nnected with the
histories of most all eminent men, that they were denied--by the decrees
of stern poverty, or an all-wise Providence--those facilities and
indulgences supposed to be so essentially necessary for the future
success and prosperous career of young men, but acted as "whetstones" to
sharpen and develop their true temper! The fact is very vivid in the
early history of Andrew Jackson--a name that, like that of the great,
godlike Washington, must survive the wreck of matter, the crush of
worlds, and, passing down the vista of each successive age, brighter and
more glorious, unto those generations yet to come, when time shall have
obliterated the asperities of partisan feeling, and learned to deal most
gently with the human frailties of the illustrious dead.

Andrew Jackson, senior, emigrated from Ireland in 1765, with his wife
and two boys--Hugh and Robert, both very young; they landed at
Charleston, S. C, where Jackson found employment as a laborer, and
continued to work thus for several years, until, possessed of a few
dollars, he went to the interior of the state and bought a small place
near Waxhaw. About this time, 1767, Andrew Jackson, Jr., was born, and
during the next year--by the time the infant could lisp the name of his
parent--the father fell sick of fever and died. Mrs. Jackson, left with
three small children, in an almost wild country, where nothing but toil
of a severe and arduous kind could provide a subsistence, was indeed in
a most grievous situation. But she appears to have been a woman of no
ordinary temperament, courage, and perseverance, for she continued
cheerfully the work left her--rearing her boys, and preparing them for
the situations in life they might be destined to fill. Mrs. Jackson was
a woman of some information, and a strong advocate for the rights and
liberties of men; as, it is said, she not only gave her boys their first
rudiments of an English education, but often indulged in glowing
lectures to them of the importance of instilling in their hearts and
principles an unrelenting war against pomp, power, and circumstance of
monarchical governments and institutions! She led them to know that they
were born free and equal with the best of earth, and that that position
was to be their heritage--maintained even at the peril of life and
property! and how well he learned these chivalric lessons, the
countrymen of Andrew Jackson need not now be told, as it was exemplified
in every pa