Jon Meacham - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

ALSO BY JON MEACHAM

American Gospel:
God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

Franklin and Winston:
An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Voices in Our Blood:
Americas Best on the Civil Rights Movement (editor)

Copyright 2008 by Jon Meacham

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Meacham, Jon.
American lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House/Jon Meacham.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-822-5
1. Jackson, Andrew, 17671845. 2. PresidentsUnited StatesBiography. 3. United StatesPolitics and government18291837. 4. Jackson, Andrew, 17671845Family. 5. Jackson, Andrew, 17671845Friends and associates. I. Title.
E382.M43 2008 973.56092dc22 2008023466
[B]

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To Mary, Maggie, and Sam

The darker the night the bolder the lion.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT ,
Life-Histories of African Game Animals

I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.

ANDREW JACKSON

Prologue: With the Feelings of a Father
The White House, Washington, Winter 183233

In the interest of clarity, I have often taken the liberty of modernizing the (distractingly erratic) spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure in primary sources from Jacksons era. On some occasions I have let the Ur-formulation stand to give readers a sense of the texture and style of correspondence in those years. In any event, the source for every quotation in this book is cited in the Notes. In no case has an edit altered the writers intention or meaning.

John Quincy Adams (17671848) sixth president of the United States, he served as a congressman from Massachusetts from 1831 until his death

Louisa Catherine Adams (17751852) wife of John Quincy Adams and a shrewd observer of Washington politics

Thomas Hart Benton (17821858) onetime aide-de-camp to General Jackson, he later brawled with Jackson; in 1821 he was elected senator from Missouri, and was a Jackson ally on Capitol Hill during the White House years

Nicholas Biddle (17861844) president of the Second Bank of the United States

Francis Preston Blair (17911876) founding editor of the pro-Jackson Washington Globe and Jackson adviser

John C. Calhoun (17821850) vice president of the United States under Adams and Jackson, senator from South Carolina during Jacksons second term

Henry Clay (17771852) Kentucky congressman and senator, secretary of state under John Quincy Adams, Jacksons 1832 National Republican opponent for president

John Coffee (17721833) Tennessee planter, military officer, and Jackson confidant

Andrew Jackson Donelson (17991871) nephew of Rachel and Andrew Jackson, private secretary to President Jackson, husband of Emily Tennessee Donelson

Emily Tennessee Donelson (18071836) niece of Rachel and Andrew Jackson, official White House hostess, wife of Andrew Jackson Donelson

Mary Eastin (18101847) friend and cousin of Emily Donelsons and member of Jacksons White House circle; married Lucius Polk in the White House in 1832

John Henry Eaton (17901856) Tennessee senator, Jackson adviser, secretary of war

Margaret ONeale Timberlake Eaton (17991879) widow of John Timberlake of the U.S. Navy and wife of John Henry Eaton

Jeremiah Evarts (17811831) corresponding secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, author of the William Penn essays opposing Indian removal

Theodore Frelinghuysen (17871862) New Jersey senator, defender of the rights of the Indians

Andrew Jackson (17671845) seventh president of the United States

Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson (17671828) wife of Andrew Jackson

Amos Kendall (17891869) Kentucky editor, Jackson adviser, Democratic strategist, postmaster general

William B. Lewis (17841866) second auditor of the Treasury, Jackson adviser

Edward Livingston (17641836) lawyer, Louisiana congressman, senator, secretary of state, minister to France, and Jackson friend

John Marshall (17551835) chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 until his death thirty-four years later

Joel R. Poinsett (17791851) world traveler, congressman, physician, botanist, and crucial Jackson ally in the nullification crisis with South Carolina in 183233

Roger B. Taney (17771864) attorney general, secretary of the Treasury, chief justice of the U.S. after John Marshall

Martin Van Buren (17821862) governor of New York, secretary of state, vice president after Calhoun, and eighth president of the United States

Daniel Webster (17821852) lawyer, congressman, and senator from Massachusetts; a supporter of Jacksons on the question of the Union, Webster opposed the president on almost everything else

I T LOOKED LIKE war. In his rooms on the second floor of the White House, in the flickering light of candles and oil lamps, President Andrew Jackson was furious and full of fight. He had just been reelected to a second term as Americas seventh president, and South Carolina was defying him. He hated it, for he believed to his core that the state was about to destroy the nation. For Jackson, the crisis was not only political. It was personal. Four hundred and fifty miles down the Atlantic seaboard from Washington, in Charleston, radicals were raising an army to defend South Carolinas right to nullify federal laws it chose not to acceptthe first step, Jackson believed, toward secession, and the destruction of the Union. I expect soon to hear that a civil war of extermination has commenced, Jackson said, musing about arresting the Southern leaders and then hanging them.

Gaunt but striking, with a formidable head of white hair, a nearly constant cough, a bullet lodged in his chest, Jackson, sixty-five years old that winter, stood six foot one and weighed 140 pounds. Over a midday glass of whiskey in the White House with an old friend, Jackson pounded a table as he pondered the crisis: By the God of Heaven, I will uphold the laws. Week after week, he threatened to field a formidable force, and he knew who should lead them. When everything is ready, I shall join them myself, Jackson said.

At Bostons Faneuil Hall, Daniel Webster, the great Massachusetts senator, rallied to the presidents defense, denouncing South Carolinas defiance in epic terms: It is nothing more nor less than resistance by