Andrew Jackson Facts

Learn some fun Andrew Jackson facts and interesting trivia here, plus you can read a few of his famous quotes.

On December 3, 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh President of the United States. He was born on March 15, 1767 in Waxhaw, South Carolina. During his life he was also a lawyer, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator and war hero.

Keep reading for some fun and maybe even surprising Andrew Jackson facts...

• Andrew Jackson was born the same year as his Presidential predecessor, John Quincy Adams

• Andrew Jackson was born in a log cabin, just like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson was the first U.S. President to be born in a log cabin.

• Jackson fought as a boy-militiaman in the Revolutionary War - joining when he was only 13. He and his brother Robert were captured by the British in 1781.
• While captured, he was ordered by a British officer to clean the officers boots, young Jackson refused. The officer struck at Jackson with his saber, leaving scars on his arm and head.
• Jackson fought in several duels

• Andrew Jackson was a betting man, winning and losing thousands of dollars betting on horses.

• By the time Jackson was 30, he had achieved political power in Tennessee - rising from prosecuting attorney to U.S. representative to U.S. senator.

• Jackson became really famous during the War of 1812, first as an Indian fighter and then as victor in the Battle of New Orleans.

• Jackson's father died a few days before Andrew was born.

• He learned to read before he was five years old

• As a youngster, Andrew Jackson took turns as a "public reader", reading newspapers to citizens of his community who could not read - in later years, he remembered reading the Declaration of Independence when a copy of the document reached Waxhaw in the summer of 1776.

• Andrew Jackson was a rather "wild" teenager, and he quickly ran through a small inheritance

• Andrew Jackson was a backwoods lawyer
• He met Mrs. Rachel Donelson Robards, the estranged wife of Lewis Robards of Kentucky, in Nashville, while living in her mother's boarding house. They married in August, 1791, but her divorce was not yet final. Finally, in September of 1793, her divorce was final and the Jackson's remarried on January 7, 1794.

• Andrew Jackson was the first representative elected to Congress from the new state of Tennessee in 1796.

• Andrew Jackson served as a second in a duel between a friend of his and Jesse Benton (brother of the famous Thomas Hart Benton). Jesse Benton eventually shot Andrew Jackson in the arm in Nashville, during a fight between Jackson and both Benton's. Doctor's urged Jackson to have his mangled arm amputated, but he declined. He carried buckshot in his arm for the next nineteen years, until they were finally removed when he was President.

• Jackson was president for two terms, from 1829 until 1837
• Political Party: Democratic
• Nickname: Old Hickory
• On January 30, 1835, President Jackson was nearly assassinated by Richard Lawrence, during a funeral for Congressman Warren R. Davis of South Carolina. In the United States Capitol rotunda, Lawrence approached the President and fired his pistol. The gun failed to discharge. Lawrence drew another gun and fired again. That gun also failed to fire. Richard Lawrence was tried and found not guilty on grounds of insanity.

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"The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his Government, deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and friend to her foe."

"The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality."

"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country."

"The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests."

"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending."

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

"One man with courage makes a majority."

"Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there."

"To the victors belong the spoils."

"Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms."

"I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office."

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