Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/396

This page needs to be proofread.

Andrew Jackson as a Lawyer. sheriff's posse was sent after him. He took refug-e in the top of a tree, armed with a rifle. His reply to the sheriff's summons was a threat to shoot the first man who came within range. Knowing1 the desperate char acter of the outlaw, no one dared to venture within range of his deadly rifle. When the condition of affairs was reported to Jackson, who was on the bench, he cried, "Summon me." When the court took a recess for din ner, Jackson was summoned accordingly. Bean, being told that Judge Jackson was coming to arrest him, surrendered immedi ately, saying he knew Jackson would shoot him if he didn't. Andrew Jackson was the Prince Rupert of the backwoods, in the Senate, at the bar and on the hustings. He spoke tersely, vigor ously, to the point. He practised Demos thenes' idea of eloquence—action, action, action. Quick, sudden, determined in his opinions, his heart, soul and mind all com bined in his conclusions. To think and to do was one to him. He was as impatient at delay in law and in war as was Ivanhoe, on his sick bed in the castle of Front de Boeuf. Like Job's war horse, he scented the battle from afar. His resolution and daring made him a natural born leader at the bar, as he was afterward in war. His splendid energy made him irresistible in court as in the camp. With him there was no such word as fail. Difficulties, disappeared before his overmas tering activity as snow before the sun. He did many things which the superior re finement of the present day would condemn, and which no man now occupying his posi tion in public life could do and retain his popularity. For instance: a Governor of Tennessee and a judge of the Supreme Court engaging in a personal encounter with pis tols, on the highway, is something which would be regarded at the present time as a gross violation of public decency, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century—in the "good old times"—such an affair took place

353

between Governor Sevier and Judge Jack son. But that Jackson, in spite of his esca pades, was an acceptable judge to the people of Tennessee is shown by the fact that, while he was still on the bench, a county in the State was named after him. The name of Jackson occurs on the map of the United States next in the number of times to that pf Washington, which exceeds Jackson by eight only. After six years' experience on the bench Jackson resigned. Few men, even in the United States, have lived so full and active a life as Andrew Jack son: He was a lawyer, district attorney, judge, member of Congress and United States Senator before he was thirty-one. He was not an educated man, not a well-in formed man, not a man of any literary pre tensions. In his active and energetic life, he had little time or taste for reading and study. His knowledge of history, ancient and mod ern, was very limited. His books were men; human nature his study, and few men have ever lived who knew men better than Andrew Jackson. An American among Americans, he knew his countrymen thoroughly. It has been said of him that he raised himself in the profession of all others the least suited to his genius, at a time of life when men of real merit are only preparing themselves for local distinction, to the office of attorney-general and judge. One who had studied his life carefully said that Jackson never read but one literary work. through ("The Vicar of Wakefield"); that he was ignorant of the law, history, science and literature. He read nothing but newspapers, which are, in some respects, the best, and in others, the worst of all reading. In Jackson's time, newspapers were not so newsy as they are now, when the paper of today contains the history of the whole world of yesterday. It has been asserted by one who knew Jackson intimately that he did not believe the world was round. Indeed, he was one of the most ignorant men that ever reached a commanding posi