A great many persons paid their respects to Mrs. Jackson. She says, “there are not less than from fifty to a hundred persons calling in one day.” While wondering at “the extravagance of the people in dressing and running to parties,” she speaks with enthusiasm of the churches and the able ministers. Soon after their return home, Mrs. Jackson’s health began to decline, and in the succeeding years of General Jackson’s campaign for the Presidency, it continued delicate. She went with the General to New Orleans, in the beginning of the year 1828, and witnessed his splendid reception there. “She was waited on by Mrs. Marigny and other ladies, the moment she landed from the Pocahontas, and conducted to Mr. Marigny’s house, where refreshments had been prepared, and where she received the salutations of a large and brilliant circle. The festivities continued four days, at the end of which, the General and Mrs. Jackson and their friends re-embarked on board the Pocahontas and returned homeward.” Mrs. Jackson’s health continued to fail, and no excursions or remedies were found availing. She had suffered from an affection of the heart; a disease which, increased and heightened by every undue excitement, was, in her case, exposed to the most alarming extremes and continually liable to aggravation. The painful paragraphs in regard to her character with which the papers of the country abounded, wounded and grieved her sorely. The circumstances of her marriage, so easily misconstrued and so lamentably misunderstood by many whom distance and meagre information had kept in ignorance, were used by the political enemies of General Jackson as lawful weapons wherewith they might assail his fair fame and obstruct his rapid progress to the highest place in the land. Considered in all its bearings, there is not in the whole world a position more honorable, more important, or more responsible, than that of the President of the United States. Well were it needful to choose with circumspection the Chief Magistrate of a country so vast, of a people so intelligent and brave, and possessing the elements of such greatness and glory; who holds in his grasp such a multitude of destinies; and who is able, by his decisions, to continue the sunshine of prosperity, or to bring the bitter blasts of adversity and discord. Hence the ardor and even the desperation of the struggles for victory in each Presidential campaign. The same enthusiasm which actuated the friends of General Jackson, actuated also his enemies; and nothing could exceed the earnestness and rancor with which they attacked him. Not content with reviling him, they must needs drag before the public the long-forgotten circumstances of his marriage, and wrest them to suit their unworthy purposes. The kind heart of Mrs. Jackson, though wrung with mortification and grief, prompted no utterance of impatience. She said very little, but was often found in tears. Meanwhile, her health continued to decline.