impression upon his colleagues. Gallatin later described him as "a
tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging
over his face, and a queue down his back tied in an eel-skin; his
dress singular, his manners and deportment those of a rough
backwoodsman." And Jefferson is represented as saying of Jackson to
Webster at Monticello in 1824: "His passions are terrible. When I was
president of the Senate he was Senator, and he could never speak on
account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it
repeatedly, and as often choke with rage."

Return to Tennessee meant, however, only a transfer from one branch of
the public service to another, for the ex-Senator was promptly
appointed to a judgeship of the state supreme court at a salary of six
hundred dollars a year. The position he found not uncongenial and he
retained it for six years. Now, as earlier, Jackson's ignorance of law
was somewhat compensated by his common sense, courage, and
impartiality; and while only one of his decisions of this period is
extant, Parton reports that the tradition of fifty years ago
represented them as short, untechnical, unlearned, sometimes
ungrammatical, but generally right. The daily life of Jackson as a
frontier judge was hardly less active and exciting than it had been
when he was a prosecuting attorney. There were long and arduous
horseback journeys "on circuit"; ill-tempered persons often
threatened, and sometimes attempted, to deal roughly with the author
of an unfavorable decision; occasionally it was necessary to lay aside
his dignity long enough to lend a hand in capturing or controlling a
desperate character. For example, on arriving once in a settlement
Jackson found that a powerful blacksmith had committed a crime and
that the sheriff dared not arrest him. "Summon me," said the judge;
whereupon he walked down from the bench, found the culprit, led him
into court, and sentenced him.

In 1804 Jackson resigned his judgeship in order to give exclusive
attention again to his private affairs. He had fallen badly into debt,
and his creditors were pressing him hard. One expedient after another
failed, and finally Hunter's Hill had to be given up. He saved enough
from the wreck, however, to purchase a small plantation eight miles
from Nashville; and there, after several years of financial
rehabilitation, he erected the handsome brick house which the country
came subsequently to know as "The Herm