ANDREW ABON
Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh President, prov
ed to be an overwhelming favorite among the people in
the election of 1828. He had actually won more electors
than John Quincy Adams in the election of 1824, but
because he did not have a clear cut majority in the ElecZ
College,
the
choice of who would become President (according to Constitutional law)
toral
rested with the House of Representatives. There, a strong third candidate, Henry Clay, threw
his support to John Quincy Adams and Adams was elected. When Adams named Clay his
Secretary of State, Jackson was enraged at the “corrupt bargain” and directed his energies
to forming a new party, the Jacksonian Democrats, which became the present-day
Democratic Party. He was truly the choice of the people as he won more than three times as
many votes as he had received in 1824.
Jackson was born in 1767 in what is now South Carolina, the son of an Irish immigrant. His
father died before he was born and his mother died when he was 14. He taught himself to
read and write and he studied law, becoming one of Tennessee’s outstanding young lawyers.
He epitomized the ideal frontiersman—tough, honest, always willing to fight and brawl, and
he was afraid of nothing. His courage in fighting Indians won him a commission as major
general in the United States Army. He was the victorious general in the final triumph at New
Orleans that ended the War of 1812. He also chased the Seminole Indians back into Spanish
Florida and attacked Spanish forts there. He later became Governor of the Territory of Florida
when Spain was forced to sell it to the United States.
In 1791, he married Rachel Donelson Robards, a divorcee who became the subject of a
widespread Washington scandal when her husband was elected President. Through a
dispute over technicalities involving her divorce to Captain Lewis Robards, it was learned that
she was not officially divorced when she married Jackson. Shamed and saddened by the
gossip, she declared she would “rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to live in
that palace (White House).” She prophetically had predicted her future as she collapsed and
died of a heart attack while in Nashville being fitted for her inaugural gown. Jackson was ex
tremely bitter over his wife’s death.
As President, Jackson proved to be popular with the people, even though he had his prob
lems with Congress, especially those of the emerging Whig Party, who were constantly
criticizing Jackson’s “abuse of power.” He was also responsible for the forced removal of In
dians to trusts of worthless land west of the Mississippi as well as constantly carrying the flag
of nationalism when it came into conflict with states’ rights.
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ANDREW ACICQN
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Name
Presidential Trivia
1. Andrew Jackson’s nickname
2. Jackson’s magnificent home was called the________
3. Jackson’s personal advisors assembled in a specific room informally in the White House
for their meetings and became known as the_______________________________________
by his political enemies who implied they were a group of misfits who spent their time
drinking and munching food.
4. Andrew Jackson forced his Vice President
to resign over a disputed tariff involving states’ rights.
5. Jackson’s Secretary of State
eventually rose to the presidency.
later became his Vice President and
6. The famous quote, “To the victor belong the spoils,” referred to Jackson’s practice of
firing government workers and replacing them with people who had helped him get
elected. These were the words of Senator
7. When Andrew Jackson became President in 1829, the nation was in the midst of a tariff
disagreement designed to protect northern industry from Great Britain’s better prices.
The most outrageous of those tariffs, passed in 1828, became known as the “Tariff of
8. John Calhoun led a group of Southerns who felt a state had the right to leave the Union
if they were being unfairly treated. The issue was debated hotly in Congress. The main
spokesman
from
the
North
was
9. The withdrawal of a state from the Union is called
10. To save the Union and prevent bloodshed, the “Great Compromiser,”
stepped forward and proposed a tariff that both North and South accepted.
11. Andrew Jackson’s favorite city
12. The first attempt at assassinating a President was made on Andrew Jackson in 1835 in
the city of
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ANDREW ACICGON
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Name
For Thinking and Discussing
1.
Andrew Jackson was accused by his opponents of participating in the “spoils system”
by rewarding those who helped him get elected with government jobs. Jackson openly
admitted this, but had firmly defended the practice. What was his defense?
2.
One of the stains against the administration of Andrew Jackson, the People’s President,
was the Trail of Tears. Describe this disgraceful event and the reasons why it happened.
3.
What caused the breakup of the Democratic-Republican Party founded by Thomas Jef
ferson?
4.
How did Henry Clay save the Union with his compromise tariff?
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