Andrew Jackson, Southerner

XI: “Pure & Uncontaminated by Bargain & Sale”

99 XI “Pure & Uncontaminated by Bargain & Sale” Despite Jackson’s determination in 1821 to live out his life as a planter at the Hermitage, he had already been mentioned as a possible successor to President Monroe. In late June 1822 Felix Grundy asked Jackson if he would be open to having his name submitted to the Tennessee General Assembly as a presidential candidate. Jackson’s reacted tepidly. “I never have been a candidate for office, I never will,” he wrote to Richard K. Call, but “the people have a right to call for any mans services in a republican government —and when they do, it is the duty of the individual to yield his services to the call.” The resolution nominating Jackson was introduced by Knox County legislator Pleasant M. Miller the next month. It commenced a months-long process by which the Willie Blount–John Overton faction, of which Jackson was a supporter, sought some way to diminish the control of Tennessee politics held by Governor William Carroll and his allies.1 While some Tennesseans greeted the news of Jackson’s nomination with incredulity and disbelief, supporters across the nation, without the aid of a national committee, quickly took up his cause. In Tennessee the so-called Nashville Junto trumpeted Jackson’s suitability for the presidency. They worked through public meetings and newspapers to spread the word that if voters wanted to root out corruption and end the dominance of the political caucus, then Jackson was their man.2 Historians have used the term Nashville Junto interchangeably with Nashville Central Committee, the official campaign committee that was announced in 1827; whether a Nashville Junto actually existed as an organized body pre-1827 is unlikely. Unquestionably, though, Jackson benefited from having a group of men, connected both to him and to one another, working on his behalf: the three Johns (Coffee, Eaton, and Overton), Andrew Donelson, Felix Grundy, William B. Lewis, and Hugh Lawson White. Although Overton was a longtime friend and political ally, Jackson 100 | Andrew Jackson, Southerner justifiably possessed doubts about his commitment and that of his brotherin -law, Hugh Lawson White. The two men appeared to have precipitated Jackson’s nomination simply to help Pleasant M. Miller advance his own political ambitions in the state. Coffee lived on his North Alabama plantation , but he helped finance, as well as gave advice on, some of the campaign material produced by Eaton. Grundy, who usually maintained his independence from the state’s factional politics, threw his support to Jackson because the potential benefits for his own career outweighed any possible backlash that might result. Donelson, young and fresh from studying law at Transylvania University, was entrusted by his uncle with minor secretarial tasks, such as finding and copying correspondence that Eaton could use to defend him against charges related to his conduct during the Monroe administration.3 Although they could not have accomplished Jackson’s nomination by themselves, the unquestionable campaign managers were the brothers-inlaw Eaton and Lewis. By 1824 both men were widowers, but Lewis had remarried. His second wife, Adelaide Stokes Chambers, provided Jackson with an important political connection. Adelaide Lewis was the daughter of Montfort Stokes, the brother of lawyer John Stokes, Jackson’s friend from North Carolina. William B. Lewis traveled there in 1822 to secure Montfort Stokes’s support of Jackson’s candidacy. Stokes had already committed to Calhoun, but he agreed that the Tennessean was his second choice. Lewis also visited William Polk, another prominent North Carolina politician and a cousin to Tennessee’s James K. Polk, who was just beginning to enter Jackson’s orbit. After conversing with Lewis, William Polk agreed to switch his allegiance from Crawford to Jackson. Eaton, who represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate, functioned as the campaign’s national coordinator . He wrote letters for Jackson, settling disputes with former enemies and addressing questions about policy stances. Like Lewis, Eaton also made trips throughout the South to solicit support. Additionally, he sent campaign material to sympathetic newspaper editors for publication.4 Jackson’s supporters emphasized several consistent themes throughout the campaign. Their candidate was above partisanship and opposed corruption , particularly as it was manifested in the congressional caucus system . By this process a small group of congressmen chose their party’s presidential nominee, a selection that resulted from the constant jostling “Pure & Uncontaminated by Bargain & Sale” | 101 for the executive of...