Andrew Jackson

by H. W. Brands

  “they might go to hell”: Brands, Lone Star Nation, 331.

  “They are, like my own”: Jackson to Van Buren, September 29, 1833, CAJ, 5:212–13.

  “We have now lived almost fifty years . . . by the sword”: Jackson address to the nation, March 4, 1837, Compilation of Messages and Papers, 4:1511–15.

  “I was confined to my bed”: Jackson to Emily Donelson, November 27, 1836, CAJ, 5:439.

  “My strength is slowly recovering . . . a free man”: Jackson to Maunsel White, January 27, 1837, CAJ, 5:455.

  “From the time I left you . . . or from Washington”: Jackson to Van Buren, March 22, 1837, CAJ, 5:465.

  “I have been every where cheered . . . to the grave”: Jackson to Van Buren, March 30, 1837, CAJ, 5:466.

  “I find my blooded stock in bad order . . . the balance better”: Jackson to Hutchings, April 4, 1837, CAJ, 5:474.

  “I am out of funds . . . unjust sentence removed”: Jackson to Donelson, December 10, 1839, CAJ, 6:41–42.

  “No man has been more completely swindled”: Jackson to Hutchings, August 12, 1840, CAJ, 6:71.

  “This I well know . . . son or myself”: Jackson to Hardy Cryer, February 5, 1840, CAJ, 6:49.

  “If I live to realise it . . . so much love”: Jackson to Andrew Jackson Jr., December 31, 1839, CAJ, 6:48.

  “I have done my duty . . . it is lost”: Jackson to Blair, April 24, 1837, CAJ, 5:478.

  “Biddle is in the field . . . their corrupting influence”: Jackson to Van Buren, August 7, 1837, CAJ, 5:506, 505.

  “machinations and conspiracy . . . gall and wormwood”: Jackson to Blair, November 29, 1837, CAJ, 5:520–21.

  “The national policy”: Jackson annual message to Congress, December 5, 1836, Compilation of Messages and Papers, 4:1475.

  “The whole Florida war from the first”: Jackson to James Gadsden, c. November 1836, CAJ, 5:434.

  “The commanding general ought to find . . . at once surrender”: Jackson to Poinsett, October 1, 1837, CAJ, 5:512.

  “General Harrison, to shew his identity”: Jackson to Charles Dancy and Thomas Murphy, July 3, 1840, CAJ, 6:67.

  “Being sincerely with me in politics”: Van Buren to Jackson, February 2, 1840, CAJ, 6:48.

  “I have a letter today from Vermont . . . in the North”: Blair to Jackson, September 10, 1840, CAJ, 6:75–76.

  “the negro, or slavery, question”: Jackson to Andrew Crawford, May 1, 1833, CAJ, 5:72.

  “The attempt by their mummeries . . . people than this”: Jackson to Blair, September 26, 1840, CAJ, 6:78.

  “Corruption, bribery and fraud”: Jackson to Van Buren, November 12, 1840, CAJ, 6:82.

  “The democracy of the United States . . . great working class”: Jackson to Van Buren, November 24, 1840, CAJ, 6:83–84.

  42. TO THE RAMPARTS ONCE MORE

  “Take as directed . . . to perfect health”: Jackson to Andrew Hutchings, December 30, 1840, CAJ, 6:87–88.

  “Should you meet with a rich Virginian . . . and has money”: Jackson to Andrew Donelson, February 19, 1840, CAJ, 6:53.

  “a beautiful dark bay . . . bright sorrel mare”: Description of horses sold to F. Davis, no date given, CAJ, 6:111–12n1.

  “You may assure him . . . to perfect freedom”: Jackson to Lewis, August 19, 1841, CAJ, 6:119–20.

  “At 12 o’clock last night . . . gave way at once”: Blair to Jackson, April 4, 1841, CAJ, 6:97–98.

  “powers and duties . . . on the Vice President”: Section 1, article 2, United States Constitution.

  “It will do Old Hickory’s heart good . . . old Jackson’s pens”: Dabney Carr to Jackson, August 18, 1841, CAJ, 6:119.

  “clique who has got into power”: Jackson to Blair, April 19, 1841, CAJ, 6:105.

