Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (1829 to 1837) was born on March 15, 1767. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier.

Surrounded by myth and image, this 7th president of America is a compact symbol representing the ideology of an entire generation. Jackson exemplified the common man, the farmer politician, military prowess and democracy for his time. Nicknamed as “Old Hickory”, Jackson was famous for winning the Battle of New Orleans against the British and pretty much ending any Indian threat in the South.

He was born near the end of the colonial era, somewhere near the then-unmarked border between North and South Carolina, into a recently immigrated Scots-Irish farming family of relatively modest means. During the American Revolutionary War, Jackson, whose family supported the revolutionary cause, acted as a courier.

Andrew Jackson was a fearless president right from the beginning. He easily was the best president ever to serve the army going well past the excellence of George Washington, smashing the British in the war of 1812 and then playing the paramount role in taking Florida from Spain. So during his presidency there was no shortage of courage as he demonstrated how great a role the president had to play, by undertaking the responsibility of getting people the laws they wanted instead of leaving everything up to the Congress. The Tariff act was passed in 1832, which would be significant to America’s economy forever. When North Carolina had other opinions about the act, Jackson made it clear that no state had the right to break national laws and threatened to use the army if necessary to save the union. He proved too strong and a compromise was worked out.

Andrew Jackson served as the 7th president of the United States of America, and even before that he had been serving the nation in various capacities before that. During the Revolutionary War, he acted as a courier of the Continental Army at the age of 13. As he grew into adulthood, Jackson became a lawyer and was integral in the formation of Tennessee as a U.S. state. Jackson also served as a military commander during the War of 1812, in which he won a famous victory against British forces during the Battle of New Orleans. As president, Jackson instituted the Republican ideals that had become so dominant during the Revolutionary War, in that he believed both the federal and state governments should be limited in scope.

After winning election to the Senate, Jackson decided to run for president in 1824. Although he won more electoral votes and more of the popular votes than any of the other three major candidates, he lost in the House of Representatives to John Quincy Adams. Jackson claimed that he lost by a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Speaker of the House Henry Clay, who was also a candidate, to give Clay the office of Secretary of State in exchange for Adams winning the presidency. Jackson's supporters then founded what became the Democratic Party. He ran again for president in 1828 against Adams.

About a year after retiring the presidency, Jackson became a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Jackson was a Freemason, having been initiated at Harmony Lodge No. 1 in Tennessee; he also participated in chartering several other lodges in Tennessee. He was the only U.S. president to have served as Grand Master of a state's Grand Lodge until Harry S. Truman in 1945. His Masonic apron is on display in the Tennessee State Museum.

Jackson died at his plantation on June 8, 1845, at the age of 78, of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, and heart failure. According to a newspaper account from the Boon Lick Times read, "[he] fainted whilst being removed from his chair to the bed, but he subsequently revived, Gen. Jackson died at the Hermitage at 6 o'clock P.M. on Sunday the 8th instant. When the messenger finally came, the old soldier, patriot and Christian were looking out for his approach. He is gone, but his memory lives, and will continue to live.