page_title: Rachel Jackson
section_title: Election of 1828 and death
hierarchical_section_title: Rachel Jackson / Election of 1828 and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Tomb of Andrew and Rachel Jackson in the garden of The Hermitage. Photograph by J. Williams (Mar 18, 2004).
context_page_description: Rachel Jackson was the wife of Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States. She lived with him at their home at The Hermitage, where she died just days after his election and before his inauguration in 1829—therefore she never served as First Lady, a role assumed by her niece, Emily Donelson.
  Rachel Jackson was married at first to Lewis Robards in Nashville. In about 1791, she eloped with Andrew Jackson, believing that Robards had secured the couple a divorce. It was later revealed that he had not, meaning that her marriage to Jackson was technically bigamous. They were forced to remarry in 1794 after the divorce had been finalized.
  She had a close relationship with her husband, and was usually anxious while he was away tending to military or political affairs. A Presbyterian, Rachel was noted for her deep religious piety. During the deeply personal prelude to the 1828 election, she was the subject of extremely negative attacks from the supporters of Andrew Jackson's opponent, John Quincy Adams. Jackson believed that these attacks had hastened her death, and thus blamed his political enemies.
context_section_description: According to Ann Toplovich, executive director of the Tennessee Historical Society, John Quincy Adams' presidential campaigns targeted Jackson's "passion and lack of self-control" in both 1824 and 1828, "making it central to the argument that he would devastate the integrity of the Republic and its institutions."  One newspaper ran an article asking, "'Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?'"
  The publicity surrounding her and the public knowledge of what was considered a very private matter caused Rachel to sink into depression.  She reputedly told a friend "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington." Adding to her stress, in 1828, Lyncoya Jackson died at the Hermitage. Between the scandal, her son's death, and a heart condition she spent much of the campaign depressed and crying.
  She died suddenly on December 22, 1828, of a heart attack, given her symptoms according to Jackson: "excruciating pain in the left shoulder, arm, and breast." That her death came immediately before Jackson left for Washington was more than an inconvenience; it was crippling. He held her body tightly until he was pulled away, and he lingered at the Hermitage until the latest possible date.
  Even though her maladies began as early as 1825, Jackson always blamed his political enemies for her death. "May God Almighty forgive her murderers," Jackson swore at her funeral, "I never can."
  She was buried on the grounds at The Hermitage wearing the white dress and shoes she had bought for the Inaugural Ball. Her epitaph reads: "A being so gentle and so virtuous slander might wound, but could not dishonor."
caption: The tomb of Andrew and Rachel Jackson at The Hermitage
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