Andrew Jackson: The People’s President

Both revered and reviled in his own time, the seventh President of the United States Andrew Jackson never backed down from a fight. His “my way or the highway” approach made “Old Hickory” as ruthless with his veto pen as with his dueling pistol. Allen Guelzo, Distinguished Research Scholar in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, tells Jackson’s story.

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Script:

No American President has been more beloved and reviled than Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States. This was as true during his own day as it is in ours.

Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina on March 15, 1767. He was barely ten years old when the American Revolution broke out. The war claimed the lives of his two brothers and his mother, leaving Jackson orphaned, alone, and with a bitter hatred for all things British.

In time, he would get his revenge.

Tall with sharp features topped by a thatch of red hair, Jackson always made an impression. In 1788, after a brief study of the law, he wangled an appointment as a district attorney in Tennessee, then known as the Southwest Territories, began investing in land and slaves, and earned an appointment as major general of the Tennessee militia. Though he had no formal military training, he was a natural leader. The men under his command would follow him anywhere. And if they didn’t, he might hang them. He fought numerous duels. He killed a man, Charles Dickinson, in one. That was Jackson.

As Jackson’s investments and military reputation advanced, so did his political interests. He served in Congress when Tennessee became a state in 1796 and later briefly as senator. His politics were decidedly Jeffersonian. He believed that owning land was the only real wealth; that industry, commerce, and banking were financial traps that ultimately benefited the rich at the expense of everyone else.

In 1812, a new w..