current political scientists have him ranked at #15 in the list of Presidential Rankings that came out in February just one spot ahead of John F. Kennedy...and Donald Trump comes in dead last at #44.  And by the way, Obama came in at #8, up from the last survey where they placed him at #18.

Of course Jackson also owned slaves, so when I was visiting the museum all the signs touting him as the "President of the People" left a bitter taste in my mouth since he obviously didn't include anyone with skin that wasn't white as citizens.  However, for the times he was unique in his championing of what was right for the "common people" and led the way to shaping our governement toward those ideals today.  Small steps, I suppose.

When Jackson ran for office in 1828 he suffered through a mud slinging campaign that sounds familiar in light of how campaigns are run in current times.

President Adams’ supporters accused Jackson of being a military tyrant who would use the presidency as a springboard for his own Napoleonic ambitions of empire. For proof, they brought out every skeleton in Jackson’s closet; his duels and brawls, his execution of troops for desertion, his declaration of martial law in New Orleans, his friendship with Aaron Burr, and his invasions of Spanish Florida in 1814 and 1818.

The most painful attack for Jackson, by far, was that on his and Rachel’s character over their marriage. Technically, Rachel was a bigamist and Jackson her partner in it. Adams’ supporters thus judged Jackson as morally unfit to hold the nation’s highest office...They struck back with attacks on corrupt officials in Adams’ administration and labeled Adams an elitist who wanted to increase the size and power of government to benefit the aristocracy.

Fritillaria meleagris - Snake's Head Fritillary

Jackson took office with expectations to cleanse government of corruption and restore the nation’s finances. Jackson kept a watchful eye over government expenditures and congressional appropriations. In one instance, he vetoed a road bill approved by Congress. On top of being too costly, the bill only benefitted one area of the country and failed to improve the nation’s defenses. Prior to Jackson, presidents had only vetoed legislation they believed to be unconstitutional. Jackson established a new principle of vetoing legislation as a matter of policy. Jackson’s spending controls along with increased revenue enabled him to pay off the national debt in 1835 and keep the nation debt free for the remainder of his term. This is the only time in the nation’s history that the federal government was debt free.

The homeschooler in me loves that Jackson was largely self-taught. He read widely from the Bible and the classics to dozens of daily and weekly newspapers. Below are some other interesting facts.

• First president to be a resident of a state other than Massachusetts or Virginia
•  First Tennessee representative to the U.S. House
•  First president to ride a train
•  First president to be assaulted while in office
•  First president to be the target of an assassination attempt
•  First president born to immigrant parents
•  Last president to serve in the Revolutionary War (he participated at age 13!)
•  Only president to have been held as a prisoner of war
•  Only president to raise a Native American child—Lyncoya, who was found orphaned after the Battle of Tallushatchee (1813)
•  Only president to serve in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812
•  Only president to pay off the national debt

Jackson survived numerous attempts on his life as a soldier, he overcame smallpox at age 14, he was shot while dueling, and even an assasination attempt while president.

From the History Channel: Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, approached Jackson as he left a congressional funeral held in the House chamber of the Capitol building and shot at him, but his gun misfired. A furious 67-year-old Jackson confronted his attacker, clubbing Lawrence several times with his walking cane. During the scuffle, Lawrence managed to pull out a second loaded pistol and pulled the trigger, but it also misfired. Jackson’s aides then wrestled Lawrence away from the president, leaving Jackson unharmed but angry.

Jackson served two terms as President and lived another 8 years to the age of 78.  In 1999 researchers obtained samples of his hair from The Hermitage and had them tested.  It was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that the real cause of death for Andrew Jackson was lead poisoning, most likely leached out from the bullets left for decades in his body from dueling.

Amusingly, when Jackson died his pet parrot, Poll, attended his funeral service but had to be removed after he started cursing at the mourners. According to the Presidential Pet Museum Andrew Jackson wasn’t the only American president to have a bird as a pet. The long list includes:

• George Washington’s wife had a parrot
• Thomas Jefferson had a mockingbird named Dick
• James Madison’s wife kept a macaw
• For a short time, John Tyler had a canary named Johnny Ty
• Franklin Pierce owned two Japanese birds
• James Buchanan is said to have had a pair of bald eagles
• Abraham Lincoln’s son Tad had a turkey named Jack
• Ulysses S. Grant reportedly had a parrot
• Rutherford B. Hayes apparently had a mockingbird and four canaries
• Grover Cleveland’s wife had mockingbirds and canaries too
• William McKinley had a Mexican parrot named Washington Post
• Teddy Roosevelt had a couple of parrots, and his son had a pet macaw
• Woodrow Wilson kept songbirds
• Warren Harding’s wife, Florence, had canaries
• Calvin Coolidge’s pet canaries were named Nip and Tuck; plus Coolidge had a white canary named Snowflake and a mockingbird
• For a short time, Dwight Eisenhower had a parakeet Gabby, buried in 1957 at the southwest corner of the executive mansion
• John F. Kennedy had a canary named Robin and two parakeets named Bluebell and Marybelle
• Lyndon Johnson had lovebirds