(1829-1837)
7th President of the United States
Born: March 15, 1767, Waxhaw area, on North Carolina-South Carolina border
Nickname: "Old Hickory"
Religion: Presbyterian
Marriage: August 1791 (2nd ceremony, January 17, 1794), to Rachel DonelsonRobards (1767-1828)
Children: None
Career: Lawyer, Soldier
Political Party: Democrat
Writings: Correspondence of Andrew Jackson (7 vols., 1926-1935), ed. by J. S. Bassett and J. F. Jameson
Died: June 8, 1845, Nashville, Tennessee
Buried: The Hermitage, Nashville, Tennessee
Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, was the dominant actor in American politics between Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Born to obscure parents and orphaned in youth, he was the first "self-made man" and the first westerner to reach the White House. He became a democratic symbol and founder of the Democratic Party, the country's most venerable political organization. During his two-term presidency, he expanded executive powers and transformed the President's role from chief administrator to popular tribune.
Jackson was born in 1767 in Waxhaw, South Carolina, to Scotch-Irish immigrants. He fought as a boy in the Revolutionary War, studied law, and in 1788 moved west to Nashville. In 1791, he began living with Rachel Donelson Robards, whose husband had abandoned her. They were formally married after her divorce in 1794. Charges of adultery arising from the episode dogged Jackson's later political career. After serving as Tennessee prosecutor, judge, congressman, and senator, he won fame as a major general in the War of 1812 with smashing victories against the Creek Indians in 1814 and the British at New Orleans in January 1815.
Jackson secured the presidential succession in 1836 to his faithful lieutenant and second vice president, Martin Van Buren. He then retired to The Hermitage, his cotton plantation near Nashville, where he died in 1845.
