Biography:

Andrew Jackson was amilitary hero and seventh president of the United States. Jackson was born in western South Carolina to a recently widowed mother with two young sons. By age fourteen, Jackson had lost his brothers and mother as well. Despite this inauspicious beginning, Jackson became a successful lawyer and politician in Tennessee, where he had settled in 1788. Jackson served in the convention that drafted Tennessee’s constitution, and then, once Tennessee was admitted to statehood, he became the state’s sole representative to the US House of Representatives in 1796. In 1797 he was elected to the US Senate. After a short, undistinguished congressional career, Jackson resigned from the Senate to serve on the Superior Court of Tennessee.
 
Jackson’s military career included command of Tennessee forces in the Creek War of 1813, which led to his commission as major general in the US Army in 1814. He is best known for his victory of the British in the Battle of New Orleans at the conclusion of the War of 1812. This victory made Jackson a national hero. Jackson’s soldiers named him “Old Hickory” because of his strength during hardship. In 1818 he led an expedition that captured Florida, and then in 1821 he served as governor of the new territory. He resigned that post in 1821 and returned to Tennessee, where the state legislature nominated him for president in 1822.
 
Jackson was one of four candidates for president in 1824. Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote, but because he did not have a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, which selected John Quincy Adams, who then named fourth-place finisher Henry Clay as secretary of state in what Jackson labeled a “corrupt bargain.” With that, Jackson’s 1828 campaign for the presidency began and the Jacksonian Democratic Party was born. The 1828 campaign between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams was one of the nation’s nastiest. Jackson won by a wide margin.
 
Jackson was a champion of the common man and of majority rule, and used his veto to strike at what he considered to be special interests. He also was a strong nationalist and rejected Vice President John Calhoun’s belief that states could nullify federal legislation they disliked. Calhoun and Jackson broke over nullification and other issues and Martin Van Buren ran with Jackson for vice president in 1832. Recharter of the powerful Second Bank of the United States became the primary issue during the 1832 presidential campaign between Jackson and Henry Clay. In July 1832, Jackson had vetoed a bill to recharter the bank sponsored by Clay. Jackson then defeated Clay in the presidential election and in 1833 he ordered that government funds be moved from the Bank of the United States and placed in selected state banks. Jackson’s adversaries depicted him as a tyrant, labeling him “King Andrew.” No doubt, Jackson was a divisive figure in American politics. By the end of this presidency, the clear two party system, Whigs and Democrats, was in place.
 
Jackson returned to Tennessee in 1837, where he died in 1845.