Andrew Jackson, continued
The Jacksons had no children but took under their wing a dozen or more whom they reared with parental devotion. During the Creek War, Jackson saw among the captives an infant Creek boy, about to be killed because all his family was dead. In a flash of memory, he identified with the helpless child, and wrote to Rachel that he was, “so much like myself I feel an unusual sympathy for him.” He was named Lyncoya and Jackson believed he had been given to him for a purpose; “Charity and Christianity says he ought to be taken care of.” He treated him as his own son and told Rachel, “how thankful I am to you for taking poor little Lyncoya home & cloathing him.” Robert Searcy, Bennett’s younger brother, was a lawyer, a Tennessee official, as well as a trustee of Craighead’s Cumberland College. Jackson appointed him his aide-de-camp in 1813. Among Searcy’s good deeds was the purchase at public auction of a slave, called “Black Bob,” who arrived in Tennessee in 1780, on the flotilla commanded by Rachel Donelson’s father. Searcy set Bob up in business and Jackson treated him with the same courtesy as any white customer in giving him credit at his Nashville store. When Bob purchased his freedom in 1801, Searcy asked the legislature to grant him the legal privileges of a white man. Then, as Robert Renfro, he operated a successful hotel in Nashville where Jackson enjoyed his hospitality from time to time. Jackson also maintained cordial relations with the African American community in Nashville. When Nancy Thomas and Reuben Graham were married, all the prominent white people in town were invited and Jackson attended. The ceremony was performed by Dr. William Hume, a Presbyterian minister and close friend of the Jacksons. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Hume came to Nashville as a missionary and taught Ancient Languages and Mathematics at Cumberland College. From 1818 he was Principal of the Nashville Female Academy. Jackson built a Presbyterian Church at the Hermitage for Rachel in 1823 and Dr. Hume often occupied the pulpit. Rachel was devout in attendance, usually at prayer meeting twice a week and at church twice on Sunday. Jackson did not become a church member until after her death but his reverence for her faith was deep. In the campaign of 1824, a letter from a Nashville clergyman, apparently Dr. Hume, expressed the wish that he become President “because he will come out more decidedly in favor of religion than any other of the candidates.”
Rachel, who was quite musical, sang and played the harpsichord. In his latter years, Jackson kept her copy of Isaac Watts’ Hymns under his pillow and in recollection, her voice must have soothed his pain. Let those refuse to sing, In a eulogy at her grave, Dr. Hume praised her virtues and reminded the bereaved that “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” Rachel appears always to have been in Jackson’s thoughts and when he became President, he had a formal garden laid out at the White House and planted magnolias in her memory. The triumph of Jackson’s election as President in 1828 was marred by personal tragedy. Lyncoya died in June and Rachel in December. His sense of duty never faltered, however, and when he arrived in Washington for his inauguration, the outpouring of popular support was immense, especially from ordinary people, who flocked to see the hero from the West. At the public reception that followed the ceremony on the steps of the Capitol, the White House was virtually wrecked by the hordes that came to see the man from Tennessee assume the highest office in the land. It was a belated vindication for Jackson. In the presidental election of 1824, he led the other candidates both in popular and electoral votes but when the contest was decided in the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams became President. The will of the people had been thwarted by a “corrupt bargain” among politicians. In unalloyed scurrility, the political campaign of 1828 was unmatched before or since but Jackson always kept his dignity. He thought of himself as David against Goliath, “who trusts in the God of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob, and for when I fight, it is the battles of my country.” Jackson knew the temper of the capital from his service in Congress. Relying on popular support, he began a purge of corruption that had accumulated during previous administrations. Jackson’s image became that of a reformer, not simply a military hero. His aim was to reform the political character of the nation and revive the virtues of the founding fathers. Jackson was always concerned with using his position to achieve the common good. In 1817 he had participated in an old experiment aimed at curbing the slave trade and alleviating the suffering and humiliation of human bondage in the United States. He became a vice-president of the American Colonization Society when it was organized in Washington. The idea of the colonization of freed slaves in Africa originated with Robert S. Finley, a Presbyterian minister in New Jersey, with strong support from Elias B. Caldwell, clerk of the Supreme Court, and also an ordained Presbyterian minister. The cooperation of many churches made it an interdenominational effort. In 1787 the Presbyterians were first among the national churches to adopt an official position aimed at abolishing slavery. It recommended that the whole system of human bondage be eliminated through education and gradual emancipation, by preparing the enslaved for participation in society. Some Presbyterians took the challenge seriously. Gideon Blackburn in Tennessee bought a slave, John Gloucester, in 1806 and began training him to become a Presbyterian minister. Isaac Anderson of Maryville purchased George M. Erskine in 1815 after he had educated him. Erskine was a dynamic preacher and emigrated to Liberia under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. The Synod of Tennessee gave its endorsement to the Society and in 1817 the Presbyterian General Assembly also gave its unqualified approval to the aims of African colonization. Photos by Jane Hines continued on next page
|
