Andrew Jackson

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Andrew Jackson : biography

15 March 1767 – 08 June 1845

Attack and assassination attempt

The first presidential attack was against Jackson. Jackson ordered the dismissal of Robert B. Randolph from the Navy for embezzlement. On May 6, 1833, Jackson sailed on USS Cygnet to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was to lay the cornerstone on a monument near the grave of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington’s mother. During a stopover near Alexandria, Randolph appeared and struck the President. He fled the scene chased by several members of Jackson’s party, including the well-known writer Washington Irving. Jackson decided not to press charges.

On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a sitting President of the United States occurred just outside the United States Capitol. When Jackson was leaving through the East Portico after the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren R. Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed housepainter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Historians believe the humid weather contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was restrained, and legend says that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane. Others present, including David Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence.

Lawrence told doctors later his reasons for the shooting. He blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty" (a reference to Jackson’s struggle with the Bank of the United States) and that he "could not rise until the President fell". Finally, he told his interrogators that he was a deposed English King—specifically, Richard III, dead since 1485—and that Jackson was his clerk. He was deemed insane and institutionalized.

Afterward, due to public curiosity concerning the double misfires, the pistols were tested and retested. Each time they performed perfectly. Many believed that Jackson had been protected by the same Providence that protected the young nation. This national pride was a large part of the Jacksonian cultural myth fueling American expansion in the 1830s.

Judicial appointments

In total Jackson appointed 24 federal judges: six Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States and eighteen judges to the United States district courts.

Supreme Court appointments

  • John McLean – 1830.
  • Henry Baldwin – 1830.
  • James Moore Wayne – 1835.
  • Roger Brooke Taney (Chief Justice) – 1836.
  • Philip Pendleton Barbour – 1836.
  • John Catron – 1837.

Major Supreme Court cases

  • Cherokee Nation v. Georgia – 1831.
  • Worcester v. Georgia – 1832.
  • Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge – 1837.

States admitted to the Union

  • Arkansas – June 15, 1836.
  • Michigan – January 26, 1837.

Regrets

On the last day of the presidency, Jackson admitted that he had but two regrets, that he "had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun."Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America. New York: Random House, 2008 ISBN 978-1-4000-6560-8, p. 36.

Military career

War of 1812

Jackson was appointed commander of the Tennessee militia in 1801, with the rank of colonel. He was later elected major general of the Tennessee militia in 1802.Buchanan, John. (2001). Jackson’s Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters. New York: John Wiley & Son, Inc. p. 165-166.

During the War of 1812, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh encouraged the "Red Stick" Creek Indians of northern Alabama and Georgia to attack white settlements. He had unified tribes in the Northwest to rise up against the Americans, trying to repel European American settlers from those lands north of the Ohio. Four hundred settlers were killed in the Fort Mims massacre. In the resulting Creek War, Jackson commanded the American forces, which included Tennessee militia, U.S. regulars, and Cherokee, Choctaw, and Lower Creek warriors.