  “I am happy to learn . . . to forgive divine”: Jackson to Blair, August 12, 1841, CAJ, 6:118–19.

  “I have no confidence in Mr. Calhoun”: Jackson to Van Buren, November 22, 1842, CAJ, 6:177.

  “He is the strongest man . . . president has attained”: Jackson to Blair, November 22, 1842, CAJ, 6:178.

  “To you, General . . . to all banks”: Houston to Jackson, January 31, 1843, Writings of Houston, 3:313–14.

  “she would seek some other friend”: Houston to Jackson, February 16, 1844, ibid., 4:261–65.

  “that arch enemy . . . to regain it”: Jackson to Lewis, September 18, 1843, CAJ, 6:229–30.

  “all important to the security . . . or all is lost”: Jackson to Blair, March 5, 1844, CAJ, 6:272.

  “I hope this golden moment . . . with Great Britain”: Jackson to Lewis, March 11, 1844, CAJ, 6:272.

  “I say, for one”: Jackson to Blair, May 7, 1844, CAJ, 6:284; Jackson to Lewis, April 8, 1844, CAJ, 6:278.

  “I am now suffering much . . . with great labour”: Jackson to Lewis, April 8, 1844, CAJ, 6:278.

  “My eyesight has failed me much . . . from that cause”: Jackson to Van Buren, March 4, 1841, CAJ, 6:92–93.

  “I have been brought low . . . for a time”: Jackson to Kendall, June 18, 1842, CAJ, 6:159.

  “as a memento of her uniform attention . . . affairs of late”: Jackson will, June 7, 1843, CAJ, 6:221–22.

  “the life-and-death struggle”: Entry for December 21, 1843, J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, 11:455.

  “My conscience presses me on . . . upon the breach”: Entry for March 29, 1841, Adams diary, Adams papers.

  “When Weller moved, yesterday”: Entry for January 2, 1844, J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, 11:468.

  “exploded with a volley”: Entry for January 5, 1844, ibid., 475.

  “bold, dashing, and utterly baseless . . . Think of your posterity!”: Adams in Bemis, 474.

  “If Mr. Van Buren had come out”: Jackson to Blair, May 11, 1844, CAJ, 6:286.

  “If Texas be not speedily admitted . . . against future danger”: Jackson to Nashville Union, May 13, 1844, CAJ, 6:290–91.

  “The dark sky of yesterday”: Donelson to Jackson, May 29, 1844, CAJ, 6:296.

  “The Texan question”: Jackson to Blair, June 7, 1844, CAJ, 6:297.

  “Texas must and will be ours”: Jackson to William Russell, June 8, 1844, Jackson papers, Center for American History.

  “Polk and Dallas are elected”: Jackson to Donelson, November 18, 1844, CAJ, 6:329.

  “The Union is sinking . . . prospect is deathlike”: Entries for December 20, 1844, and February 19, 1845, J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, 12:128, 171.

  43. THE SOUL OF THE REPUBLIC

  “When I attempt to walk”: Jackson to Polk, February 28, 1845, CAJ, 6:373.

  “a great oppression”: Jackson to Lewis, March 22, 1845, Jackson papers supplement.

  “This may be the last letter”: Jackson to Blair, March 9, 1845, CAJ, 6:378.

  “Strange as it may appear”: Jackson to Jesse Elliott, March 27, 1845, CAJ, 6:391.

  “I am swollen”: Jackson to Samuel Hays, May 27, 1845, Jackson papers supplement.

  “Texas comes into the Union . . . not buy Sam Houston”: Jackson to Polk, May 26, 1845, CAJ, 6:412.

  “My son”: As related to Marquis James by the elder Houston’s daughter, James, Raven, 786.

  “I have seen the patriots and statesmen”: Houston statement to the people of Texas, March 16, 1861, Writings of Houston, 8:277.

  “government of the people”: Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863, American Historical Documents, 415.

  The collections and works listed below include all those cited in the text and selected others the author has found especially useful.

  MANUSCRIPTS

  Adams Family. Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. One of the great American historical collections, featuring (for the present purposes) the papers of John Quincy Adams.

