Man I Don’t Know My Presidents #7 Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)

• Old Hickory (During Creek War nothing would keep him from battle, causing his troops to compare him to the hardest of woods)
• King Andy (Far reaching programs seemed to some as excessive use of power)
• Hero of New Orleans (Victory over the British in January 1815)
• Caped Crusader (only President to wear a cape in his Presidential Photograph)
• Action Jackson (this one is a lie but, we wish people called him that)

 BADASS MOMENT #1- In 1806, Jackson met Charles Dickinson in a duel over some remarks Dickinson made about Jackson’s wife. Dickinson got in the first shot, a direct hit square in the chest, two inches from Jackson’s heart. Jackson didn’t even fall down. But returned fire, killing Dickinson and walked away. The bullet was too close to his heart to be removed so it remained lodged in his chest for the rest of his life.

BADASS MOMENT #2 - On January 30 1835, Richard Lawrence fired two pistols at Jackson at point blank range. Both of them failed to fire (Odds 1:125,000). Jackson chased after Lawrence and beat him with his cane. 

BADASS MOM MOMENT- As a boy, Andrew and his brother were taken as prisoners of war, where, injured and starved, they both contracted smallpox. Their mother, Elizabeth Jackson collected a group of British prisoners of war and marched them back to the British camp where her boys were and single-handedly arranged for her boys to be released. So, in fact, Andrew Jackson came by his badassedness genetically.

IN OFFICE:

Jackson repeatedly called for the abolishment of the electoral college by a constitutional amendment, as he thought the vote should go to the people themselves. He also supported a single term limit for the presidents (and I guess it was just his duty to stay on for a second term since he hadn’t gotten this bit of legislation through - he never did succeed; maybe if he’d had a third term?).

Jackson didn’t really invent the “Spoils System” but was a big proponent of it, referring to it as “rotation in office.”

The Petticoat Affair (wherein Jackson’s Secretary of War took up with Peggy O’Neal, a woman renowed for her “vivacious temperament,” who’s husband committed suicide over the affair) led to another reorganization in Jackson’s staff and to his “kitchen cabinet.”

The most controversial of Jackson’s policies was his stance on Indian Removal. In his first Annual Message to Congress Jackson stated:

This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry.

In all, about 45,000 Indians were relocated to the West during Jackson’s time in office. The general consensus being that this one of America’s ugliest chapters.

JACKSON PRESIDENTIAL FACTS:

• First President to be born in a log cabin.
• First President to be a prisoner of War
• Only president to pay off the national debt.
• First assassination attempt on a president.
• First president to ride in a train.
• Only president to serve in War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War.
• At his funeral, his pet parrot had to be removed because it wouldn’t stop swearing