Andrew Jackson: A Life From Beginning to End (One Hour History US Presidents Book 6) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2016-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Jackson’s First Term

“It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.”

—Andrew Jackson

Jackson became president as the leader of his party and the master of his administration. His enemies would deride him as King Andrew I for his firm, perhaps authoritarian, grip on power; he used his presidential veto power without a qualm, and he regarded Congress as his subordinate. Jackson did not intend to serve the nation as a mere administrator of policy; he intended to define it. But not all of a president’s decisions are based on politics.

Jackson was hot-headed and strong-willed and proved an inexorable opponent to his enemies. He was also chivalrous. Those traits collided early in his presidency in what became known as the “Petticoat War,” an episode which rocked Washington D.C. and split the president’s cabinet. It concerned a woman named Margaret “Peggy” Eaton, who, unlike the wellborn ladies with political husbands, had less grand origins as the daughter of a tavern keeper. Although she was married to a 39-year old Navy purser, seventeen-year-old Peggy continued to work at her father’s tavern while her husband was out to sea. In 1818, the couple met the widowed senator, John Eaton. Eaton and Peggy began spending time together while her husband was at sea, and rumors began to fly that Peggy and the senator were more than just friends.

When Peggy’s husband died under mysterious conditions in 1828, Peggy, instead of spending a year in mourning as was the custom, married Senator Eaton. The reaction from the political wives was swift and damning, and the senator’s new wife was shunned in social circles. Jackson saw the attacks on Peggy Eaton in the same light as the attacks against his beloved wife, Rachel, and his chivalrous instincts were aroused.

Jackson, a friend of the Eatons, named the senator to the post of Secretary of War. The Washington D.C. ladies had already snubbed Peggy by refusing to attend her wedding, and Eaton’s appointment to the presidential Cabinet ratcheted the snubbing another level up the social ladder. Mrs. Eaton had offended propriety, and she would be punished for her transgressions.

For two years, the “Petticoat War” continued as the ladies who snubbed Peggy Eaton and the ones who supported her mirrored their husbands’ positions in the president’s favor. The Vice President’s wife was one of Peggy Eaton’s most vehement critics, and her refusal to acknowledge the Secretary of War’s wife social cost Vice President John Calhoun his office as he fell out of favor with Jackson. The fall from grace likely affected Calhoun’s future presidential aspirations as well. Jackson’s political friend Martin Van Buren, a widower who supported Mrs. Eaton, was Jackson’s vice presidential running mate in the 1832 election.

The Eaton affair ended when Jackson’s entire cabinet resigned, some by choice, others because they had no choice. Jackson had cast his lot with the Eatons, and he expected his administration to do likewise or suffer the consequences.

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