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Show FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS By JAMES MORGAN " r AN IMMIGRANT'S SON o o 1767 March 15, .'.ndrew Jack. ' son born in Union coun ty, N. C. 1781 Taken prisoner by the British. 1791 Married Mrs. Rachel Donaldson Don-aldson Robards. 1806 Killed Charles Dickinson In a duel. 1815 January 8, won the Battle Bat-tle of New Orleans. 1817-18 Put down the Seminole Indians in Florida. 1821 Governor of the territory of Florida. O 1 ANDREW JACKSON, the unlettered unlet-tered backwoodsman, treading at the heels of John Quincy Adams, the most cultured In all the line, presents the sharpest contrast to be seen In the procession of presidents. The first president born in a log cabin, Jackson could not claim as his own even that lowly dwelling in the North Carolina forest, but entered the world homeless and fatherless. Sprung from poor Irish immigrants, his parents par-ents had been in the country only two years when the father sank into an unmarked grave a few days before Andrew's birth, leaving his family without a roof or an acre. No other among American leaders received from the War of Independence such a legacy of bitter memories as it A? If -f-c Andrew Jackson. bequeathed to Jackson. That savage struggle between Whig and Tory swept away his brave mother and both of his brothers; scattered his kindred kin-dred and left him, at fifteen, alone In the world. A ragged, roving waif of the Revolution, Revo-lution, he grew up as wild as a weed. With no hand above him, his high spirits led him Into the temptations of his primitive world, whose social standards were 200 years behind the times. Drinking, and carousing, gambling, gam-bling, cock fighting and horse racing, young Jackson never took a dare. A bully among rowdies, he went his roy-stering roy-stering way along a road that is not to be laid down on the map of conduct as a course to the White House. As he rose from a chore boy and a saddler's apprentice to te a lawyer and a judge of the Supreme court of AcuneBsee, lie casi asiue Ule QlSSipa- tions of his careless youth, but he never lost the spirit of the clansman. A bare catalog of his quarrels and fights Is too long to be given here. In most of them he was fired with the conviction that he was defending the name of his wife. This had been brought Into question only by his own characteristic Imprudence, when he fell in love with his landlady's daughter, daugh-ter, while she was yet married to another, an-other, and when he rashly wed her without waiting to verify the mere rumor ru-mor that her offended husband had obtained a divorce in a neighboring state. After two years of wedded life the too hasty couple learned that the woman's first marriage had only just been dissolved and they had to make a spectacle of themselves as they went through another ceremony In order to be united in lawful bonds. Because his own 'mpulsive conduct con-duct had exposed his aonest, devoted wife to the slanderous tongues of the gossips, Jackson was all the more sensitive sen-sitive to her sufferings. For sneering at her over a bar one man was stood up at 24 paces and shot to death by the avenging husband, who kept his pistols in perfect condition through 37 years, as Barton says, for anyone who dared breathe her name except In honor. Even at the sober age of forty-six. Jackson plunged Into a tavern brawl at Nashville with Thomas H. Benton, afterward the distinguished senator from Missouri, and was shattered for life by two balls and a slug which Benton's brother shot into his back. That was his last personal altercation. In a few weeks he was called from his bed of pain to take part in a public altercation al-tercation between the United States and Great Britain and, with his arm still in a sling, he rose to do battle for his eoupry. SLAYING DRAGONS r . 1828 Andrew Jackson elected president. 1829 Inaugurated, seventh president, pres-ident, aged 61. 1832 Vetoed bank bill suppressing suppress-ing nullifications. Re-elected triumphantly. 1833 Removed the bank iepos-its. iepos-its. 1834 5 Brought France -bo terms. 1837 lackson retired 1845 June 8, death of Jackson, aged 78. O JACKSON'S administration stands forth in the half-century between Jefferson and Lincoln because of two measures. One of these was the overthrow over-throw of the United States bank. That great institution, patterned after the Bank of England and the Bank of France, was an efficient but dangerous partner for a democratic government. It was a money monopoly monop-oly which could make or break anv enterprise In the country; It held In its grasp the financial life of America; Amer-ica; it received and distributed all the revenues of the nation and half of its deposits were public moneys; but, with only a fifth of Its directors appointed ap-pointed by the government, it was not under public control. When Jackson began his audacious fight upon the bank. It was at the llplrrhf f -.-.t,..t m ua yyjwKi. Against neavy odds, he vetoed the bill for recharter-ing recharter-ing It; took his case to the people in his campaign for re-election, and scored a complete victory. On the strength of that popular verdict he removed the government deposits and 1.; ft the bank to a slow and ignominious igno-minious collapse. For this action the senate censured him. After a bitter fight, In which Jackson's one-time antagonist, Thomas H. Benton, now a senator from Missouri, Mis-souri, was his champion, the resolution resolu-tion was expunged by drawing about it In the records a heavy black line. Jackson was equally bold and victorious vic-torious in meeting the threat of nullification, nulli-fication, although It came from his own section, from his own party and from his own vice president, John C. Calhoun. Shortly before his inauguration inaugu-ration congress passed the first tariff that was framed for the benefit of the new manufacturing industries which were springing up In New England. This bestowal of a special privilege aroused the jealousy of the agricultural South. At a Democratic banquet In Washington Wash-ington in 1830, President Jackson rose and proposed this toast : "For Federal Union; it must be preserved." pre-served." Then Vice President Calhoun Cal-houn got up and toasted the rights of the states. Thus the two highest officials of the government Joined Issue across that dinner table on a question which great armies would fight out in another generation. Two years afterward a convention in South Carolina solemnly adopted an ordinance nullifying the tariff act for that state and forbidding within the boundaries of the state the collection col-lection of customs duties under it While recommending to congress a modification of the offending tariff, Jackson appealed to the patriotism of the South Carolinans in a proclamation proclama-tion which set all the North and much of the South ringing with cheers; ordered or-dered General Scott to the sceDe of f ' f tr . ' - Andrew Jackson in Old Age. threatened trouble; ro-enforced the forts of the dissatisfied state; dispatched dis-patched a naval fleet to Charleston harbor, and only waited for the first overt act of revolt to give him warrant war-rant for arresting Calhoun and the other leaders. Jackson's pre-eminent service to the country was rendered In his battle with nullification. "The tariff was only the pretext," he said, "disunion and a southern c-nfedoracy the r 1 object. The next pretext will I e the negro." Thanks to him, that irrepressible irre-pressible conflict had beer, postponed 25 years, until a great West sh, nld grow up and Join hands with tuc East in saving the Union. (Copyright. 1920. by Jamea MnrroD I |