  Ayer, Edward E. Collection. Newberry Library, Chicago. Includes a small number of items dealing with Jackson’s Indian affairs. Also correspondence between Jackson and William Blount.

  Benton, Thomas Hart. Papers. Library of Congress. Writings of Jackson’s aide, then foe, the
n ally.

  Biddle, Nicholas. Papers. Library of Congress. Correspondence and other dispatches of the enemy commander in the bank war.

  Butler, Anthony. Papers. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. The arch-conspirator regarding Texas.

  Coffee, John. Papers. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. Jackson’s trusted lieutenant and personal friend.

  Donelson, Andrew Jackson. Papers. Library of Congress. Manuscripts of Jackson’s nephew and personal secretary, showing Jackson at work and at home.

  Horseshoe Bend Accounts. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery. Contemporary and recollected versions of the pivotal battle in the Creek War, drawn from various archives.

  Houston, Sam. Papers. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. The protégé gone bad, then good.

  Jackson, Andrew. Letters. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. A small collection.

  ———. Papers. Library of Congress. The foremost collection of Jackson manuscripts. Mainly on microfilm, but recent additions in manuscript and in some cases typescript.

  ———. Papers. Microform supplement edited by Harold D. Moser et al. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1986. Compiled from many archives in the process of publishing The Papers of Andrew Jackson (see below).

  ———. Papers. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. Complements other collections.

  Jefferson, Thomas. Papers. Library of Congress. The other patron saint, besides Jackson, of the Democratic party.

  Madison, James. Papers. Library of Congress. The brilliant constitutionalist and problematic president.

  Monroe, James. Papers. Library of Congress. Helpful but not definitive for determining what Jackson was and wasn’t authorized to do in Florida.

  Overton, John. Papers. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. Jackson’s oldest Nashville friend.

  Reid, John. Papers. Library of Congress. Includes letters to members of the family of Jackson’s aide in the New Orleans campaign.

  Sevier, John. Papers. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville. Jackson’s patron and then rival.

  Van Buren, Martin. Papers. Library of Congress. The magician still at work: few secrets fully demystified.

  ———. Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. A small collection but occasionally illuminating.

  Whitcomb, Samuel. Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. His diary describes an encounter with Jackson and Rachel at the Hermitage in 1818.

  PUBLISHED PAPERS, LETTERS, MEMOIRS, AND DOCUMENTS

  Adams, Charles Francis. The Diary of Charles Francis Adams. Edited by Marc Friedlaender and L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974. The son of John Quincy Adams reveals the father.

  Adams, John. The Works of John Adams. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 10 volumes. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1856.

  Adams, John Quincy. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 12 volumes. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1874–77. One of the great American diaries, mostly unexpurgated.

  ———. Writings of John Quincy Adams. Edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 7 volumes. New York: Macmillan, 1913–17.

  American Historical Documents. Edited by Charles W. Eliot. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1938.

  American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. Various series, years, and volumes.

  Amherst, Jeffery. The Journal of Jeffery Amherst: Recording the Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. Edited by J. Clarence Webster. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1931. A soldier who mistakenly thought he deserved better.

  Auchinleck, G. A History of the War between Great Britain and the United States of America during the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814. Toronto: Maclear & Co., 1855; reprinted London: Arms & Armour Press, 1972. Includes many contemporary documents among its Anglophilic opinions.

  Benton, Thomas Hart. Thirty Years’ View: Or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850. 2 volumes. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1854. Long-winded and partisan, but incomparably detailed.

  Biddle, Nicholas. The Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle. Edited by Reginald C. McGrane. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919. Edited for clarity and discretion yet still illuminating.

  Blount, William. The Blount Journal, 1790–1796. Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1955. The elder Blount as governor of the Southwest Territory.

  Burr, Aaron. Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous Selections from His Correspondence. Edited by Matthew L. Davis. 2 volumes. 1837. New York: Da Capo, 1971. The memoirist is Davis, but the many letters are Burr’s and his contemporaries’.

  ———. Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr. Edited by Mary-Jo Kline. 2 volumes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. The puzzle of the conspiracy remains.

