Andrew Jackson was the 7th United States President. He was the only president ever to pay off the national debt. During his early life he actually didn’t go to school very much. He served in the Revolutionary War as a courier to his older brother Robert Jackson. Before he became president, he served many different political positions, including senator and congressman for Tennessee. Jackson also served in the War of 1812, and fought the last battle in that war. He was president from 1829 through 1837, after losing the election to John Quincy Adams in 1824 and then winning in 1828. He died from lead poisoning several years after his presidency.
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15th, 1767 to Andrew Jackson (Sr.) and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson. His father died the same year he was born. Young Andrew was then raised by his mother and his older brothers, Hugh and Robert Jackson. Hugh died in the Revolutionary War. Robert and Andrew were captured by the British during the war, and nearly starved to death. While Andrew made a full recovery, Robert died shortly after. Untimely, their mother also died, and Andrew was raised the rest of his life by his uncles, left with no immediate family.
Jackson was elected to be a senator for the new state of Tennessee, and later he became a congressman. In the election of 1824, he ran against John Quincy Adams for President. There was so close a tie, that they had to put the vote to the House of Representatives. John Quincy Adams won by a small margin, and Andrew Jackson swore to win the next election. In 1828, Jackson was elected to be the 7th President of the United States of America.
Jackson was the first true democrat, which also meant that he was the first of the feud between republicans and democrats. Jackson, funnily enough, actually held a public white house ball, where anybody could come. It quickly turned into a wild, uncontrollable party. The president at that point had always had veto power, the power to disapprove of bills and spending and laws if they disagreed. Jackson, however, was the first president to really use this power. He used it to block many sorts of unnecessary spending. Jackson also did not approve of the Second Bank of the United States and the way it was controlling the economy of the country, and so he refused to renew the charter to allow the bank to continue. Clearly Jackson was doing at least some things right, because for the first time since the Revolutionary War, America was free of national debt. Ever since then, the National Debt has never even been remotely close to that number.
On March 30th, 1806 (before his presidency or the War of 1812) Andrew Jackson had challenged Charles Dickinson to a duel. Jackson let Dickinson fire first, and a bullet landed near Jackson’s heart, but did not kill him. He made a full recovery. Dickinson, on the other hand, was shot and killed by Jackson’s first bullet. Because of how close the bullet was to Jackson’s heart, there was no safe surgery that could remove the bullet from his chest, so it stayed there for the rest of his life; however, after his presidency, the bullet came back to bite him, killing Jackson through lead poisoning on June 8th, 1845. That means Andrew Jackson had a bullet in his chest for thirty-nine years before it killed him.
Jackson was very influential in the world of politics. He was the first democrat, and he also helped the nation’s economy in ways that we should probably be thankful for now.