Jackson by Ralph K. Andrist

Author:Ralph K. Andrist [Ralph K. Andrist]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography/Presidents and Heads of State
ISBN: 9781612307817
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2014-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

After his return from New Orleans, Andrew Jackson spent five months at home at The Hermitage, months that were probably as pleasant as any in his life. His shattered health slowly mended, and he was with his wife and beloved son. The boy was now almost six years old. Jackson sold his cotton and tobacco crops for high prices and was out of debt for the first time in almost twenty years. The new wealth came both from The Hermitage and their new plantation in northern Alabama, on the land given to Jackson by the Creek Indians.

Her husband’s presence cured Rachel of her loneliness, at least temporarily. In his long absence, she had surrounded herself with children. Besides Andrew, Jr., the Jacksons had another adopted son - Lyncoya, an orphaned Indian whom Jackson had rescued from the Horseshoe Bend battlefield – and were the guardians of eight other children. Three of these were Rachel’s nephews, one was a grandnephew, and the other four were the orphaned children of a family friend. They all came to live at The Hermitage, a scramble of children in what was still a small log house; a little extra room had been gained by the building of a detached kitchen.

It had been Rachel’s dream to have a large family with Jackson, and she saw them gathered around the fire each night, just as she remembered her own childhood. But she had married a man of great ambition, never content to sit; when he wasn’t busy with judging, politics, or war, he often traveled on business. It filled Rachel with regret to have a husband who spent “less than a fourth of his nights under his own roof.” With Jackson home, her fantasy was as near to fulfilled as it could be. This life of leisure was not to last long, however. He was already itching for new action.

A visit to the new capital in Washington, the first for both Jacksons, was needed to put to rest political nagging by Jackson’s foes about his imposition and draconian enforcement of martial law in New Orleans. It turned into a triumphal procession, with full exoneration from President James Madison and idolatry from the establishment at a series of dinners and soirees and a presidential ball in Jackson’s honor.

Aaron Burr, an old political friend and ardent supporter of Jackson from Philadelphia, thrust Jackson’s name into the chatter concerning the approaching presidential election. President Madison’s preferred successor, James Monroe, was too weak for the office, Burr thought, and he wrote a letter to his son-in-law, South Carolina’s governor, saying the next president must be a decisive and firm man, and “that man is Andrew Jackson.”

But Jackson brushed off the compliment and the call for his candidacy. He was content commanding the army and threw his support behind Monroe for the presidency. After Monroe was elected, Jackson wrote him suggesting Colonel William Drayton – a Federalist who had served loyally during the war - for the post of secretary of war. Monroe replied that the job was Jackson’s if he wanted it.

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