A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, Part 3: Andrew Jackson, 1st Term

Part 1

MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS:

ANDREW JACKSON

March 4, 1829, to March 4, 1833

Edited by James D. Richardson

ANDREW JACKSON

Andrew Jackson was born in the Waxhaw Settlement, North or South Carolina, on the 15th of March, 1767. He was a son of Andrew Jackson, an Irishman, who emigrated to America in 1765 and died in 1767. The name of his mother was Elizabeth Hutchinson. There is little definite information about the schools that he attended. According to Parton, "He learned to read, to write, and cast accounts--little more." Having taken arms against the British in 1781, he was captured, and afterwards wounded by an officer because he refused to clean the officer's boots. About 1785 he began to study law at Salisbury, N.C. In 1788 removed to Nashville, Tenn., where he began to practice law. About 1791 he married Rachel Robards, originally Rachel Donelson, whose first husband was living and had taken preliminary measures to obtain a divorce, which was legally completed in 1793. The marriage ceremony was again performed in 1794. He was a member of the convention which framed the constitution of Tennessee in 1796, and in the autumn of that year was elected Representative to Congress by the people of Tennessee, which State was then entitled to only one member. Supported Thomas Jefferson in the Presidential election of 1796. In 1797 became a Senator of the United States for the State of Tennessee. Resigned his seat in the Senate in 1798; was a judge of the supreme court of Tennessee from 1798 till 1804. After war had been declared against Great Britain, General Jackson (who several years before had been appointed major-general of militia) offered his services and those of 2,500 volunteers in June, 1812. He was ordered to New Orleans, and led a body of 2,070 men in that direction; but at Natchez he received an order, dated February 6, 1813, by which his troops were dismissed from public service. In October, 1813, he took the field against the Creek Indians, whom he defeated at Talladega in November. By his services in this Creek war, which ended in 1814, he acquired great popularity, and in May, 1814, was appointed a major-general in the Regular Army; was soon afterwards ordered to the Gulf of Mexico, to oppose an expected invasion of the British. In November he seized Pensacola, which belonged to Spain, but was used by the British as a base of operations. About the 1st of December he moved his army to New Orleans, where he was successful in two engagements with the British, and afterwards gained his famous victory on January 8, 1815. This was the last battle of the war, a treaty of peace having been signed on December 24, 1814. In 1817-18 he waged a successful war against the Seminoles in Florida, seized Pensacola, and executed Arbuthnot and Ambrister, two British subjects, accused of inciting the savages to hostile acts against the Americans. He was appointed governor of Florida in 1821. In 1823 was elected a Senator of the United States, and nominated as candidate for the Presidency by the legislature of Tennessee. His competitors were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford. Jackson received 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. As no candidate had a majority, the election devolved on the House of Representatives, and it resulted in the choice of Mr. Adams. In 1828 Jackson was elected President, receiving 178 electoral votes, while Adams received 83; was reelected in 1832, defeating Henry Clay. Retired to private life March 4, 1837. He died at the Hermitage on the 8th of June, 1845, and was buried there.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ELECT.

CITY OF WASHINGTON, March 2, 1829. J.C. CALHOUN, Vice-President of the United States.

Sir: Through you I beg leave to inform the Senate that on Wednesday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, I shall be ready to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution previously to entering on a discharge of my official duties, and at such place as the Senate may think proper to designate.

I am, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant,

ANDREW JACKSON.

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Fellow-Citizens: About to undertake the arduous duties that I have been appointed to perform by the choice of a free people, I avail myself of this customary and solemn occasion to express the gratitude which their confidence inspires and to acknowledge the accountability which my situation enjoins. While the magnitude of their interests convinces me that no thanks can be adequate to the honor they have conferred, it admonishes me that the best return I can make is the zealous dedication of my humble abilities to their service and their good.

As the instrument of the Federal Constitution it will devolve on me for a stated period to execute the laws of the United States, to superintend their foreign and their confederate relations, to manage their revenue, to command their forces, and, by communications to the Legislature, to watch over and to promote their interests generally. And the principles of action by which I shall endeavor to accomplish this circle of duties it is now proper for me briefly to explain.

In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the extent of the Executive power, trusting thereby to discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority. With foreign nations it will be my study to preserve peace and to cultivate friendship on fair and honorable terms, and in the adjustment of any differences that may exist or arise to exhibit the forbearance becoming a powerful nation rather than the sensibility belonging to a gallant people.

In such measures as I may be called on to pursue in regard to the rights of the separate States I hope to be animated by a proper respect for those sovereign members of our Union, taking care not to confound the powers they have reserved to themselves with those they have granted to the Confederacy.

The management of the public revenue--that searching operation in all governments--is among the most delicate and important trusts in ours, and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official solicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered it would appear that advantage must result from the observance of a strict and faithful economy. This I shall aim at the more anxiously both because it will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt, the unnecessary duration of which is incompatible with real independence, and because it will counteract that tendency to public and private profligacy which a profuse expenditure of money by the Government is but too apt to engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment of this desirable end are to be found in the regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress for the specific appropriation of public money and the prompt accountability of public officers.

With regard to a proper selection of the subjects of impost with a view to revenue, it would seem to me that the spirit of equity, caution, and compromise in which the Constitution was formed requires that the great interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures should be equally favored, and that perhaps the only exception to this rule should consist in the peculiar encouragement of any products of either of them that may be found essential to our national independence.

Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.

Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the civil power. The gradual increase of our Navy, whose flag has displayed in distant climes our skill in navigation and our fame in arms; the preservation of our forts, arsenals, and dockyards, and the introduction of progressive improvements in the discipline and science of both branches of our military service are so plainly prescribed by prudence that I should be excused for omitting their mention sooner than for enlarging on their importance. But the bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible. As long as our Government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending; and so long as it is worth defending a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional mortifications we may be subjected to, but a million of armed freemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe. To any just system, therefore, calculated to strengthen this natural safeguard of the country I shall cheerfully lend all the aid in my power.

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