Andrew Jackson 1767-1845
Historians Rank Him High Among the top Ten U.S. Presidents
University historians rank Andrew Jackson among the ten greatest U.S. Presidents. Jackson’s valued contribution to American life was in strengthening the democratic ideal. Up to that time powerful voices questioned the wisdom and even the morality of democracy. ■  Jackson’s roots go back through Ulster to the Scottish Lowlands. His parents were linen weavers who lived near Belfast. Harassed by the English because of their Presbyterian religion, the Jacksons joined the great migration of Highlander and Ulster Scots to the Carolinas through the 18th century. ■ Andrew’s Father, also called Andrew, died two years after the family arrived in America and just weeks before son Andrew was born on March 15, 1767. ■ Andrew Jackson grew up in poverty while coping with the rough life of the frontier. He was captured by the English in the closing years of the Revolution. When he refused to clean the boots of an English officer, he was slashed across the face and arm by a saber. About the same time, his mother and two brothers died, direct and indirect casualties of the war. ■ He nursed a lifelong bitterness toward the English which showed up in later incidents culminating in his defeat of the British at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. ■ The New Orleans victory made Jackson a national hero and propelled him into the White House. Experience helped too. He was an author of the Tennessee Constitution and was successively representative and senator from that state as well as a state supreme court judge. ■ Jackson set a new egalitarian style called Jacksonian democracy. After two terms as President he retired to his Tennessee home, The Hermitage, where he died January 8, 1845.