ooking to the separation of that region from the Union.
At that time, many people in the East, knowing little of the Westerners,
had suspected them of lending an ear to Spain's tempting whispers. That
was one reason why such a panic arose over Burr, for he had always been
a champion of the Southwest, and the pioneers liked him. After the
failure and disgrace of Burr the stage was cleared for another leader in
the southwestward movement. And who so likely to take the role as the
patriotic and warlike general of the Tennessee militia?

Jackson had a chance to play that role in a small way when Silas
Dinsmore, the United States agent among the Choctaws, whose lands lay in
Mississippi Territory, refused to allow persons to pass through the
Choctaw country with negroes unless they showed passports for the
negroes. Dinsmore had a law of Congress behind him, but a treaty between
the United States and the Choctaws provided for a road through the
Choctaw country which should be "a highway for citizens of the United
States and the Choctaws." Jackson, passing along the road with some
slaves, dared the agent to interfere. He also exerted himself to bring
about the removal of Dinsmore, and, as his wont was, made a personal
matter of the dispute. His feeling was so strong that years afterwards,
when Dinsmore, happening to meet him, made a courteous advance, the
general sternly repelled it.

The quarrel with Dinsmore occurred in 1812. Andrew Jackson was then
forty-five years old. He was well known in Tennessee as a successful
planter, a breeder and racer of horses, a swearer of mighty oaths, a
faithful and generous man to his friends, a chivalrous man to women, a
hospitable man at his home, a desperate and relentless man in personal
conflicts, a man who always did the thing he set himself to do. But as
yet he had never found anything to do that was important enough to
bring him before the country at large. Outside of Tennessee, few men had
ever heard his name. At Washington he was probably distrusted, so far as
he was known at all, because of his championship of Burr and his quarrel
with Dinsmore, and because he had been for Monroe instead of Madison for
President. He was ardently in favor of war with Great Britain because of
the impressment of American seamen and other grievances which the United
States had borne for years, but there seemed to be little likelihood of
his getting a chance to play a part in the war if it should come. T