Andrew Jackson

On March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region on the North Carolina-South Carolina border, Andrew Jackson was born into a Scots-Irish immigrant family. Orphaned during the Revolutionary War, he later read law in Salisbury, North Carolina, and moved to the Tennessee frontier as a prosecuting attorney. Service in the Tennessee militia and state politics made him a rising western leader by the early nineteenth century.

Jackson's national reputation surged after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He then used military fame to win the presidency in 1828 and served from 1829 to 1837, issuing the Bank veto in 1832, the Nullification Proclamation in 1832, and signing the Indian Removal Act in 1830. His administration expanded presidential authority while forcing Native nations toward removal and provoking fierce constitutional conflict.

Jacksonian politics helped build the Democratic Party and redefined how presidents claimed a popular mandate within the federal system. The Trail of Tears, the Nullification Crisis, and later secession debates all remained tied to the precedents and injuries created during Jackson's presidency.