Andrew Jackson Facts & Worksheets

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From 1829 until 1837, Andrew Jackson served as the seventh President of the United States (US). He sought to advance the ‘common man’ rights against a ‘corrupted aristocracy’. His term was better known as Jacksonian Democracy, alluding to the entire range of democratic reforms that accompanied his triumph in office. Despite being an authentic democratic movement, Jacksonian Democracy was an ambiguous concept that only represented the white man and not a specific class or region, appearing as a political impulse tied to slavery, the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, and the celebration of white supremacy.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

• Andrew Jackson was born on 15 March 1767 in the Waxhaws region in Carolinas. His parents were Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson, from Ulster, Ireland. Jackson had two siblings: Hugh Jackson, born in 1763, and Robert Jackson, born in 1764. Jackson’s father died aged 29 in a logging accident in February 1767, three weeks before Jackson was born. 
• Following her husband’s death, Elizabeth and her three sons relocated to the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and James Crawford. 
• According to some historians, Jackson’s birthplace was unknown. Jackson later asserted that he was born on the Crawford estate in Lancaster County, South Carolina, although second-hand evidence suggests that he might have been born at the home of a relative in North Carolina.
• Elizabeth hoped Jackson would become a priest when he was young, so she hired a local clergyman to educate Jackson. He learnt to read, write and work with numbers and was exposed to Greek and Latin literature. As a child, Jackson was considered too strong-willed and hot-tempered for a ministry.

JACKSON DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

• The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War, was the military conflict of the American Revolution in which American Patriot forces led by George Washington defeated the British, establishing and securing US independence. During the American Revolutionary War, Washington was the Commander of the Continental Army. 
• During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson and his brothers fought on the Patriot side against British forces. Hugh served under Colonel William Richardson Davie and died in June 1779 from heat exhaustion following the Battle of Stono Ferry. 
• Following the Waxhaws Massacre in May 1780, which heightened anti-British sentiment in the Southern Colonies, Elizabeth pushed Andrew and Robert to enrol in military drills.
• Jackson and Robert served as couriers and spies for Davie during the Battle of Hanging Rock in August 1780. When the British occupied the home of a Crawford relative in April 1781, Jackson and Robert were captured. There was an instance where a British officer requested that his boots be shined by Jackson and Robert, but they refused. When the siblings refused, the British officer stabbed Jackson with his sword, causing scars on his left hand and head, while the officer hit Robert in the head.

  

• The brothers were transferred to a camp for prisoners of war (POW) in Camden, South Carolina, where they were starved and caught smallpox. In late April 1781, the brothers were released to their mother. Two days after getting home, Robert died, but Jackson recovered.
• Once Jackson had recovered, Elizabeth volunteered to care for the American POWs detained in British prison ships in Charleston, South Carolina’s harbour.
• Elizabeth became ill with cholera and died soon after. The war left Jackson an orphan at the age of 14 and taught him to despise British principles, particularly aristocracy and political power.
• Jackson, an orphan and a hardened veteran, strayed, taught school briefly and then studied law in North Carolina under the supervision of attorney Spruce Macay. Jackson completed his training under John Stokes. After being licensed to the law in 1787, he accepted a position as public prosecutor in the new Metro District of North Carolina, west of the mountains, with its seat at Nashville on the Cumberland River. 
• Jackson thrived in the fledgling frontier settlement after he arrived in 1788. He started his legal practice, involved in trading, acquiring land and enslaved people.
• Jackson became a protégé of William Blount, one of North Carolina’s most prominent men. In 1791, Jackson was appointed attorney general, and the following year, he was appointed judge-advocate for the militia.

