Andrew Jackson: Lawyer, Judge and Legislator
By Christopher G. Marquis

American History  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

According to the later accounts, he shouted for all to hear, ‘Surrender, you infernal villain, this very instant, or by God Almighty I’ll blow you through as wide as a gate!’

Those gathered stood in stony silence. For several seconds, it appeared one man or the other would soon be dead from the conflict. Finally, Bean slumped his shoulders and lowered his pistol. The crowd breathed with relief as he was arrested and returned to jail.

When asked later why he gave into Jackson, Bean is reported to have replied, ‘When he came up, I looked him in the eye, and I saw shoot, and there wasn’t shoot in nary other eye in the crowd; and so I says to myself, says I, hoss, it’s about time to sing small, and so I did.’

Bean would stand trial. Jackson had stood alone and upheld order.

Bean paid a fine, but was pardoned from imprisonment by Tennessee Governor John Sevier in 1803. The infant whom Bean had maimed died in childhood and his wife obtained a divorce, but 10 years later they were reunited, amazingly, with Jackson’s help. Perhaps Jackson had seen some good in the ‘great, hulking fellow’ as they fought that fire in Jonesborough years before. Colonel Isaac Avery, the son of Jackson’s old legal adversary Colonel Waightstill Avery, recalled:

[Bean] was at Knoxville with a boat. His wife, who was still living there, had conducted herself well in the interim….General Jackson was in the town at the time, and interested himself in bringing Bean and his wife together again….He succeeded. They were married again, and, years after, they were living happily together….A true narrative of [Bean's] life and adventures would show that truth is stranger than fiction.

The reformed Bean would later become the marshal of Memphis, the ‘Queen of the American Nile.’ No doubt his confrontation with Jackson contributed to his decision to keep the peace and join the polite society Jackson had helped establish.

Soon after his showdown with Bean, Jackson became involved in a very public quarrel. In facing John Sevier, Andrew Jackson found himself in confrontation with the most popular man in Tennessee. Considered to be ‘the handsomest man’ in the state, Sevier was ‘easy, affable, generous, and talkative.’ He rose to fame during the Revolutionary War at the Battle of King’s Mountain and fought bravely in 34 other battles.

Sevier won every gubernatorial election between 1796 and 1809 with the exception of 1801, when he could not run due to term limits. He was the leader of the eastern Tennessee political faction that opposed the Blount, or western Tennessee, faction, and therefore was inevitably an adversary of Jackson. Their feud had its beginnings in 1796, when Governor Sevier opposed Jackson’s election as major general of the state militia. Jackson lost that bid. In 1802 Sevier himself ran for the position head-to-head against Jackson. This time, Jackson won when his ally, Governor Archibald Roane, broke a tie in the legislature in Jackson’s favor.

At one point during the drawn-out quarrel, as Jackson was traveling from Nashville to Jonesborough, a friend warned him that a mob of Sevier supporters was preparing to strike. Jackson was ill at the time, but nevertheless continued into town. He procured a room and took to bed.

Before long, a messenger came to tell Jackson that a Colonel Harrison and a group of men had gathered, intending to tar and feather him. Reportedly, Jackson immediately rose from his bed and shouted to be heard, ‘Give my compliments to Colonel Harrison, and tell him my door is open to receive him and his regiment whenever they choose to wait upon me, and that I hope the colonel’s chivalry will induce him to lead his men, not follow them.’

The would-be attackers dispersed in the face of such defiance. Jackson was able to hold court and leave town without further conflict.

When Sevier challenged Jackson’s friend, the incumbent Governor Roane in the 1803 election, the feud eventually boiled over into an absurd, half-baked duel outside of Knoxville.

Tags: American History, Historical Figures, Politics

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