American Legend by Buddy Levy

Author:Buddy Levy [Levy, Buddy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, General, Military, Biography & Autobiography, Frontier and Pioneer Life, United States, Religious, Political, Adventurers & Explorers, Tennessee, Legislators, Soldiers, Legislators - United States, Crockett, Frontier and Pioneer Life - Tennessee, Tex.) - Siege, Davy, Alamo (San Antonio, Pioneers, Tex.), Pioneers - Tennessee, 1836, Soldiers - United States
ISBN: 0425210081
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2006-12-05T06:00:00+00:00

This portrait highlights Crockett’s high cheekbones, which he described as “Red Rosy Cheeks that I have carried so many years.” (David Crockett. Watercolor drawing by James Hamilton Shegogue, 1831. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. Gift of Algernon Sidney Holderness.)

Crockett finally returned to Washington in December a week late for the Twenty-First Congress, immediately scrambling to salvage something of the land bill if he could, understanding intuitively that failure to push it through would seriously threaten his chances at reelection. On three occasions he tried to get the bill reconsidered, failing each time, though the vote was painfully close. Frustrated, Crockett was suspicious of the apparatus that was keeping the land bill tabled, and he now took it personally. He openly argued with other members of his delegation and made thinly veiled references to Jackson’s dictatorial tendencies. On January 31, he created a brouhaha over the formation of a committee to review a petition of three Cherokee Indians claiming 640 acres of land apiece. Crockett believed the petition should be dealt with by the Committee of Claims rather than by Polk’s Committee on Public Lands. Crockett argued reasonably and compassionately that though the Indians had brought suit to reclaim land confiscated from them, they were too indigent to obtain proper legal assistance in the matter, and effective counsel from the state of Tennessee had been denied them.39 His points were well taken, and after vigorous discussion the petition did find its way to the Committee of Claims, a token victory for Crockett but one that would have been noticed by Jackson and his forces, who had earlier repealed part of the 1789 Judiciary Act keeping the court from ruling on the issue.40 Crockett was once again at direct and defiant odds with Jackson on questions involving Indians, and he felt that Jackson’s interference outstripped the bounds of his office’s duties and power.

Crockett fumed for the remainder of the session, losing a fight to gain appropriation for improved navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, another internal improvement issue, and now his choleric temper took hold of him. He could no longer contain his feelings about Jackson the man, whom he increasingly believed to be a hypocrite, an autocrat, and a powermonger. He lashed out at Jackson personally, accusing him of betraying the very principles he had espoused in getting elected. “When he quitted those principles, I quit him. I am yet a Jackson man in principles,” Crockett railed, “but not in name. I shall insist upon it that I am still a Jackson man, but General Jackson is not; he has become a Van Buren man.”41 Crockett’s venomous barbs were aimed at Martin Van Buren as well, whom he believed had manipulated Jackson. Crockett referred to Van Buren as the Fox, alluding to what he considered a sneaky, oily character (another nickname for him was the Magician) who would do anything for personal advancement. “The fox is about,” he had warned in a letter published in the Gazette, “let the roost be guarded.

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