Andrew Jackson Lays a Trap For President John Quincy Adams, Seeking to Force Him into an Exposed and Untenable Position

He wants Adams to either deeply embroil himself in a firestorm of controversy by publicly defending the rights of the Creek Indians to retain their ancestral lands, or for self-serving reasons appear to have betrayed his own negotiator.

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Jackson also confirms he has resigned his U.S. Senate seat

There were four candidates in the 1824 presidential election: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson received the most popular votes, and the most electoral votes, but did not have a majority of votes in the electoral college....

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Andrew Jackson Lays a Trap For President John Quincy Adams, Seeking to Force Him into an Exposed and Untenable Position

He wants Adams to either deeply embroil himself in a firestorm of controversy by publicly defending the rights of the Creek Indians to retain their ancestral lands, or for self-serving reasons appear to have betrayed his own negotiator.

Jackson also confirms he has resigned his U.S. Senate seat

There were four candidates in the 1824 presidential election: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson received the most popular votes, and the most electoral votes, but did not have a majority of votes in the electoral college. This meant that, for the only time in American history, the House of Representatives had to choose between the top two candidates. Clay threw his support to Adams, who made him Secretary of State, and Adams was inaugurated President on March 4, 1825. Jackson and his supporters felt they had been robbed. The Tennessee Legislature immediately nominated Jackson, their favorite son, for President in 1828, and citing a conflict of interest Jackson resigned his Senate seat in October 1825 to devote himself fully to defeating Adams in the next election. Jackson and his followers situated themselves as the leaders of a cause, popular sovereignty. The President, they insisted, should be elected by popular vote, not by bargaining in the nation's capital. President Adams found his projects opposed and stymied by Jackson men. A number of newspapers transformed themselves into organs of the new Jacksonian party.

The Creek Indians had historically owned much land in the state of Georgia, and the desire of whites to obtain that land began in earnest with the first Treaty of Indian Springs in 1821. In it, the Lower Creeks ceded land to the state in return for cash payments totaling $200,000 over a period of 14 years. The leading Indian signatory of that treaty, and the leading advocate of the ‘civilizing mission' of the United States as a justification for Native Americans surrendering their lands, was the corrupt chief William McIntosh. McIntosh was very well rewarded by Georgia, receiving land, plantations and slaves, in a clear conflict of interest. The second Treaty of Indian Springs was signed on February 12, 1825 and was again negotiated by McIntosh, this time with his first cousin, Georgia Governor George Troup. Under this treaty the Lower Creek surrendered all of their lands east of the Chattahoochee River, and accepted relocation west of the Mississippi River. In compensation for the move to unimproved land, and to aid in obtaining supplies, the Creek nation received $200,000 paid in decreasing installments over a period of years. A controversial article provided for additional payments to McIntosh, who again personally benefited from the treaty. Although U.S. agent to the Creeks John Crowell warned Washington that the signatories were low-ranking and the treaty did not have the support of the Creek nation, this was overlooked at the time. The treaty was ratified and signed by Adams in one of his first acts in office on March 7, 1825. This second treaty was popular with Georgians, who re-elected Troup in the state's first popular election. He claimed that with the treaty’s ratification, title in Creek land had vested in the state. But the treaty was considered fraudulent by the Creek National Council, which ordered the execution of McIntosh and other signatories. War between the Creeks and whites loomed. On April 29, 1825, the Upper Creek chief Menawa took 200 warriors to attack McIntosh at his plantation. They killed him and two other signatories, and set fire to his house.

