⚔️Andrew Jackson

7th President · 1829–1837 · Democratic

Andrew Jackson transformed American politics. He was the first president born in a log cabin, the first from west of the Appalachians, and the first to rise through electoral rather than aristocratic advantage. His supporters formed the modern Democratic Party around him. His opponents formed the Whig Party in reaction. And his removal of the Cherokee, Creek, and other Southern nations on the Trail of Tears remains one of the darkest acts of any American presidency.

Duelist and General

Jackson grew up poor and fatherless in the Carolina backcountry, was a teenage prisoner of the British in the Revolution, and carried a lifelong scar from a British officer's sword. He became a Tennessee lawyer, planter, judge, and militia general. His crushing defeat of the Creek Nation at Horseshoe Bend (1814) and of the British at the Battle of New Orleans (January 1815) made him a national hero.

Jacksonian Democracy

Jackson lost the 1824 election to John Quincy Adams in what his supporters called a "corrupt bargain." He came roaring back in 1828, winning in a landslide. His presidency expanded voting rights (for white men), attacked economic elites, and rewarded political supporters with government jobs — the "spoils system." His personality filled the office: he killed a man in a duel, fought the Second Bank of the United States to its death, and staged the first rowdy popular inauguration.

The Trail of Tears

Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and oversaw the forced relocation of more than 60,000 Native Americans from the Southeast to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Cherokee removal — begun after Jackson left office but planned under him — killed roughly 4,000 Cherokees along the route and is remembered as the Trail of Tears. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), Jackson is famously said to have replied, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

Bank War and Nullification

Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, withdrawing federal deposits to kill it. He also stared down South Carolina's attempt to "nullify" federal tariffs in 1832–33, threatening to use military force to enforce federal law. Both fights foreshadowed larger 19th-century struggles.

Jackson Trivia

• Jackson's face appears on the $20 bill, though there have been proposals to replace him with Harriet Tubman.
• He survived the first assassination attempt on a U.S. president in 1835, when both of the attacker's pistols misfired.
• His adopted son Andrew Jackson Jr. was a Creek orphan found on the Horseshoe Bend battlefield.
• His wife Rachel died shortly before his inauguration; he blamed the attacks on her during the 1828 campaign for her death and never forgave his political enemies.

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