Sold – Andrew Jackson Indulges His Greatest Passion to Help a Friend

Jackson was elected in 1796 as Tennessee’s first representative in Congress, but rose to the U.S. Senate a year later. He was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Tennessee in 1798, and won respect as a jurist whose opinions, though unsophisticated, reflected his often expressed charge to the jury: “Do what is right between these parties. That is what the law always means.” Jackson’s judicial career lasted until 1804.

Then, having retired from the bench, he dedicated himself to development of a new home at the Hermitage, a few miles northeast of Nashville, where the uncertainties of cotton growing were partly forgotten in the joys of his greatest passion, the breeding, training and racing of thoroughbred horses.

George Washington Campbell (1768-1848) was a long-time friend and neighbor of Jackson in Tennessee, who with him co-founded the Masonic lodge near the Hermitage. Campbell served in Congress from 1803-1809, where he was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and in the United States Senate from 1811-1814. Pres. Madison then appointed him Secretary of the Treasury. In 1811, he sent a horse to breed with one of Jackson’s, and later wrote asking for an accounting so he could pay for the services provided. Here Jackson complies to a degree, first indicating that he had not intended to bill Campbell, then generously insisting that Campbell set off amounts Jackson ought to owe him for some favor or service Campbell had done for Jackson. This was clearly a pretext for not taking money from his friend.

Andrew Jackson Autograph Letter Signed, one page 4to, August 5, 1811, to Campbell. “Agreeable to your request, I send you an account of Expense of keeping your sorrel mare. Whether I am precisely correct as to time and date I cannot precisely say, for never intending to have presented you with an account had it not have been for your request, I have no date except the Stud Book of the date she was put to the horse, and agreeable thereto I have made out the account. You will note that if you have given the mare to Mr. Childress to breed from on the shares, I suppose he is chargeable with the last season. If so, he may account to me or to you for the season as you may think proper.” He adds a P. S. “You will be good enough to Credit yourself with the amount due you for fees and strike a balance, and when done you will please advise me in whose favour the Balance stands.”

The Mr. Childress referred to was likely Joel Childress, a successful Tennessee planter and father of Sarah Childress Polk, whose husband James K. Polk was a protege of Jackson’s and the 11th President of the United States. This interesting letter shows us a glimpse of Jackson the man, generous to a fault yet still maintaining the propriety of the situation. When it was written, Jackson was campaigning to replace Silas Dinsmore, U.S. agent to the Choctaw Indians, because he had shown some sympathy for slaves by making it hard for white men to take slaves within the Indian areas under his control, often detaining the blacks or confiscating them.

Just months later, however, the military-minded Jackson switched focus and began recruiting volunteers for what he knew was an upcoming war with Great Britain. His leadership in that war would make him a national hero. Auction records indicate that only one other letter manifesting his passion for horse breeding has been indexed over the past 30 years.