or-i-da and sign a peace. In 1823 she
sold Flor-i-da to us for $5,000,000; not such a great sum when we think
what a rich and great place this "Land of Flow-ers" is. Jack-son was
now put at the head of things in Flor-i-da, and the hard-est part of his
work was to keep peace in the bad tribe of Sem-i-nole In-di-ans. With
their chief Os-ce-o-la at their head they would creep out from the woods
and swamps of Flor-i-da, rush on the homes of the white men, and burn
them to the ground, and then dash back to the woods, where they could
safe-ly hide. At the end of four years Jack-son was glad to go home to
the Her-mit-age; here he and his wife led a qui-et life and kept up
ma-ny of the ways of their young days, though now they were quite rich.
Af-ter din-ner, they would sit, one on each side of the great big wood
fire, in the large hall, and smoke their old pipes, with the long
stems, just as they had in their log cab-in of long a-go. But the great
gen-er-al could not live this qui-et life long; in 1823 he was sent
to Con-gress; and here he met with high hon-or. On New Year's Day,
1824, the great men of the day gave him the pock-et tel-e-scope that
Wash-ing-ton had owned; a year from the day on which the Bat-tle of New
Or-le-ans was fought, John Quin-cy Ad-ams gave him a great feast, at
which were men, who held high rank here and in oth-er lands; and on the
day that he was fif-ty-sev-en years old, Pres-i-dent Mon-roe gave him a
gold badge for his brave acts in his fights for his coun-try. In 1828
this rough, but brave and kind, old man, was made pres-i-dent; and now
he stood up for his own way, just as he had in the wars of his land, and
when he was but a boy. His first act was to stop some states in the
South from leav-ing the Un-ion. John C. Cal-houn was at the head of a
band of men, who felt that the North had more rights than the South; had
more than its share of wealth and land; so rose the wish to set up a
rule just for the South. "But," said Jack-son, "if one state goes out
oth-ers will; and our great land will be a ru-in." So he stopped this
plan, just in time.

All the years that Jack-son was pres-i-dent, our great land gained in
strength; new rail-roads were built; and new steam-boats; the land grew
rich year by year.

In 1824 the slaves in Mex-i-co were set free, and Tex-as came in-to the
Un-ion.

On the whole, Jack-son's term was a good one for the land; and so well
did the peo-ple like him, that he is the on-ly