The Passions of Andrew Jackson by Andrew Burstein

Author:Andrew Burstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307429131
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

13. Excerpt from Jackson’s 1816 letter to John Coffee, wherein Jackson charges his erstwhile friend, Gen. William Carroll, with “wanton wickedness and depravity of heart.” Courtesy the Tennessee Historical Society Collections, Tennessee State Library and Archives.

Election of 1824

Despite Jackson’s fearful predictions concerning William Crawford’s artifice, Monroe, as it turned out, was easily reelected in 1820, and Crawford continued in the cabinet for another four years. Jackson had to accept the limits to his influence with the president. Then in early 1821, after Spain ratified the Adams-Onís Treaty, Monroe appointed him the first U.S. governor of the Floridas. Before Jackson accepted the president’s offer, Attorney General Wirt wrote privately to a friend that Jackson “considers Florida as being, in some sort his, by right of conquest[.] it is very probable that he would accept by pride of character—if it were only to keep alive the remembrance that we owe Florida to him.” Justifying Wirt’s conclusion that he did not want the post for reasons beyond the symbolic, Jackson made it clear that he did not intend to stay in Florida Territory longer than it took to organize the government.51

He traveled to Pensacola with his wife and Andrew Junior, accompanied by aide Richard Keith Call. As territorial governor, Jackson officially retired from the army, exhorting his “brother Officers” to treat their troops as “family,” and to “Continue then as heretofore, when under my command, to watch over [each company] with a fathers tenderness & care; treat them like children, admonish them, and if unhappily, admonition will not have the desired effect—Coercion Must.” It was the general’s final word—urging toughness in order to avert “insubordination” and “cowardice,” “disaster & disgrace”—words of warning he had issued many times before.52

When he lost interest in the executive’s role after a few months, Jackson left Florida. He arrived back at the Hermitage in the fall of 1821.53 Shortly thereafter, he sent an affectionate letter to Captain Call, who remained behind. In it he once again praised the young man for his courage, conviction, and talent, and offered paternal advice. But this was not a standard letter; it was in fact a rare testament from Jackson, imparting his outlook on life at age fifty-four. And it showed how much he identified with Call, fatherless from infancy and at twenty-nine the same age Jackson was when he was elected to Congress.54

Privy to the personal pain of a young man facing political adversity, he wrote, lamenting, “my Dear Call I have been Tossed upon the waves of fortunes from youthood, I have experienced prosperity & adversity—It was this that gave me a knowledge of human nature, it was this that forced into action, all the energies of my mind.” For Jackson, then, it was circumstances more than nature that “forced” the will “into action,” and experience that dictated his confrontational character.

Call had been denied promotion in Florida, and Jackson was perturbed. The problem lay in Washington, where Monroe had used his own prerogative to give away plum positions. Jackson saw

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