JACKSON, Andrew, seventh President of the United States: b. in the Waxhaw settle ment near the border line between North and South Carolina, 15 March 1767; d. at his home, an Hermitage, near Nashville, Tenn., 8 June 1845. It is a matter of dispute to which of these States the honor of his birth belongs, but the evidence is in favor of South Carolina. Andrew Jackson, his father, emigrated from Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in the north of Ireland, in 1765, and died a few days before the birth of his famous son. The early environ ment of the future President was extremely unpropitious. He lived in a rough frontier re gion, with little opportunity for education or other form of culture. In fact,. Jackson re ceived ,very little cschooling,D and was never able 'to write correct English. Little is known of his early life beyond the fact that he was a headstrong, u acious boy. During the Revolutionary' ar t e axhaw district was invaded by the British who took Jackson pris oner, then a boy of 13, illtreated him and car ried him to Camden for imprisonment. His twa brothers lost their lives in the war and his mother died as a result of hardships incurred on a journey to Charleston to help care for prisoners there. These early incidents account for his antipathy toward England, and doubt less stimulated him at the battle of New Orleans, where he evened up old scores.
the age of 17 he entered a law office at Salisbury, N. C. Traditions exist of what would now be considered a wild life, and it is likely that they are true, for frontier societies, such as he lived in, took delight in gambling, horse racing, cock fighting, dueling and similar pas times. Jackson was admitted to the bar in November 1787. In the spring of 1788 he started for ennessee, and in the fall estab lished himse a shville as a practising lawyer. In 1789 he was given the solicitorship, with a salary of 40 pounds, for a Superior Coust district comprising three counties in Tennessee. The region where Jackson was to take up his duties as public prosecutor was wilder than the Waxhaw Settlement. It was a real' frontier filled with persons who were individualists, who believed in the personality of law, and who were unwilling to submit to any form of restraint. Here was the home of
quarrels and feuds, a harvest for the young lawyer, but he must needs be a brave man, better versed in human nature than in precise knowledge of the law, to succeed in such an environment. Jackson had exactly these char acteristics, with others, which made him the ideal man for such a position. Himself a prod uct of the frontier, and chafing under the re straint of law, yet he instinctively was some what of a despot, a muter of men, and quite as determined to make others obey the law, as he himself was often determined to break it. Jackson's main business from 1789 was to in troduce law and order into a communiV that did not care for it. He found plenty to do, and it is on record that in the April term, 1790, out of 192 cases on the docket of the County Court at Nashville, Jackson was employed as counsel in 42 of them; in the year 1794, out of 397 cases he acted as counsel in 228. Besides devoting his energies to putting down lawless ness among the whites, he found time to look after the Indians, who committed numerous murders in the district in this period. He thus acquired a taste for Indian fighting, which greatly influenced his subsequent career.
He married a Rachael Robards in Natchez, Miss., in the summer of 1791, believing that the legislature of Virginia had granted her husband a divorce, instead of, as was the case, a mere permission to bring suit for divorce. The suit was not brought until 1793 and the divorce was granted, because technically Ro bards' wife was unlawfully living with Jackson aS his wife. Jackson immediately procured another license and had another ceremony per formed in 1794. There is no good evidence that Jackson's wife was unfaithful, or that Jackson was not acting in good faith and in the honest belief that a divorce had been granted. Nevertheless, as a lawyer, he should have known that the Virginia legislature did not grant divorces at this time, but only gave permission for a suit to be brought in the proper court. The incident was used merci lessly by the partisan press in the campaign of 1828, but it is evident that those who knew Jackson believed in his honesty. .