THOMAS JEFFERSON
Thomas Jefferson—author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia—voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.
Born to a father known as successful planter and surveyor and a mother who came from one of the most distinguished families in Virginia, Jefferson had many great educational opportunities. He was sent to boarding school before enrolling in William and Mary College. He studied law (as well as the typical subjects), and by the time he was admitted to the Virginia bar in April 1767, many considered him to have one of the nation's best legal minds.
During the Revolution, Jefferson served two years as governor of Virginia, during which time he barely escaped capture by British forces by fleeing from Monticello, his home. He was later charged with being a coward for not confronting the enemy. After the war, Jefferson served as America's minister to France, where he witnessed firsthand the dramatic events leading up to the French Revolution.
While abroad, Jefferson corresponded with members of the Constitutional Convention, particularly his close associate from Virginia, James Madison. He agreed to support the Constitution and the strong federal government it created. Jefferson’s support, however, hinged upon the condition that Madison added a Bill of Rights to the document in the form of ten amendments. The rights that Jefferson insisted upon—among them were freedom of speech, assembly, and practice of religion—have become fundamental to and synonymous with American life ever since.
In 1790 he accepted the post of secretary of state under his friend George Washington. His tenure was marked by his opposition to the pro-British policies of Alexander Hamilton. In 1796, as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Republicans, he became vice-president after losing to John Adams by three electoral votes.
In 1800, however, the political tide had turned against the Federalist Party of Adams and Hamilton. After a bitterly contested election, a tie vote in the electoral college, and a protracted deadlock in the House of Representatives, Jefferson finally emerged as the winner—thanks, in part, to the three-fifths clause of the Constitution, which gave states with large slave populations additional votes. In his inaugural address, Jefferson pled for national unity in an attempt to heal the wounds of a vicious campaign and to gain support from the Federalist-controlled Congress. Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first term were the purchase of the Louisiana Territory for $15 million in 1803 (which doubled the size of the nation) and his support of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Due to a relatively placid first term, prosperity, lower taxes, and a reduction of the national debt, Jefferson won a landslide victory in 1804. His second term, a time when he encountered more difficulties on both the domestic and foreign fronts, is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict between Britain and France; his efforts did not avert war with Britain in 1812.
Jefferson believed in a “wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another” but which otherwise left them free to regulate their own affairs. In an effort to minimize the influence of the central government, he reduced the number of government employees, slashed Army enlistments, and cut the national debt. Similar to his predecessor, John Adams, Jefferson had to deal with the political war waged between his Republican Party and the Federalists. The battles were focused on the nation's judiciary branch. The landmark ruling in Marbury v. Madison, which established the independent power of the Supreme Court, was handed down during Jefferson's presidency.
Jefferson was succeeded as president in 1809 by his friend James Madison, and during the last seventeen years of his life, he remained at Monticello. During this period, he sold his collection of books to the government to form the nucleus of the Library of Congress. Jefferson embarked on his last great public service at the age of seventy-six, with the founding of the University of Virginia. He spearheaded the legislative campaign for its charter, secured its location, designed its buildings, planned its curriculum, and served as the first rector.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, just hours before his close friend John Adams, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. He was eighty-three years old, the holder of large debts, but according to all evidence a very optimistic man.
Source: Monticello website http://monticello.org and Miller Center, University of Virginia http://millercenter.org
ANDREW JACKSON
Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. As a war hero, he was one of a handful of Americans who dominated the first half of the nineteenth century. As president he redefined and strengthened the executive office, championing the concept of a united nation against rising threats of disunion. In all estimates, he was one of the strongest presidents, as well as one of the most controversial. He lent his name to a movement, Jacksonian Democracy, and to an era, the Age of Jackson.
Jackson was born in the frontier settlement in South Carolina to Scotch-Irish parents from northern Ireland. Encouraged by his mother to enter the ministry, Jackson obtained a modest education and taught school for a brief time. The Revolutionary War interrupted his education, and Jackson volunteered his services to the American cause. About 1784 Jackson arrived in North Carolina, where he read law and received a license to practice in 1787. He commenced his profession in the state’s Western District in Washington County (now Tennessee). By October 1788, he had received an appointment as district attorney in Mero District (now Middle Tennessee) and settled in Nashville. There he met Rachel Donelson, who soon became his wife. Over the next few years, he practiced law, speculated in land, bought the Hermitage property, and commenced general merchandising in partnership with family and friends. Generally managed by overseers and worked by slaves, the Hermitage was a model for Tennessee agriculture, with orchards, gardens, livestock, staple crops, cotton gins, and stills. At the Hermitage plantation, the Jacksons built a large home and hosted innumerable visitors.
As the new Territory South of the River Ohio organized for statehood, Jackson accepted election to its first constitutional convention, and in the fall of 1796, Tennessee voters sent him to Philadelphia as their first representative. A year later, the legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. Jackson's role in both bodies was undistinguished, and he resigned in 1798 to become a judge of the Superior Court (now the Tennessee Supreme Court), an appointment he held until resigning in 1804. By 1806 Jackson had abandoned his legal practice and storekeeping to devote his time to farming, with occasional interruptions for local militia musters. Jackson’s military duties continued for the next twenty years. Though this period brought him national honor, personal and political controversy clouded his fame. In 1803 he quarreled with John Sevier and caned Thomas Swann in January 1806. In May of that year he killed Charles Dickinson in a duel and ran a sword through Samuel Jackson the following year. In September 1813 he brawled with brothers Jesse and Thomas Hart Benton, taking a bullet in the arm, which was removed during his presidency.
