Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/407

Rh since the act of the Virginia legislature, brought his case into court and obtained the verdict completing the divorce. On hearing of this, to his great surprise, in December, Jackson concluded that the best method of preventing future cavil was to procure a new license and have the marriage ceremony performed again; and this was done in January. Jackson was certainly to blame for not taking more care to ascertain the import of the act of the Virginia legislature. By a carelessness peculiarly striking in a lawyer, he allowed his wife to be placed in a false position. The irregularity of the marriage was indeed atoned by forty years of honorable and happy wedlock, ending only with Mrs. Jackson's death in December, 1831; and no blame was attached to the parties in Nashville, where the circumstances were well known. But the story, half understood and maliciously warped, grew into scandal as it was passed about among Jackson's personal enemies or political opponents; and herein some of the bitterest of his many quarrels had their source. His devotion to Mrs. Jackson was intense, and his pistol was always ready for the rash man who should dare to speak of her slightingly.

In January, 1796, we find Jackson sitting in the convention assembled at Knoxville for making a constitution for Tennessee, and tradition has it that he proposed the name of the &ldquo;Great Crooked River&rdquo; as the name for the new state. Among the rules adopted by the convention, one is quaintly significant: &ldquo;He that digresseth from the subject to fall on the person of any member shall be suppressed by the speaker.&rdquo; The admission of Tennessee to the Union was effected in June, 1796, in spite of earnest opposition from the Federalists, and in the autumn Jackson was chosen as the single representative in congress. When the house had assembled, he heard President Washington deliver in person his last message to congress. He was one of twelve who voted against the adoption of the address to Washington in approval of his administration. Jackson's chief objections to Washington's government were directed against two of its most salutary and admirable acts &mdash; the Jay treaty with Great Britain, and Hamilton's financial measures. His feeling toward the Jay treaty was that of a man who could not bear to see anything but blows dealt to Great Britain. His condemnation of Hamilton's policy was mingled with the not unreasonable feeling of distrust which he had already begun to harbor against a national bank. The year 1797 was a season of financial depression, and the general paralysis of business was ascribed &mdash; no doubt too exclusively &mdash; to the over-issue of notes by the national bank. Jackson's antipathy to such an institution would seem to have begun thus early to show itself. Of his other votes in this congress, one was for an appropriation to defray the expenses of Sevier's expedition against the Cherokees, which was carried; three others were eminently wise and characteristic of the man: 1. For finishing the three frigates then building and destined to such renown &mdash; the &ldquo;Constitution,&rdquo; &ldquo;Constellation,&rdquo; and &ldquo;United States.&rdquo; 2. Against the further payment of blackmail to Algiers. 3. Against removing &ldquo;the restriction which confined the expenditure of public money to the specific objects for which each sum was appropriated.&rdquo; Another vote, silly in itself, was characteristic of the representative from a rough frontier community; it was against the presumed extravagance of appropriating $14,000 to buy furniture for the newly built White House. Jackson's course was warmly approved by his constituents, and in the following summer he was chosen to fill a vacancy

in the Federal senate. Of his conduct as senator nothing is known beyond the remark, made by Jefferson in 1824 to Daniel Webster, that he had often, when presiding in the senate, seen the passionate Jackson get up to speak and then choke with rage so that he could not utter a word. As Parton very happily suggests, one need not wonder at this if one remembers what was the subject chiefly before the senate during the winter of 1797-'8. The outrageous insolence of the French Directory was enough to arouse the wrath of far tamer and less patriotic spirits than Jackson's. Yet in a letter written at that time he seems eager to see the British throne overturned by Bonaparte. In April, 1798, he resigned his seat in the senate, and was appointed judge in the supreme court of Tennessee. He retained this office for six years, but nothing is known of his decisions, as the practice of recording decisions began only with his successor, Judge Overton. During this period he was much harassed by business troubles arising from the decline in the value of land consequent upon the financial crisis of 1798. At length, in 1804, he resigned his judgeship in order to devote his attention exclusively to his private affairs. He paid up all his debts, and engaged extensively both in planting and in trade. He was noted for fair and honorable dealing, his credit was always excellent, and a note with his name on it was considered as good as gold. He had a clear head for business, and was never led astray by the delusions about paper money by which American frontier communities have so often been infested. His plantation was well managed, and his slaves were always kindly and considerately treated.

But while genial and kind toward his inferiors, he was among his fellow-citizens apt to be rough and quarrelsome. In 1795 he fought a duel with Avery, an opposing counsel, over some hasty words that had passed in the court-room. Next year he quarrelled with John Sevier, governor of Tennessee, and came near shooting him &ldquo;at sight.&rdquo; Sevier had alluded to the circumstances of his marriage. Ten years afterward, for a similar offence, though complicated with other matters in the course of a long and extremely silly quarrel, he fought a duel with Charles Dickinson. The circumstances were revolting, but showed Jackson's wonderful nerve and rare skill in &ldquo;grazing danger.&rdquo; Dickinson was killed, and Jackson received a wound from the effects of which he never recovered. In later years, when he was a candidate for the presidency, the number of his violent quarrels was variously reckoned by his enemies at from a dozen to a hundred. In 1805 Jackson was visited by Aaron Burr, who was then preparing his mysterious southwestern expedition. Burr seems to have wished, if possible, to make use of Jackson's influence in raising troops, but without indicating his purpose. In this he was unsuccessful, but Jackson appears to have regarded the charge of treason brought against Burr as ill-founded. At Richmond, while Burr's trial was going on, Jackson made a speech attacking Jefferson. He thus made himself obnoxious to Madison, then secretary of state, and afterward, in 1808, he declared his preference for Monroe over Madison as candidate for the presidency. He was known as unfriendly to Madison's administration, but this did not prevent him from offering his services, with those of 2,500 men, as soon as war was declared against Great Britain in 1812. Since 1801 he had been commander-in-chief of the Tennessee militia, but there had been no occasion for him to take the field. Late in 1812, after the disasters in the northwest, it was