Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/311

card-playing, mischievous fellow” that had ever been seen in that town. Many and plentiful were the wild-oat crops sown at that time and in that part of the country; and in such sort of agriculture young Jackson was much more proficient than in the study of jurisprudence. He never had a legal tone of mind, or any but the crudest knowledge of law; but in that frontier society a small amount of legal knowledge went a good way, and in 1788 he was appointed public prosecutor for the western district of North Carolina, the district since erected into the state of Tennessee. The emigrant wagon-train in which Jackson journeyed to Nashville carried news of the ratification of the Federal constitution by the requisite two thirds of the states. He seems soon to have found business enough. In the April term of 1790, out of 192 cases on the dockets of the county court at Nashville, Jackson was employed as counsel in 42; in the year 1794, out of 397 cases he acted as counsel in 228; while at the same time he was practising his profession in the courts of other counties. The great number of these cases is an indication of their trivial character. As a general rule they were either actions growing out of disputed land-claims or simple cases of assault and battery. Court day was a great occasion in that wild community, bringing crowds of men into the county town to exchange gossip, discuss politics, drink whiskey, and break heads.