Andrew Jackson March 15, β June 8, was an American politician and lawyer who served as the seventh president of the United States from to Before his presidency , he rose to fame as a general in the U. Army and served in both houses of the U. Jackson's legacy is controversial.
He has been praised as an advocate for working Americans and preserving the union of states , and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. His political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party. Jackson was born in the colonial Carolinas before the American Revolutionary War.
He became a frontier lawyer and married Rachel Donelson Robards. He briefly served in the U. House of Representatives and the U. Senate , representing Tennessee. After resigning, he served as a justice on the Tennessee Superior Court from until Jackson purchased a plantation later known as the Hermitage , becoming a wealthy planter who profited off the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved African Americans during his lifetime. In , he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander.
He led troops during the Creek War of β, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and negotiating the Treaty of Fort Jackson that required the indigenous Creek population to surrender vast tracts of present-day Alabama and Georgia. In the concurrent war against the British , Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in made him a national hero. He later commanded U. Jackson briefly served as Florida's first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in He won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote, but no candidate won the electoral majority.
Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a " corrupt bargain " between Adams and Clay and began creating a new political coalition that became the Democratic Party in the s. Jackson ran again in , defeating Adams in a landslide despite issues such as his slave trading and his "irregular" marriage.