EARLY CAREER AND MARRIAGE LIFE OF JACKSON

• Jackson was involved with real estate, eventually creating a partnership with fellow lawyer John Overton. Their collaboration mostly dealt with claims made under the Land Grab Act 1783 that granted Cherokee and Chickasaw territory to white settlers of North Carolina. 
• Before the American Revolutionary War, only a few dozen Americans had established west of the Appalachian Mountains, partly due to the limits imposed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. With the American Revolutionary War outbreak, the barrier to settlement was removed, and by 1782, roughly 25,000 Americans had settled in Trans Appalachia.
• Jackson stayed at the home of Rachel Stockley Donelson, widow of John Donelson, an American politician. While boarding at Donelson’s home, Jackson met her daughter, Rachel Donelson Robards. 
• Robards was married to Captain Lewis Robards, but they separated in 1789. Jackson and Rachel developed romantic feelings for one another, and in 1791, they decided to live under the same roof. Captain Robards asked for a divorce, which was granted by a court in Kentucky on the legal grounds of Rachel’s infidelity. 
• After the divorce, Rachel and Jackson married formally in 1794, and in 1796, the couple acquired their first property, a plantation in Hunter’s Hill.
• Shortly after settling with Rachel, Jackson became a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, the dominant political party in Tennessee.
• In 1796, Jackson was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention. When Tennessee achieved statehood that year, Jackson was elected as its US representative.
• In Congress, Jackson argued against the Jay Treaty. The Jay Treaty was a 1794 treaty between the US and the UK that averted war and resolved issues from the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the American Revolutionary War.
• Jackson also chastised Washington for purportedly removing Democratic-Republicans from public office, and Jackson voted with numerous other Democratic-Republicans in opposing a resolution of appreciation to Washington.
• Jackson argued for the Tennesseans’ right to fight for their military interest against the Indigenous peoples. In 1797, the state assembly elected Jackson to the US Senate, but he resigned after six months.
• In 1802, Jackson was also elected major general, or commander, of the Tennessee militia by a vote of the militia’s commanders. Jackson and John Sevier, a prominent Revolutionary War veteran and former governor, were tied in the vote, but Archibald Roane, the governor, broke the tie in Jackson’s favour. Sevier was later accused of fraud and bribery by Jackson.

JACKSON’S LIFE IN THE PLANTATION

• Jackson resigned as a judge in 1804. He was on the verge of bankruptcy when the credit he used for land speculation crashed following an earlier financial meltdown. 
• Jackson had to sell Hunter’s Hill and 25,000 acres of land he had purchased for speculation to purchase the Hermitage, a smaller 420-acre plantation in Nashville.
• He concentrated on recouping his losses by becoming a prosperous planter and trader. The Hermitage eventually covered 1,000 acres, making it one of the state’s largest cotton plantations.
• Jackson, like most plantations in the southern part of the US, exploited slave labour. Jackson had nine enslaved Africans in 1804. Over his lifetime, he enslaved a total of 300 people.
• Jackson had a different view on slavery. He believed in the paternalistic idea of slavery.
• It was asserted that slavery was morally permissible as long as enslaved people were treated humanely and their fundamental necessities were met.
• Enslaved people were viewed as a sort of wealth whose production needed to be protected in practice. Enslaved people who disobeyed or fled were subjected to terrible punishment by Jackson. In an article titled The Enslaved Household of President Andrew Jackson, published on the website of the White House Historical Association, it was cited that in 1804, Jackson offered ten dollars extra for every hundred lashes, up to three hundred lashes that any person would give an enslaved person to recover the latter. Jackson was also involved in the local trading of enslaved people. Over time, Jackson’s amassing of wealth in enslaved people and land elevated him to Tennessee’s wealthiest families.

MILITARY CAREER

• Jackson’s political career appears to have ended in his forties. He desired military positions rather than higher office. Jackson’s desire for military exposure led him to contact Aaron Burr, an American politician, when the latter passed through Tennessee in 1805 in search of troops for his conquest.
• In June 1812, the United States declared war on the United Kingdom. A Tennessee force was deployed to defend New Orleans in November. Jackson marched 2,000 men to Natchez, where he received a message from the War Department ordering him to release his troops without pay or provisions.
• Jackson retained the command together on his authority for the ride home. On this march, his openness to share the difficulties of his men earned him the moniker Old Hickory.
• Jackson led a group of Tennesseans and Indigenous peoples deep into Creek nations, fighting a series of conflicts. In the pivotal battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814, Jackson annihilated the main Creek army.
• The campaign defeated the Creeks and other Southwestern Indigenous nations, including those who had fought alongside Jackson. During the next few years, Jackson negotiated treaties in which the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks abandoned millions of acres of territory in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and west Tennessee.

  

• In May 1814, Jackson was appointed as a US major general and assigned command of the southern frontier due to his outstanding performance as a militia commander. The British planned an attack on New Orleans, an important access point into the American interior.
• Jackson collected a force of regulars, volunteers, militia, African Americans and pirates to stop them. The British landed and moved within a few miles of the city, where Jackson had reinforced a river-crossing line. 
• On 8 January 1815, British General Sir Edward Pakenham launched a frontal assault against Jackson’s position. Some inexperienced Americans fled on the west bank while Jackson’s forces mowed down the incoming enemy on the east bank with artillery and rifle fire. The British suffered about 2,000 losses. Jackson lost many troops: 13 men killed, 58 wounded, and 1 missing.
• The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the Battle of New Orleans, had been signed two weeks earlier. Therefore, the battle had no bearing on the conclusion. Nonetheless, with its high fatality rate and exhilarating image of American frontiersmen fighting veteran British soldiers, this huge triumph entered national folklore quite quickly. 
• Jackson ascended to national prominence, ranking second only to George Washington.

PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS: CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTION

• Mismanagement by the Second Bank of the US caused a financial panic in 1819, plunging the United States into its first extended financial crisis. The US decreased its military, forcing Jackson to resign from his major general position.
• In exchange, US President James Monroe appointed him as the first territorial governor of Florida in 1821. Jackson served as governor for two months before returning to the Hermitage due to illness.
• During his recovery, Jackson, a Freemason since 1798, was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee for 1822–1823. He also finished negotiations for Tennessee to purchase Chickasaw territory during this period. This purchase was known as the Jackson Purchase.
• In 1822, Jackson agreed to Overton’s plan to nominate him for the 1824 presidential election, and the Tennessee assembly nominated him in July.
• The Federalist Party had disintegrated at the time, and there were four significant candidates for the Democratic-Republican Party nomination: William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John C Calhoun.
• Historically, Democratic-Republican presidential nominees were chosen by informal congressional nominating caucuses. The caucus was boycotted by the majority of Democratic-Republicans in Congress in 1824, and the power to pick nominees was transferred to state nominating committees and legislatures.
• Jackson was nominated at a Pennsylvania convention, elevating him from a western regional candidate to the main national contender. American statesman John Calhoun pulled out of the presidential contest after Jackson won the Pennsylvania candidature. Jackson won the nomination in six more states and finished a solid second in three more.
• Jackson received 42% of the popular vote in the presidential election. More importantly, he received 99 votes from South, West and Mid-Atlantic states, giving him a plurality of electoral votes. He was the only candidate to win states outside his regional base: Adams won New England, Crawford won Virginia and Georgia, and Clay won three western states. 
• The House of Representatives convened a contingent election under the requirements of the Twelfth Amendment since no candidate received a majority of 131 electoral votes. Clay was out of the running because the amendment stated that only the top three electoral vote-getters were eligible to be elected by the House.
• Clay, also Speaker of the House at the time, presided over the election’s resolution and saw Jackson as a calamity for the country. Clay endorsed Adams, who won the contingent election on the first ballot. Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State, prompting Jackson supporters to accuse Clay and Adams of striking a corrupt bargain. Jackson resigned his Senate position and returned to Tennessee when the Congressional term ended.
• The 1828 election marked the definitive end of the one-party Era of Good Feelings as Jackson’s supporters united into the Democratic Party and his opponent, John Adams, into the National Republicans. The election resulted in the victory of Jackson, who gained 56% of the popular vote and 68% of the electoral vote. 
• Jackson was able to win by a landslide against Adams because of two main reasons: 
  • The first was that his opponent, the immediate former President, was perceived to have been unfairly elected and corrupt. His presidency could have been more effective. Therefore, most people voting for Jackson were voting against Quincy. 
  • The second reason was that Jackson appealed to the ordinary person due to his humble background. He was famous for serving in the Continental Army during the Revolution and the Confederate Army in the 1812 War. Furthermore, he was a Southerner, and the Southerners believed he would protect their interests.
• On 4 March 1829, Jackson took the oath of office on the East Portico of the US Capitol, making him the first US president-elect to do so there. During his inauguration, he promised to pursue reform by removing power from ‘unfaithful and incompetent hands’. Moreover, he promised to respect the sovereign powers of the states and the constitutional limits of the presidency.
• He also invited the public to the White House, where his supporters held a raucous party. Despite the damage from the overwhelming crowd, Jackson’s populism earned him the nickname King Mob.

JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY

• Jackson’s name was associated with Jacksonian Democracy, which was the expansion of democracy through shifting some political power from established elites to ordinary voters based on political parties.
• He believed that agrarian sympathies, strong states’ rights and limited federal government would produce less corruption.
• Moreover, Jackson rejected a powerful and independent Supreme Court with binding decisions and believed in strict constructionism as the best way to ensure democratic rule. He, therefore, called for the abolition of the Electoral College and the establishment of term limits for the presidency.

  

• To eliminate corruption within the government, Jackson launched presidential investigations into all executive Cabinet offices and departments. He uncovered enormous fraud in the federal government, resulting in the removal of several officials.
• On the other hand, Jackson’s repeated call to abolish the Electoral College was not implemented during his term. Nonetheless, he saw various other reforms, such as the Tenure of Office Act and the act that allowed widows to receive the pensions of their husbands who were Revolutionary War soldiers.