Georgians were outraged and asked the federal government to intervene, even as complaints about the treaty from the Creeks reached Washington. Eager to avoid conflict between Creeks and white southerners, and becoming dubious about the treaty’s validity now that he had had time to realize the facts involved, Adams sent Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines to Georgia in May to investigate events. Gaines had served under Andrew Jackson in his Florida campaign, and had been assigned to take the so-called Negro Fort then in the Spanish territory of Florida. For a man who participated in the Indian Wars of that time, Gaines had the rather surprising view that the U.S. government should deal with Indians fairly and humanely. Throughout his career, Gaines supplied starving Indians with food, thoroughly investigated accusations of Indian violence rather than retaliating rashly, and thus would be unlikely to protect the rights of white squatters who wanted to settle on Creek lands. So his choice sent a message to Georgia. It is important to note that while Gaines and Jackson were on friendly and even cordial terms, they were not in agreement about Indian resettlement. Jackson was in favor and as President would become its foremost proponent, while Gaines disliked the unfairness of the removal policies.

Once in Georgia, Gaines quickly came to agree with Crowell and the Creek leaders that McIntosh and the other signatories had no authority to conclude that agreement. This brought him into contact with Troup, with the two men engaging in a bitter public debate between July and September about the validity of the treaty and the respective authority of the federal and state governments over its implementation. Troup also attacked Adams for failure to respect states’ rights. Congressional opponents of Adams piled on, adding their criticisms. Adams found himself in the midst of the first great crisis of his administration.

Gaines, meanwhile, entered into talks with the Creeks, who on November 1, 1825 agreed to negotiate a new treaty with the U.S. government, thus bypassing the state claims. Although Gaines still urged them to cede their lands and move west of the Mississippi, he had implied the Creeks might not need to and that they deserved a better deal. By mid-November two delegations were on their way to Washington – one from the Creek National Council to make a new treaty on lenient terms, and one from white Georgians, led by McIntosh’s son, to prevent the second Treaty of Indian Springs from being overturned and get federal help to quickly drive the Creeks west.

Rachel and Andrew Jackson, who had no children of their own, had two adopted children. They were also the legal guardians for six boys and two girls, four of whom – Caroline, Eliza, Edward G.W., and Anthony Wayne Butler – were children of Jackson’s friend Revolutionary War General Edward Butler. When Butler died in 1803, he named Jackson as their guardian. Edward went on to become aide-de-camp to General Gaines. In 1826, he would marry Frances Parke Lewis of Woodlawn Plantation, Virginia. Her father, Lawrence Lewis, was the son of Betty, George Washington’s only sister, and he married Nelly Custis, a granddaughter of Martha Washington. Nelly played the piano at Robert E Lee's wedding to Mary Anna Randolph Custis in the early summer of 1831. Edward and his siblings were also cousins to Meriwether Lewis. Eliza married Jackson’s nephew John Donelson, and was thus a Jackson relative. She became ill upon the birth of her daughter Mary in late 1824. She revived, dying in 1850. Anthony died on his way from New Orleans to Connecticut to attend Yale Law School in late 1824.

The Gibson referenced in this letter was Tennessean Col. John H. Gibson, who served under Jackson as a cavalry officer in 1812-1813, and then again at the Battle of New Orleans, where his valor was conspicuous. He was held in great esteem by his old commander. William Robertson was relative of Butler’s fiancee and a Jackson delegate to the Virginia convention in 1824.

"I still hope that the Executive will act justly by Genl. Gaines, but he and myself have had sufficient experience to know, unless shielded by positive instructions, the Executive will shield itself from responsibility if it can, and throw it upon its subordinate. I hope my fears for the Genl. will be groundless. Still, I cannot but feel for the safety of my friend, when I see an avenue through which he may be assailed and his feelings corroded by Congress."

Jackson’s step-son Butler (Gaines’s aide-de-camp) was keeping him informed about the happenings in Georgia. Autograph Letter Signed, two pages, Hermitage, November 10, 1825, to Butler, responding to the latest information, and laying a trap for Adams. Jackson  also confirms his resignation from the Senate and mildly criticizes Gaines for making public statements defending the Creeks. ”I had the pleasure to receive your several letters from Georgia & the Creek Nation, which would have been earlier acknowledged had I been informed of your return to the city of Washington. I regret that my friend Genl. Gaines permitted himself to be drawn into a political newspaper controversy with Gov. T[roup]. However justifiable his conduct may be in this affair, still, it will afford Troup's friends in Congress a strong ground to assail the General as a military man–and it is to be tested how far the Executive will sustain him should his own popularity be endangered in the least thereby. I still hope that the Executive will act justly by Genl. Gaines, but he and myself have had sufficient experience to know, unless shielded by positive instructions, the Executive will shield itself from responsibility if it can, and throw it upon its subordinate. I hope my fears for the Genl. will be groundless. Still, I cannot but feel for the safety of my friend, when I see an avenue through which he may be assailed and his feelings corroded by Congress. Present me to the General respectfully.

