Domestic life didn’t improve his health. As before, the richer food of home aggravated his digestive troubles, and the absence of pressing responsibilities allowed him to focus on how bad he was feeling. “For four months I have been oppressed with a violent cough and costiveness,” he wrote James Gadsden in the spring of 1822. Gadsden had suggested a tour of the North and East, to keep the general’s name before the public and to allow his cordial presence to allay concerns about his martial past. Jackson said his health wouldn’t allow it. “I have been recently visited by my old bowel complaint, which has weakened me very much, having a constant flow, in the last twelve hours, upwards of twenty passages.” Of late his lungs had improved but were far from clear. “I continue to throw up great quantities of phlegm.” He wrote to Monroe, “My health is not good, nor have I much hope of regaining it. Retirement and ease may prolong my life, but I fear never can restore my broken constitution.”
Jackson’s finances were healthier than his body, but not by much. A second reason compelling him to decline Gadsden’s offer of a northern tour was a kink in his finances. Especially after the panic of 1819, the western states were like a separate country from the East with respect to the money supply. In the summer of 1822 the exchange rate between West and East—that is, the discount demanded for notes drawn on western banks—distinctly disadvantaged the former. “The state of our paper money would preclude the possibility of procuring Eastern funds”—which he would require to travel in the East—“without a great sacrifice,” Jackson told Gadsden. In regular letters to Andrew Donelson, he warned his nephew to mind expenses. He had sent the young man some money but might not be able to send much more. “I remitted you two hundred dollars, one hundred in each letter, Nashville paper, which I hope has reached you and which will cover your present wants. It will at all times afford me pleasure to remit to you such sums as will be necessary to finish your education. But, my young friend, you must now reflect that I have no means by which I can be in the receipt of money but from the product of my farm or the sale of my negroes. I name this to you that you may adopt economy . . . that your expences may be within my means.”
The product of the Hermitage was chiefly cotton and corn. The corn fed the slaves and the livestock; the cotton went to market. Like every other commercial farmer, Jackson watched the price of his market crop as closely as he watched the weather. It fluctuated wildly, sometimes doubling or halving within months. He was better off in this respect than producers of such perishable crops as wheat, for if the cotton price fell too far he could store his bales and hope for better. But storage cost money, and he couldn’t pay his bills with warehoused cotton. The coming of the steamboat improved transportation and communication in the West, but distance from markets remained a problem. During the autumn of 1822 Jackson asked his agents in New Orleans about the market there. “The very best selections from choice prime Louisiana cotton will not command over 14 or 141/2 cents,” they said. Tennessee cotton couldn’t expect to do that well. “ The prime and best put of the new crop would not now (if in market) command over 10 cents . . . and common crops not more than from 6 to 8 cents.”
Jackson’s operation was modest as cotton farms went. The acreage he had in cotton varied from year to year, as did the yield. But in 1825, a fairly typical year, he planted 131 acres and harvested 71 bales of about five hundred pounds of cleaned, deseeded cotton each. Which was to say, of course, that Jackson’s slaves planted those acres and harvested those bales. An inventory at the beginning of 1825 counted eighty slaves at the Hermitage. All lived with their families: some large (“Tom, wife, and nine children,” “Old Sampson, wife, and nine children”), some small (“Polydore, wife, and two children,” “Big Sampson, wife, and child”). Seven were over fifty years of age (and hence not taxable, which was why their ages were recorded), and thirty-two were under thirteen (same reason).
