Andrew Jackson as a Lawyer.
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the attempt. He soon came to a spot where man for the time and place; brave, fearless, the Indians had left the road and taken to bold, he was as ready with the pistol as with the woods, their object being to get ahead the tongue. His knowledge of the intricacies of the whites, and ambush them. He pushed of the law was small compared with the on and reached his friends before dark. They equipment necessary to the modern lawyer, were encamped on the bank of a deep, half- but it was sufficient for his purpose. frozen river. As soon as he told the news, Although he was not deeply read in law the party resumed the march. All that night books, he was a deep student of human and the next day they continued the journey, nature, and he possessed a keen insight into not daring to stop, until at sunset of the the motives of men. His position as prose cuting attorney arrayed against him all the second day they reached the cabins of a com pany of hunters, of whom they asked shelter rascals in Tennessee. Outlaws skulking in for the night. This was churlishly refused, the woods were as dangerous as lurking sav and they continued their march in a storm of ages. "Personal difficulties" were frequent wind and snow. At length they thought they between the fearless State's Attorney and the might encamp. Jackson, who had not closed criminals whom he prosecuted with relentless his eyes for two days and a half, wrapped energy. It was Jackson's personal bravery in such encounters that gave him his early himself in his blanket, and slept until morn ing. When he woke, he found himself buried influence in the western country. He did not in six inches of snow. The pursuing Indians follow the wise advice of the foolish Polonius, continued on the trail, came up to the huts but he was quick to enter quarrels. of the inhospitable hunters, all of whom they Early Tennessee lawyers were well paid murdered. Satisfied with this bloody deed, for their services, and deserved to be, for they pursued Jackson's party no longer. such dangerous work. For an ordinary suit, This was one of many stirring adventures they received sometimes a square mile of land. It was in this way that Jackson laid encountered by Andrew Jackson when prac tising law in the pioneer days of Tennessee. the foundation oí the large fortune that he Historians give a graphic description of the acquired. When Tennessee was admitted in perils that beset the early settlers of that to the Union, in 1796, he was already a large beautiful region: "While some planted corn, landowner, and within ten years of his resi others had to watch against the skulking foe. dence in the State he owned 50,000 acres. When the girls went blackberrying, a guard As an evidence of the position of Jackson, invariably turned out to escort them. If a j it may be mentioned that he was a prominent man went to the spring to drink, another ¡ member of the convention which framed the stood on the watch with his rifle cocked by Constitution in preparation for the admis his side. Whenever four or five men were sion of Tennessee as a State. He and Judge assembled at a spring, or elsewhere, they McNairy were appointed the delegates from held their guns in their hands, and stood, not Davidson County to draft the Constitution. face to face, as they conversed, but with their He took an important part in this conven tion, as he did in every position which he backs turned to each other, all facing differ occupied, in State or national affairs, civil or ent ways, watching for a lurking or a creep ing Indian." It was almost as dangerous to military. When Tennessee was admitted into practise law among the rough, quarrelsome, the Union in June, 1796, Andrew Jackson free-fighting backwoodsmen, as it was to was elected its first representative in the pass from the shelter of the block-house on Congress of the United States. He traveled account of the savages. Jackson was the on horseback the seven hundred and seventy
