American Lion by Jon Meacham

Author:Jon Meacham
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography, History
ISBN: 9781400063253
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

HE APPEARED TO FEEL

AS A FATHER

“UNCLE’S HEALTH IS as usual,” Emily wrote her mother in the spring of 1833. He was, she said, “often complaining.… He expects to start the last of May on his tour to the North and will be gone about two months.” It took a bit longer for Jackson to depart, but Emily’s worries about his health were on the mark, for he would have to force himself through his trip minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day.

Rising early on the morning of Thursday, June 6, 1833, he wrote a quick note to Van Buren before setting out on the Northern tour. “I want relaxation from business … but where can I get rest?” Jackson asked. “I fear not on this earth. When I see you I have much to say to you. The Bank and the change of deposits have engrossed my mind very much, is a perplexing subject, and I wish your opinion before I finally act.”

Finishing the letter, Jackson walked out of the White House and stepped into his stagecoach for his journey into enemy territory. Josiah Quincy, the son of the president of Harvard University and a cousin of John Quincy Adams, recalled that parents in the Northeast sometimes invoked the name of Andrew Jackson to frighten misbehaving children. According to Harriet Martineau, a New England Sunday school teacher once asked a child who killed Abel. The answer: “General Jackson.”

Yet everything that happened to Jackson as he traveled from Baltimore to Philadelphia to New Jersey to New York to Boston filled him with confidence, convinced him of the affection of the masses, and confirmed his sense that he was at one with the people of the country. Four days into the trip, as he prepared for bed, he sat in candlelight after dinner to write to his son. The crowds and cheers of the day were still with him.

“I shall not attempt to describe the feelings of the people,” Jackson said. “Suffice it to say that it surpassed anything I ever witnessed.” After another four days of parades, toasts, and accolades through New Jersey and New York, Jackson returned to his lodgings after another dinner, took a warm bath, and again wrote to Andrew junior: “I have witnessed enthusiasms before, but never before have I witnessed such a scene of personal regard as I have today, and ever since I left Washington. I have bowed to upwards of two hundred thousand people today—never has there been such affection of the people before I am sure evinced. Party has not been seen here.” In Boston thousands of children lined the streets, their parents behind them, and to Andrew Donelson, who was with Jackson, it seemed the only sounds were “shouts and the roar of artillery.”

JACKSON LOVED THE crowds as they loved him. Knowing that they were surging into the streets to see him, he stood for hours, determined not to disappoint. The sun was so hot at Philadelphia that

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