Most of Jackson’s slaves accepted their lot without complaint that rose to the level of his notice. Successful resistance to the will of a master was next to impossible in Jackson’s part of the country. A slave might escape supervision momentarily but, so far from foreign or free territory, couldn’t expect to elude capture for long. Gilbert was a slave brought to Tennessee from the East in 1820 or 1821. Jackson purchased him at about that time and installed him on a plantation he had purchased in Alabama, which he called the Big Spring farm. Gilbert married a woman from the area but in April 1822 ran away. “If he has left the neighborhood of his wife,” Jackson conjectured to Egbert Harris, who had just been given responsibility for managing the Big Spring place, “he has attempted to go back to Carolina or Virginia, from whence he was brought.” Jackson told Harris to print notices of the escape in the surrounding papers. “I still hope he is lurking about his wife’s house.” Jackson assumed Gilbert would be captured, and he told Harris what to do when he was. “If he can be got, I wish him well secured with irons until an opportunity may offer to send him down the river, as I will not keep a negro in the habit of running away.” Jackson went on to explain his philosophy of disciplining slaves. “My dear sir, although you will find some of my negroes at first hard to manage, still I hope you will be able to govern them without much difficulty. I have only to say, you know my disposition, and as far as lenity can be extended to these unfortunate creatures, I wish you to do so.” But lenity supposed obedience. “Subordination must be obtained first, and then good treatment.”
(As it happened, Jackson didn’t sell Gilbert down the river, despite at least two more escapes. But after the third flight and apprehension, in 1827, the desperate bondsman resisted the whipping Jackson’s overseer, Ira Walton, attempted to administer, and was killed. Jackson’s political rivals argued that Gilbert’s death revealed Jackson’s cruelty as a master. Most of that majority which voted for Jackson in 1828 apparently judged it no worse than a regrettable incident in an imperfect world.)
Like every other farmer, Jackson complained about the weather. It was either too dry or too wet. “I regret the drought with you,” he wrote one summer to John Coffee, his old comrade in arms and currently fellow farmer. But in the same sentence he declared, “It has rained constantly here since my return. Cumberland up, and also Stone’s River, and the fodder much injured by the continued rains.”
Bad weather made the crops vulnerable to pests. Sometimes the damage occurred almost overnight. “I had sat down to write you about two weeks ago,” Jackson told Coffee in May 1823. “I commenced my letter with the information of my fine prospect of my cotton crop. This was on Saturday. Whilst writing I was interrupted by company who remained with me until Tuesday, which days were cool and cloudy. I resumed my letter on Tuesday, but thought before I would conclude my flattering prospects of a cotton crop I would view it. . . . I never saw such ravages committed as had been on my cotton for those three days.” The culprit was a worm that feasted on the new leaves. Fortunately the pests hadn’t killed the crop, which was recovering slowly. Jackson added that his corn was knee high but was attracting pests of its own. “The crows, squirrels, and pigeons has been very bad.”
Yet for all the troubles, Jackson got the Hermitage in a condition that caught the attention of the neighbors. Willie Blount visited Jackson and described to a friend what he saw.
Although I have ever considered him to be among the most industrious men of my acquaintance, both in public and private life, I was really surprised to find his farm in such excellent order, and so very productive, under all circumstances relating to his absence from home, attending the public relations during the late war and since. His farming land is, as you know, very fertile, very beautiful, and eligibly situated for comfort. It is largely improved, handsomely arranged with gratifying appearance to the visitors at his most hospitable house, open to all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance, and who travel through his neighborhood, none of whom pass that way without calling on him for social intercourse, viewing him to be the polite gentleman at home and abroad and the friend of man everywhere. His every arrangement for farming on an extensive scale delights the man of observation; his fields are extensive and nicely cultivated as a garden; his meadows and pastures are extensive and neatly kept; his stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs are of the best kind, and all in excellent order.
B
ut Jackson’s supporters wouldn’t let him tend his farm in peace. “The subject of the next President has, as you will perceive, been agitated in our papers,” James Gadsden wrote from Washington. “Crawford’s friends are intriguing deeply and in some quarters with success.” Gadsden shared Jackson’s opinion of Crawford. “To elevate him to the Presidential chair will produce a chain of evils and entail a series of misfortunes on our country that will require a century to remedy.” The current alternative to the secretary of the Treasury, at least in the thinking of most Washington observers, was the secretary of state. Gadsden wasn’t hopeful. “Mr. Adams’ friends are not so active, and even the quarter from whence he should expect support appear lukewarm.” New Yorkers were touting their governor, De Witt Clinton—vainly, Gadsden judged. “Mr. Clinton stands no chance; excepting his immediate party, he is execrated by a large majority of the community.”
