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Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was born on March 15, 1767, just south of the border between North and South Carolina. His birth marked the beginning of an extraordinarily eventful life. As a teenager, he was taken prisoner during the Revolutionary War, an experience that left him with a lifelong animosity toward the British. He studied law, and during the 1780s and 1790s he held various judicial and legislative posts, including congressman, senator (a post he held again in the 1820s), and justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court. In the early decades of the nineteenth century he embarked on a military career, gaining a reputation for heroism during the War of 1812, particularly at the Battle of New Orleans. He also served as military governor of Florida after leading a controversial expedition against the Seminole Indians. Meanwhile, he was the owner of a plantation worked by slaves. The injuries he received in battle and in at least thirteen duels rendered him one of the nation's sickliest presidents. Nevertheless, his frontier toughness earned him the nickname "Old Hickory."
Jackson entered presidential politics in 1824 when he was nominated for president by the Democratic-Republican Party. Although he received a plurality of the popular vote in a four-candidate race, he failed to win a majority in the Electoral College, throwing the election to the House of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams. In 1828, however, Jackson was elected to the first of his two terms as president under a revived Republican Party, which had changed its name to the Democratic Party. Jackson was a forceful and active president and outlined his positions on several issues in the accompanying state documents, which represent just a fraction of the numerous papers, addresses, and proclamations he issued as president.
Despite the resentment he bore toward the British-- a resentment deepened by the War of 1812--he opened U.S. ports to British merchants in 1830. He was a firm believer in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny--the belief that European settlers were destined by divine providence to spread their civilization across the entire breadth of North America--so he was the motive force behind the removal of Indians from their lands in eastern states to western reservations. He opposed the existence of a national bank, which he believed concentrated financial power in the hands of the few at the expense of the common people, yet at the same time he was a proponent of a strong federal government. Although he was a slave owner, he never supported the grumblings of secession in the southern states that would eventually spark the Civil War, and as president he spoke out forcefully during the nullification crisis in South Carolina in 1832. In 1837 Jackson retired to Nashville, Tennessee. He died at his nearby plantation, the Hermitage, on June 8, 1845.
References:
1. Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
2. Bugg, James L. Jacksonian Democracy: Myth or Reality? New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1965.
3. Burstein, Andrew. The Passions of Andrew Jackson. New York: Knopf, 2003.
4. Remini, Robert Vincent. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.
5. Remini, Robert Vincent. The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
6. Satz, Ronald N. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
7. Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1945.
8. Syrett, Harold Coffin. Andrew Jackson: His Contribution to the American Tradition. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
9. Taylor, George Rogers. Jackson versus Biddle: The Struggle over the Second Bank of the United States. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1949.
10. Wallace, Anthony F. C., and Eric Foner. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
11. Wilentz, Sean. Andrew Jackson. New York: Times Books, 2005.
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