ECONOMIC ISSUES UNDER JACKSON’S PRESIDENCY

• In 1824, John Adams passed the Tariff of 1828, owing to the plotting of President Jackson, who wanted to sabotage Adams’ administration and make him appear as favouring the northern states over the southern states. Jackson’s plot worked, causing resentment towards the policy and contributing to his landslide win.
• The tariff raised taxes to 35% and listed applicable imports to be taxed. These included iron, wool, cotton and hemp. The charge was highly divisive, disadvantaging the Southerners.
• The southern states stagnated in agriculture while the northern states became even more industrialised. The European foreign market was a larger market base for southern cotton than the northern market.
• The tariffs in reducing the demand for imports led to reduced cotton production by the European industrialists, which in turn led to reduced demand for raw cotton produced by the southern states.
• The southern states hoped that Jackson would repeal the law. But when he became President in 1829, he passed the Tariff of 1832, a mild attempt to remedy the 1828 policy. However, because of the controversy raised by the 1828 policy, more than a complete repeal of the law was acceptable to the Southerners.
• In 1832, South Carolina proposed that states could, in effect, ‘nullify’ federal law and passed the South Carolina Act of Nullification in November 1832. The act provided that South Carolina could ignore or nullify federal law if it found it unconstitutional or harmful to its interests. The man behind this idea was John C Calhoun, Andrew Jackson’s vice president in his first term of service.
• Calhoun wrote a paper on the theory of nullification, providing a legal basis upon which states could disregard federal laws. He also resigned from his vice presidency and returned to South Carolina, where he was elected to the Senate and continued his advocacy on nullification.
• On the other hand, Jackson secured Congress's approval, which allowed him to use the federal army to enforce federal laws through the Force Bill.
• In 1834, the Whig Party was formed for those who disagreed with Jackson’s expansion of executive power. The party referred to Jackson as King Andrew I and was named after the English Whigs who opposed the British monarchy in the 17th century.
• Spearheaded by Clay, a movement emerged among the Whigs in the Senate to censure Jackson. On 28 March 1834, the Senate voted to censure Jackson. However, on 4 April, the House declared that the Bank of the US ‘ought not to be rechartered’ and voted to continue allowing pet banks to be a place of deposit. 
• Moreover, it voted to investigate whether the Bank of the US had deliberately instigated the panic. For Jackson, this passage of resolutions was a ‘glorious triumph’.

JACKSON’S LEGACY, LATER LIFE AND DEATH

• The spirit of Jacksonian Democracy was made stronger from the early 1820s to the 1850s through the emergence of a new and modern Democratic Party comprising a coalition of poor farmers, city-dwelling labourers and Irish Catholics.
• The era of Jackson was characterised by a democratic spirit built upon his equal political policy that subsequently tried to end the ‘monopoly’ of elite governments.
• Jacksonian Democracy also promoted the strength of the presidency and the executive branch at the expense of the US Congress while trying to broaden the public’s participation in government affairs.
• During his term, Jackson vetoed more legislation than all previous presidents combined to create the modern and strong presidency that his government aspired to.
• Because of his philosophy, Jackson had a complicated relationship with the Supreme Court and the Congress. One of the issues that challenged their relationship was Jackson’s refusal to follow the will of the Supreme Court regarding the issue of Indigenous peoples in Georgia.
• Knowing that the Supreme Court did not have the military power to enforce its decisions, Jackson defied the ruling that challenged the forcing of the Indigenous peoples out of Georgia. This resulted in the devastating Trail of Tears that killed thousands of Indigenous peoples. 
• The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation of Southeast Indians, specifically the Cherokee nation, to Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. Thousands died as they suffered from exposure, starvation and disease during the journey to the West. 
• Though the term Trail of Tears is commonly used to refer to the forced removal of the Cherokee nation, it also invokes the collective suffering of all Indians forced from their home. Jackson also created the spoils system to replace elected officials from an opposing party with his supporters as his reward for the latter. 
• Despite Congress being controlled by his enemies, he relied heavily on his power to veto to block their moves.
• When Jackson launched his presidential investigations into what he believed was a corrupt government, he uncovered $280,000 stolen from the Treasury in his first year of service. He then asked Congress to reduce fraudulent applications for federal pensions, reform embezzlement laws, and pass laws to improve government accounting. 
• In 1837, Jackson retired to the Hermitage and immediately began reorganising its business, which had been neglected during his absence. Though Jackson was in poor health and had lost some support due to his role in the 1837 Panic, he remained important in national and state politics.
• Jackson died on 8 June 1845, at 78, of dropsy, TB and heart failure. On his deathbed, he was surrounded by family and friends, and his final words were, ‘Oh, do not cry. Be good, children, and we will all meet in Heaven.’ He was buried next to his wife, Rachel.