Gadsden was reporting in this letter, yet he was also inquiring. “I know not your opinions as to who should be the next President, but believe you agree with me as to the total unfitness as to a certain aspiring personage”—that is, Crawford. “If in this case you deem me worthy of your confidence, you will give me your views on the subject. You will appreciate my motives on this request: The good of our country requires that all honest men, who are in favour of a settled policy for the administration of our government, characterised by honest independence and a freedom from intrigue, should unite in elevating to the Presidency the man who will be governed accordingly.” Gadsden suggested no candidate for Jackson’s endorsement, but he reiterated that the man with the current advantage was definitely
not
what America needed. “Mr. Crawford is and has even been a most dangerous and unsettled politician.”
Gadsden knew Jackson well enough to understand his former commander’s psychology. Jackson could be formidable in support of a person or cause, but he was absolutely ferocious in opposition to something or especially someone. As subsequent letters and actions showed, Gadsden wanted Jackson to enter the race. Like many—probably most—others who had served under Jackson, he thought Jackson would make a better president than the scamps, scoundrels, and incompetents who currently held the seats of power in Washington. He admired Jackson’s integrity and devotion to the public good. And he realized that the way to get Jackson into the race was to suggest that if he stayed out, Crawford would win.
At this point—November 1821—few people took a Jackson candidacy seriously. Loyalists like Edward Livingston had been praising him since the Battle of New Orleans. And opponents like Crawford and Clay were worried enough to set backfires against him. But no one like Jackson had ever been elected, or even nominated for the presidency. George Washington was the model Jackson’s supporters cited: the hero soldier who led his country through war to the promised land of peace and independence. But Washington was far more than a soldier. He was the most eminent citizen of the most populous state and had been at the forefront of national politics since before the Revolution. As president of the constitutional convention of 1787, Washington oversaw the creation of the federal government under which he was then elected. The other presidents had all been insiders, groomed by their years of service to their predecessors. Since Jefferson, they had all been secretaries of state.
There were reasons for this political habit. In an age when news traveled slowly, and people still more so, a national reputation generally took years to cultivate. And it was most easily cultivated through the existing institutions of government. The men who came to the national capital from the several states got to know one another and to know those who held executive office. They formed impressions of one another and took those impressions home to their states, where their acquaintances in the state legislatures chose the electors who actually chose the president.
In part because of this personalized form of politics, political parties had come to play a very large role in the filtering of candidates. Indeed, since the self-destruction of the Federalists, the Republican party had essentially dictated the choice of president. Did James Monroe command support among the people at large? No one knew or much cared. He had the support of leading Republicans, which was all that mattered for twice becoming president.
Moreover, the Republican leadership was construed in a specific way: as the Republican caucus in Congress. Republicans in the states might be consulted, but they had no formal role in the winnowing process. To gain the nomination required the support of the Republicans in Washington.
Yet in the early 1820s there were signs of change. Westerners had never liked the clubbiness of the caucus system, which had the effect—and the intent—of keeping an eastern hold on the federal government. As the population moved west, more western states entered the Union, with the result that western views had to be taken into account. And the western states typically entered with fewer restrictions on voting than the eastern states imposed. Several endorsed the idea that voters—rather than the state legislatures—should choose the electors who chose the president. The result was that for the first time a westerner, and a man popular with the people even if not beloved of the party, might become president.
I
f Jackson dreamed of the presidency at this time, he kept his dreams to himself. He didn’t tell Rachel, who liked having her husband home and certainly would have objected. He didn’t tell Gadsden or various other correspondents, who would have spread the word quickly. Quite possibly he had no such dreams. He had little reason to think he was especially qualified for the presidency. His brief career in elective politics—as representative and senator from Tennessee—had convinced him that most of what Congress did was a waste of time. He might have fancied himself a capable commander in chief, but there was no war and none threatened, effectively eliminating most of that part of the president’s job. For the rest of what presidents did—the distribution of patronage, dealing with Congress, administering the government—he had neither patience nor expertise.