Who was Andrew Jackson?

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States from March 4, 1829 to March 4, 1837, a populist Democrat who opposed a strong centralized federal government in many respects but used presidential power aggressively against the Bank of the United States, against South Carolina's nullification effort, and against Native nations through forced removal. He was born on March 15, 1767 in the Waxhaws region on the border between North and South Carolina to Scots-Irish immigrant parents. He served as a courier in the Revolutionary War as a teenager and was famously slashed by a British officer for refusing to clean the officer's boots. Orphaned at 14, he studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina, moved to Tennessee in 1788, served as Tennessee's first U.S. Representative from 1796 to 1797, and as a U.S. Senator from 1797 to 1798.

He earned the nickname Old Hickory for his toughness as a major general of Tennessee militia in the War of 1812. His decisive victory at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had technically ended the war, made him a national hero. He commanded the invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818 in the First Seminole War, an action that helped lead to the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 acquiring Florida. He served as governor of Florida Territory in 1821.

Jackson lost the bitterly contested 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams in the so-called Corrupt Bargain when no candidate received an electoral majority and the House chose Adams. Jackson defeated Adams in 1828 to become president.

As president, Jackson used his executive power vigorously. He vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States on July 10, 1832, beginning the Bank War that destroyed the institution. He used the Bank War theme to win reelection in 1832. He then transferred federal deposits from the Bank to state banks in 1833, accelerating its destruction.

He confronted South Carolina's Nullification Ordinance of November 24, 1832 with the Force Bill of March 2, 1833 authorizing military force, while also accepting the Compromise Tariff of 1833 to defuse the crisis. He signed the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830 and authorized forced relocation of southeastern tribes including the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1838 to 1839 (Martin Van Buren as president actually executed the Cherokee removal after Jackson's term). He famously refused to enforce Worcester v. Georgia (1832), with the apocryphal quote John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.

He survived the first presidential assassination attempt in 1835 when Richard Lawrence's pistols misfired. He retired to The Hermitage near Nashville and died there on June 8, 1845.