  Calhoun, John C. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. Edited by Robert L. Meriwether. 28 volumes to date. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959–. An acute mind that grew narrower as it grew sharper.

  Claiborne, W. C. C. Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801–1816. Edited by Dunbar Rowland. 6 volumes. Jackson, Miss.: State Departments of Archives and History, 1917. Life in the old Southwest.

  Clay, Henry. The Papers of Henry Clay. Edited by James F. Hopkins et al. 11 volumes. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1959–92. The man who tried harder than any other to be president and still fell short.

  Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Edited by James D. Richardson. 20 volumes. New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1897. The Old Testament of presidential pronouncements.

  Crockett, David. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee. 1834. Facsimile edition edited by James A. Shackford and Stanley J. Folmsbee. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973. The great storyteller’s own story; to be treated like most of his stories.

  Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas. Edited by George P. Garrison. 3 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908–11. How Jackson came to recognize Texas, and how Texas joined the Union.

  Eaton, Margaret. The Autobiography of Peggy Eaton. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932. Told many years after the fact and published many years after the telling; it shows its age.

  The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States. By Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Edited by Edward Mead Earle. New York: Modern Library, no date given (based on the 1938 edition). The ur-text of American constitutional criticism.

  Fisher, Sidney George. “The Diaries of Sidney George Fisher, 1841–1843.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 79 (1955): 217–36. Life in Nicholas Biddle’s Philadelphia.

  Forrest, C. R. The Battle of New Orleans: A British View. The Journal of Major C. R. Forrest. Edited by Hugh F. Rankin. New Orleans: Hauser Press, 1961. From across the lines on the plain of Chalmette.

  Franklin, Benjamin. Writings. Edited by J. A. Leo Lemay. New York: Library of America, 1987. The best one-volume version of the works of the famous polymath.

  Gallatin, James. The Diary of James Gallatin. Edited by Count Gallatin. 1914; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. An inner history of the Treaty of Ghent.

  [Gleig, George Robert.] The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans in the Years 1814–1815. London: John Murray, 1847. The most instructive and compelling British account of the Battle of New Orleans.

  Hamilton, Alexander. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Edited by Harold C. Syrett. 27 volumes. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–87.

  Hamilton, Thomas. Men and Manners in America. 1833; New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968. An English traveler in Jacksonian America.

  Harrison, William Henry. Messages and Letters of William Henry
Harrison. Edited by Logan Esarey. 2 volumes. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1922. Reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1975. The hero of Ohio in his own eyes and words. An essential source on Tecumseh.

  Hone, Philip. The Diary of Philip Hone. Edited by Allan Nevins. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936. One of the great diaries in American history.

  Houston, Sam. The Autobiography of Sam Houston. Edited by Donald Day and Harry Herbert Ullom. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954. Houston’s own words, but gathered from various sources by the editors.

  ———. Life of General Sam Houston: A Short Autobiography. 1855; Austin: Pemberton Press, 1964. Very short and reflective of its origins as campaign literature written while Houston was weighing a run for president (of the United States).

  ———.The Writings of Sam Houston. Edited by Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker. 8 volumes. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1938–43. The best published version of Houston.

  Hunt, Louise Livingston. Memoir of Mrs. Edward Livingston, with Letters Hitherto Unpublished. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886. Includes an account of the Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of a well-placed civilian.

  Jackson, Andrew. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson. Edited by John Spencer Bassett. 7 volumes. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1926–35. The first full-scale published collection of Jackson’s papers. Still very valuable, especially for the last third of Jackson’s life. Abbreviated in the notes as CAJ.

  ———. The Papers of Andrew Jackson. Edited by Sam B. Smith and Harriet Chappell Owsley. 6 volumes to date. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980–. More scholarly than Bassett but still far from completion. The calendar of papers at the end of each volume is an invaluable guide to the archival collections from which this edition draws. Abbreviated in the notes as PAJ.

  Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by Adrienne Koch and William Peden. New York: Modern Library, 1944. An excellent one-volume version.

  “Journal of the Trip Down the Mississippi.” Author unidentified, but probably Robert Searcy. In CAJ, 1:256–71. The voyage of the Tennesseans from Nashville to Natchez in January and February 1813.