During his short service in the National House of Representatives he was mainly a silent member. His votes on measures before the House very fully attest his character, and his readiness at any time to oppose what he thought wrong, no matter from what source it came. The small minority which operated without union, and with which he mainly voted, indicated his natural independency. He had the pleasure or mortification of hearing General Washington deliver his last annual speech to Congress, and of seeing the pompous ceremonies of that day on the retirement and inauguration of a President. He was one of the twelve who voted in the House against the eulogistic response of that body to the President's speech, implying a censure of his Administration. Although this act denoted Mr. Jackson's independence of judgment and feeling, probably, it was hardly commendable or necessary to make the display of the quality on that occasion. There were men all through the Revolution, like Charles Lee and Aaron Burr, afterwards a friend of Jackson, who pretended that they never saw much to admire in General Washington, and some of them, perhaps, unwhimsically opposed him on general principles. Andrew Jackson, in the very nature of the man, could never have been a warm admirer of George Washington.

During the winter the subject of paying the men who served in the Nickajack expedition came up by Hugh L. White's sending his claim to Congress as a test case. It now became necessary for Jackson, as the only Representative from Tennessee, to present and defend the claim. The troops had been called out and the expedition undertaken without the consent of

the Government, and upon the necessity of the expedition there was a division of opinion.

On the 29th of December, when White's petition was introduced, Jackson made his first speech in Congress; and on the following day, when the question. was up, on his own resolution he offered some additional remarks to the point, which were characteristic of the man, but in a limited sense.

The appropriation was made, but not without the aid of such men as James Madison. Jackson voted against buying peace or paying tribute to Algiers; against an appropriation to re-furnish the President's house; in favor of restricting carefully all public appropriations; and in favor of completing the vessels of war in process of construction. But the brief speeches named here were about the extent of his speaking during his service in the House, as with the close of the session, March 3, 1797, he withdrew from that body, with the approval of his constituents upon the course he had taken. Tennessee was so republican that the first governor was called "Citizen John Sevier," and Jackson had well maintained her republican character. While she aped France in some respects in her extreme democracy, in other respects she was far too despotic for the straitest descendants of the Federalists in 1876.

If Jackson had done nothing else while in the House of Representatives than secure the payment of the Tennesseeans for the expedition of 1793, it would have been enough to make him immensely popular. Whether this affair was right in itself, and whether the Government should have paid the soldiers for their time, and defrayed the expenses and losses of

the expedition, or whether it was not enough that the country at large should have provisioned the expedition, are questions not necessary to be decided here.

He was

A vacancy now occurring in the representation in the Senate of the United States from Tennessee, and notwithstanding the incongeniality of such employments to Jackson, and his unfitness for them, he was elected to fill the place, and on the assembling of Congress in the fall of 1797 took his seat in the Senate. Little is recorded of his actions in this body. mainly a voter, and a discontented looker-on. one of the straight Jeffersonian opponents of the Administration. Law-making never could have been to his taste. He had neither the ability nor the inclination to exercise the patience and undergo the slow processes of discussion and circumlocution in a legislative assembly.

He was

At the time of this visit to Philadelphia, Jackson met Edward Livingston, with whom he remained on intimate terms ever afterwards. He greatly admired Livingston, who possessed none of his own qualities, and Mr. Livingston fully and freely returned the friendly feeling, affording one of the rare instances of accommodation in very diverse characters.

At this time it was that Mr. Jefferson saw the displays of temper and want of reason in Jackson which, in part, caused him to regard the General's elevation to the Presidency with great concern. Mr. Jefferson admired Jackson's soldierly qualities and republican politics, and supported his course in the Indian and Spanish difficulties in 1818; but the general make-up of such a nature could not have much in it to the taste of Mr. Jefferson. General Jackson, on his part,

was never a warm admirer of any of his predecessors in the Presidency.

Tired of Congress, and impatient to be engaged in matters more to his taste, in April, 1798, Jackson returned to Nashville, and soon afterwards resigned his seat in Congress. The great object he had, doubtlessly, in quitting a position in which he very well knew he could not shine, was the advancement of his pecuniary interests. He was bent on making a fortune. He knew how to take advantage of the opportunities then so golden in Tennessee. His professional services brought him large returns in land, especially. "A mere song" obtained him the title to many a section and quarter-section of land. After the Nickajack expedition Tennessee had little more serious trouble from the Indians. The country improved rapidly and emigrants came in a continuous stream. Land advanced in price, and Jackson's fortune expanded with extraordinary rapidity.

CHAPTER V.

ANDREW JACKSON AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CENTURYSUPERIOR JUDGE-GENERAL OF MILITIA-TRADER

A

AND HORSE-RACER.

LTHOUGH Andrew Jackson had now reached a

certain degree and kind of popularity in Tennessee, he had not held any important office in the new State; and it would be somewhat difficult to estimate the good he had done it, or to strike a balance between his good and bad. He was still Andrew Jackson, Attorney at Law, trader, merchant, and farmer. In the law itself he had made no reputation. Nor did he ever do so. He was never a lawyer. His mind and tastes were unsuited to the law or any other profession. What of law he knew, which was little, he gathered from necessity, not from preference, and his legal learning and pursuits had little influence on his character. These were mere instruments in the hands of a nature which they could not materially affect.

In his "History of Middle Tennessee," Mr. Putnam says that as Prosecuting Attorney Jackson had the reputation of doing things thoroughly. He was the man to correct a wrong that lay in his way. The evildoer had little chance for escape if Mr. Jackson considered himself responsible for his punishment. For such a community the office of District or Territorial Attorney was in efficient hands. It was a position in