Andrew Jackson Will Not Seek the Presidency, But if Called to the Office by the People, He Will Accept

He predicts the future of the West: “You have displayed wisdom in your determination to remove in the West, and let your children grow with its growth.

 

The man who sent the Cherokee Indians on their Trail of Tears says traveling through Cherokee country is “disagreeable”

Major Henry M. Rutledge was the only son of the Edward Rutledge, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and Governor of South Carolina. Major Rutledge was born in Charleston in April 1775. At the age of twenty-two, in 1797, he joined Gen. C.C. Pinckney at the embassy in Paris as his Private Secretary; and on his return to the United States in 1799, he received a commission as Major in the United States Army, and became also the aide of General Pinckney. After having served several terms in the Legislature of his native state, he removed to Tennessee in 1816. There he was a friend of Andrew Jackson. Correspondence between the men is in the Library of Congress.

At the time of this letter, Jackson was serving in the U.S. Senate, representing Tennessee. Autograph letter signed, Washington, January 11, 1824 to Major Rutledge. In the letter, Jackson comments on the Cherokees, promotes the American West, and discusses his presidential ambitions. “I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your very kind letter of the 1st instant conveying the good wishes of you and Mrs. Rutledge for my health, happiness and property, all of which with great sincerity I beg leave to reciprocate. It offered me much pleasure to learn, that you reached your friends without accident, and are now enjoying an agreeable, social and happy winter with them.

“The country of the Cherokees through which you had to pass, must have been disagreeable to Mrs. R., but I hope the novelty of the Indian customs, have in some degree compensated her for her privations.

“I have noted your remarks on the change of Carolina since your last visit. This must bring to your view the increasing value of our land in the West; and convince you of the propriety of your course in holding on to your western land; in twenty years the lands there will increase 500 percent in value. You have displayed wisdom in your determination to remove in the West, and let your children grow with its growth. You could not promise yourself much pleasure by the removal & might produce much injury to the younger branches of your family.

“On the subject of which you speak and as my friend are much interested, I have to remark; I feel no solicitude [concern] on that subject. You are apprized that the people brought me out. With them I have & intend to leave it, without any interference of mine. Should the people call me to fill the first office in their gift, I must yield to that call: should they select another, it will afford me pleasure in contemplating that they have found another on whom they can with more confidence rely on than me. I believe you are aware that my farm & my friends, in the peaceful shade of retirement, offered much pleasure to me.

To spend my few remaining years with my wife, family and friends, in peaceful ease would be most pleasant to me. I have no ambitious views to accomplish – But should they people exercise their right of suffrage, & call me to fill that first office in their gift; I will yield to that call, & execute the trust reposed, with an eye single to the public good. You will see from the public prints that the people in the different states are exhibiting much feeling, on the Presidential question.

“Present me kindly to your lady, & the part of the family with you; and accept for yourself a tender of my best respects, and believe me your friend, Andrew Jackson.”

The year of this letter, 1824, Jackson became one of the major contenders for the presidency. The others were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. A popular war hero and ‘outsider’ who stood for all the people, Jackson won much support and surged into the presidential election where he won a 42-percent plurality of the popular vote and a plurality of electoral votes, receiving 99 votes. Because no candidate had a majority of 131 electoral votes, the House of Representatives held a contingent election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment. With the support of Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House who presided over the election’s resolution, John Quincy Adams won the House election on the first ballot. After the 1824 election, Jackson’s supporters immediately began plans for a campaign in 1828, and the Democratic-Republican Party had fractured into the National Republican Party and the Democratic Party during Adams’s presidency. Jackson was nominated for president by the Democrats. He decisively won the election, carrying 55.5% of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes, to Adams’ 83. The election marked the rise of Jacksonian Democracy.