page_title: Andrew Jackson
section_title: Later life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Andrew Jackson / Later life and death
caption_attribution_description: 78-year-old Andrew Jackson
context_page_description: Andrew Jackson was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
  Born in the colonial Carolinas to a Scotch-Irish family in the decade before the American Revolutionary War, Jackson became a frontier lawyer and married Rachel Donelson Robards. He served briefly in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, representing Tennessee. After resigning, he served as a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1798 until 1804. Jackson purchased a property later known as The Hermitage, and became a wealthy, slaveowning planter. In 1801, he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander the following year. He led troops during the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
context_section_description: In 1837, after serving two terms as president, Jackson was replaced by his chosen successor Martin Van Buren and retired to the Hermitage. He immediately began putting it in order as it had been poorly managed in his absence by his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr. Although he suffered ill health, Jackson remained highly influential in both national and state politics. He was a firm advocate of the federal union of the states and rejected any talk of secession, insisting, "I will die with the Union." Blamed for causing the Panic of 1837, he was unpopular in his early retirement. Jackson continued to denounce the "perfidy and treachery" of banks and urged his successor, Van Buren, to repudiate the Specie Circular as president.
  As a solution to the panic, he supported an Independent Treasury system, which was designed to hold the money balances of the government in the form of gold or silver and would be restricted from printing paper money so as to prevent further inflation. A coalition of conservative Democrats and Whigs opposed the bill, and it was not passed until 1840. During the delay, no effective remedy had been implemented for the depression. Van Buren grew deeply unpopular. A unified Whig Party nominated popular war hero William Henry Harrison and former Jacksonian John Tyler in the 1840 presidential election. The Whigs' campaign style in many ways mimicked that of the Democrats when Jackson ran. They depicted Van Buren as an aristocrat who did not care for the concerns of ordinary Americans, while glorifying Harrison's military record and portraying him as a man of the people. Jackson campaigned heavily for Van Buren in Tennessee. He favored the nomination of Polk for vice president at the 1840 Democratic National Convention over controversial incumbent Richard Mentor Johnson. No nominee was chosen, and the party chose to leave the decision up to individual state electors.
  Harrison won the election, and the Whigs captured majorities in both houses of Congress. "The democracy of the United States has been shamefully beaten," Jackson wrote to Van Buren. "but I trust, not conquered." Harrison died only a month into his term, and was replaced by Tyler. Jackson was encouraged because Tyler had a strong independent streak and was not bound by party lines. Sure enough, Tyler quickly incurred the wrath of the Whigs in 1841 when he vetoed two Whig-sponsored bills to establish a new national bank, bringing satisfaction to Jackson and other Democrats. After the second veto, Tyler's entire cabinet, with the exception of Daniel Webster, resigned.
  Jackson strongly favored the annexation of Texas, a feat he had been unable to accomplish during his own presidency. While Jackson still feared that annexation would stir up anti-slavery sentiment, his belief that the British would use Texas as a base to threaten the United States overrode his other concerns. He also insisted that Texas was part of the Louisiana Purchase and therefore rightfully belonged to the United States. At the request of Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, acting on behalf of the Tyler administration, which also supported annexation, Jackson wrote several letters to Texas president Sam Houston, urging him to wait for the Senate to approve annexation and lecturing him on how much being a part of the United States would benefit Texas. Initially prior to the 1844 election, Jackson again supported Van Buren for president and Polk for vice president. A treaty of annexation was signed by Tyler on April 12, 1844, and submitted to the Senate. When a letter from Secretary of State Calhoun to British Ambassador Richard Pakenham linking annexation to slavery was made public, anti-annexation sentiment exploded in the North and the bill failed to be ratified. Van Buren decided to write the "Hamlet letter," opposing annexation. This effectively extinguished any support that Van Buren might previously have enjoyed in the South. The Whig nominee, Henry Clay, also opposed annexation, and Jackson recognized the need for the Democrats to nominate a candidate who supported it 
caption: Photographic copy of an 1845 daguerreotype
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