Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable — John Shaqi
Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One SyllableRemy, Jean S.
History
Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable
Remy, Jean S.
Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Soon af-ter her death came the good news of peace; and now young An-drew
be-gan to pay some heed to his books, with the hope of stud-y-ing law.
He al-so taught school for a while, though he could not have been a
ver-y good teach-er, for he nev-er learned how to spell ver-y well
him-self. Still, in 1787, we find he has learned e-nough to take up the
prac-tice of law, and he be-gan this work in Nash-ville, Ten-nes-see;
and now we see the boy who had been the lead-er in boy-ish sports, games
and fights, be-come at once a lead-er a-mong men. He was tall and quite
good look-ing, with bright blue eyes and red-dish hair, and he was
full of fun and life; he rode horse-back well, and knew how to shoot
straight; and a-bove all he was a brave man, a-fraid of noth-ing.
In 1788 he was giv-en a place in which he had to try for the State all
men who had done wrong and it need-ed, in those wild days and in that
new land, a brave man for such a work, for he would make ma-ny foes,
both a-mong the bad white men and the In-di-ans. His work took him from
Nash-ville to Jones-bor-ough, and here the In-di-ans were ver-y strong
and ver-y cru-el, kill-ing and rob-bing the white men and wo-men, and
e-ven the lit-tle ba-bies in their moth-ers' arms. Hear-ing and see-ing
day by day more and more of this sav-age war-fare, al-ways in dan-ger of
be-ing killed by night or day by some In-di-an hid-ing be-hind a tree or
house, Jack-son learned to know the In-di-ans and their hab-its bet-ter
than most men did, so was read-y to fight them in their own way in a
few years.
He made his home in Nash-ville and built up a good law prac-tice. He
grew in pow-er so fast that in 1797 he was sent as the first man from
Ten-nes-see to Con-gress. He went all the way from his home to
Phil-a-del-phi-a, a dis-tance of 800 miles, on horse-back. In 1798 we
see him a-gain at home as Judge of the Su-preme Court, and here he
stayed un-til 1804. Then came four-teen years of peace for the land, and
a hap-py home life for him. A-mong oth-er things which Jack-son did at
this time was to build a large log store in which he kept all sorts of
things which both the white men and the In-di-ans want-ed. His home,
which was called "The Her-mit-age," was a fine house for those days, and
in later years it grew as well known as Mt. Ver-non and Mon-ti-cel-lo.
Jack-son was all through his life a man who would stand up for his own
way, if it led to strife with his best friend, and more than once he
fought du-els to the death. In Con-gress he would, when he rose to
speak, some-times choke with blind rage if he could not make his point
and force men to yield to him.
Af-ter years of peace came the War of 1812, and from that hour
Jack-son's name was first in the minds of men. He showed great skill in
his fights with the red men, and won much fame in a fierce fight with
the Creeks, a bad tribe of In-di-ans in Al-a-ba-ma.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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