"You will have seen from the public journals that I have resigned my seat in the Senate of the U. States – therefore will not have the pleasure of seeing you made happy by receiving the hand of the amiable Miss Lewis. Mrs. J. and myself send you and her our best wishes for your happiness. We anticipate the pleasure of seeing you both at the Hermitage. Present us respectfully to Mr. & Mrs. Lewis. Your sister Eliza is recovering but has not visited us this fall. She had a long and disagreeable confinement. Her daughter is a very fine and sprightly child. She dotes on it. I do not believe she is yet advised of Anthony’s death – although she must suspect it from not hearing from him but never names it. I hope she will perfectly recover 0 when I last saw her she was in fine spirits. I shall be happy to hear from you from the city. Give me the private and political news. Present me to General Robertson and my old friend Col. Gibson, & all my military friends…”

The address panel is in Jackson’s hand, and Butler has written on it: “Received Washington December 15, and answered Woodlawn December 17, 1825. Regrets Genl. Gaines’s controversy with Governor Troup of Georgia. His hopes & fears of Executive support. Mentions my sister & her daughter”.

This letter illustrates Jackson’s cleverness and strategic thinking, all with an eye to 1828. By getting to Gaines through his chief aide, implying that Adams should be publicly defending Gaines, Jackson knew he placed the President in an impossible situation. Adams could hardly elect to take that course of action without embroiling himself in a battle with Georgia and those attacking Gaines in Congress, which would ratchet up the controversy, make himself the center of it, and expose himself to constant and much more dangerous abuse from Jackson and his supporters. All this might sink his new administration. On the other hand, if Jackson could convince Gaines that Adams’s failure to forthrightly speak out on his behalf was a betrayal, he could drive a wedge between Adams and his negotiator, with whom he was in agreement. In a best case, Jackson might goad Gaines into forcing Adams defend him, thus achieving both possibilities at once.

In any event, Adams received the Creeks on November 26, and through December very difficult negotiations continued. Adams was torn, feeling unable to accede to the Creeks’ position or anything close to it, while yet correcting an injustice, and at the same time being pressured by Georgia and its supporters in Congress and elsewhere to concede nothing, and not wanting the Creek matter to cause a major dispute within the U.S. In January 1826 negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Washington, which voided the Treaty of Indian Springs, and in which the Creeks surrendered most of the lands sought by Georgia under more generous terms (a one-time payment of $217,600 plus $20,000 each year in perpetuity), but retained a small piece of land on the Georgia-Alabama border. Thus they were not specifically required to move west.

Refusing to acknowledge the new treaty’s validity, Governor Troup ordered the land surveyed for a lottery, including the piece that was to remain in Creek hands. The President would generate a firestorm and be accused of violating states rights if he intervened with Federal troops to stop Troup, and he would seem powerless otherwise. And already under attack in Congress, there was realistically little he could do. This suited Jackson just fine. In the end, all remaining Creek lands were taken by the state. By 1827, the Creeks were gone from Georgia.

Throughout his administration Jackson and his supporters kept Adams on the defensive, and the Adams administration never was able to enact its agenda. Jackson’s strategy, of which this letter is a part, was successful and he was elected in 1828. However, as for driving a wedge with Gaines, the wedge was not with Adams, but Jackson himself. When President Jackson forced the Indians onto the Trail of Tears, Gaines came out in opposition, causing hard feelings between the former comrades in arms.

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