Jackson’s emergence as a popular national figure resulted from his distinguished service as major general in the War of 1812. Having been commissioned major general of the U.S. Army in May 1814, Jackson soon received orders to defend the Gulf Coast against an expected British invasion. In December of that same year, he led his troops into New Orleans, where in the early morning of January 8, 1815, a few weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, he resoundingly defeated the British. That victory brought immediate fame. To many, Jackson was second only to George Washington in service to the Republic.
Over the next several years, he negotiated land cessions in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky at treaties with the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, presaging his controversial presidential policy of Indian removal to accommodate advancing white settlement. In 1818, he led troops into Florida to suppress the Seminoles, seized Pensacola, and ordered the execution of two British subjects suspected of arming the Seminoles. The action precipitated a brief international crisis and a long congressional investigation. Jackson resigned his army appointment on June 1, 1821, and retired to Tennessee despite Tennesseans’ desire to elevate him to the presidency. He consistently denied that he sought the office, but declared it his duty to serve if elected. In the presidential campaign of 1824 Jackson received both a popular and an electoral plurality over William H. Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. When the House of Representatives gave the presidency to Adams, and Adams appointed Clay secretary of state, Jackson labeled the transaction “a corrupt bargain” that violated the will of the voters. On that charge, Jackson’s advisors launched the presidential campaign of 1828, one of the nation’s dirtiest elections (his critics charged the Jacksons’ with moral depravity as evidenced by their marriage—Rachel was still legally married when she wed Jackson), in which he defeated Adams. On December 22, 1828, Rachel Jackson passed away, and her husband charged that her death had been hastened by his political rivals.
In January 1829, the widowed Jackson left Tennessee for his inauguration. Reform was the keynote of the bereaved Jackson’s inaugural address in March 1829, and reform remained the theme of his two terms as president. As the Senate recessed in mid-March, Jackson initiated a series of removals and appointments that his opponents denounced as the spoils system. Jacksonians defended the practice as a restoration of honesty and integrity and the destruction of entrenched privilege. Nevertheless, Jackson maintained his commitment to reform and executed his will through the exercise of the veto. The recharter of the bank became the focal point of the 1832 election between Jackson and Clay. The real issue, however, was Jackson. Analysis of Jackson’s election victory showed a decline in his support and the rise of a strong opposition. During his second administration, Jackson continued to use the veto and took unprecedented actions: in 1833, without congressional approval, he ordered federal deposits removed from the Bank of the United States and placed in state banks, forcing the resignation of the cabinet officer who refused his directive; and in 1836 he issued the Specie Circular, which required the payment of government debts in hard money. Jackson’s 1833 proclamation against nullification defining the Union as indissoluble assaulted state's rights. In consequence, his opponents denounced him as a tyrant, “King Andrew I,” and united to form the Whig Party. By the end of the decade, the second American party system had emerged in all the states.
Jackson returned to the Hermitage in early 1837. Many still considered him a hero and the spokesman of the common man. He spent the remainder of his years in retirement, consulting with numerous politicians on the issues of the day, entertaining frequent visitors, and managing his farm. His health, much damaged by dueling wounds and the rigors of military campaigns, continued to decline. In 1845, at age seventy-eight, Jackson died at the Hermitage and was buried in the Hermitage garden two days later.
Source: Harold D. Moser, University of Tennessee, http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net
DAVID CROCKETT
David Crockett, frontiersman, Tennessee legislator and U.S. congressman, folk hero, and icon of popular culture, was an intriguing composite of history and myth. Both the historical figure who died at the Alamo and the legendary hero kept alive in the media of his day and ours, Crockett partly invented his own myth.
Born on August 17, 1786, in Greene County, Tennessee, Crockett grew up with the new nation and helped it grow. He lived in Tennessee for all but the last few months of his life and promoted the gradual westward expansion of the frontier through Tennessee toward Texas. In his search for a better life for himself and his family, he participated in a process that we now call the American dream.
David was the son of John Crockett, magistrate, unsuccessful land speculator, and tavern owner, and Rebecca Hawkins Crockett. He married Mary "Polly" Finley on August 14, 1806, in Jefferson County. They remained in East Tennessee until 1811, when the Crocketts and their two sons, John Wesley and William, settled in Lincoln County. In 1813 they moved again, this time to Franklin County, where Crockett twice enlisted as a volunteer in the Indian wars from 1813 to 1815; following the wars, he was elected a lieutenant in the Thirty-second Militia Regiment of Franklin County. Soon after his discharge, Polly gave birth to Margaret, their third child; Polly died that summer. A year later, he married Elizabeth Patton, a widow with two children. The family moved to Lawrence County in the fall of 1817.
Although he served as a justice of the peace, Lawrenceburg town commissioner, and colonel of the Fifty-seventh Militia Regiment of Lawrence County, Crockett was relatively unknown before his 1821 election to the Tennessee legislature, representing Lawrence and Hickman Counties. Reelected in 1823, but defeated in 1825, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from his new West Tennessee residence in 1827. He campaigned as an honest country boy and an extraordinary hunter and marksman—someone who was in every sense a “straight shooter.” Reelected to a second term in 1829, he split with President Andrew Jackson and the Tennessee delegation headed by James K. Polk on several important issues including land reform and the Indian removal bill. Crockett was defeated in 1831, when he openly and vehemently opposed Jackson's policies, but was reelected in 1833.