later became his chief political asset.

Meanwhile the rapid growth of population south of the Ohio River made
necessary new arrangements for purposes of government. In 1790 the
region between the Ohio and the present States of Alabama and
Mississippi, having been turned over to the Nation by its earlier
possessors, was erected into the "Southwest Territory," and in 1791
the northern half became the State of Kentucky. In 1793 the remainder
of the Territory set up a Legislature, and three years later delegates
from the eleven counties met at Knoxville to draw up a new frame of
government with a view to admission to statehood. Jackson was a member
of this convention, and tradition has it that it was he who brought
about the selection of the name Tennessee, an Indian term meaning "The
Great Crooked River," as against Franklin, Washington, and other
proposed designations for the new State. At all events, upon the
admission of the State in 1796, he was chosen as its sole
representative in the lower branch of Congress.

In the late autumn of that year the young lawmaker set out for the
national capital at Philadelphia, and there he arrived, after a
journey of almost eight hundred miles on horseback, just as the
triumphs of the Democrats in the recent presidential election were
being duly celebrated. He had not been chosen as a party man, but it
is altogether probable that his own sympathies and those of most of
his constituents lay with the Jeffersonians; and his appearance on the
floor of Congress was an omen of the fast-rising tide of western
democracy which should never find its ultimate goal until this rough
but honest Tennesseean should himself be borne into the presidential
chair.

Jackson's career in Congress was brief and uneventful. After a year of
service in the House of Representatives he was appointed to fill the
unexpired term of William Blount in the Senate. But this post he
resigned in 1798 in order to devote his energies to his private
affairs. While at Philadelphia he made the acquaintance not only of
John Adams, Jefferson, Randolph, Gallatin, and Burr, but of his future
Secretary of State, Edward Livingston, and of some other persons who
were destined to be closely connected with his later career. But
Jackson was not fitted for a legislative body either by training or by
temperament. He is recorded as speaking in the House only twice and in
the Senate not at all, and he seems to have made no considerable