- [first lines]
- Narrator: At the turn of the nineteenth century, New Orleans was menaced on the one side by the pirate guns of Jean Lafitte, most dreaded buccaneer of his day, on the other by an invading British army bent on final victory in the War of 1812. But coming out of the wilds of Tennessee came an obscure frontier soldier determined to defend every inch of American soil - a man of indomitable will, hot temper, profane. Andrew Jackson was tough, tough as hickory his soldiers liked to say.
- Andrew Jackson: [pointing at a map of the local area in Louisiana and explaining his warfare strategy] Governor, I've decided to stand here: between a river and a swamp.
- Governor Clairborne of Louisiana: But, General, the enemy has a force of 10,000 regulars, veterans, men who beat Napoleon.
- Andrew Jackson: Yes, Governor, I reckon there's fine a lot of fightin' men on earth.
- Governor Clairborne of Louisiana: And you expect to beat them with half as many militia, backwoodsmen most of them?
- Andrew Jackson: Backwoodsmen stopped them in '76. I reckon they can do it again.
- Governor Clairborne of Louisiana: Very well, General, I wish you every success.
- Andrew Jackson: Thank you, Governor.
- Jean Lafitte: [ironically enough, friendly introducing himself after sneakingly forcing his way into the office with a gun] General Jackson.
- Andrew Jackson: Who are you, sir?
- Jean Lafitte: [smilingly] Captain Jean Lafitte, at your service.
- Andrew Jackson: [immediately enraged] Lafitte? The pirate?
- Jean Lafitte: I've been called worse names.
- Andrew Jackson: Not as bad as some of the names I could call you. So, you take advantage of a time like this to rob and plunder, huh?
- Jean Lafitte: You are mistaken, mon General. I come here at considerable risk to myself to offer you the services of my men.
- Andrew Jackson: Your men? Your thieves and cutthroats.
- Jean Lafitte: My men are fighters; you need them, every one. The enemy has landed.
- Andrew Jackson: You lie, Lafitte. My scouts haven't seen any redcoats.
- Jean Lafitte: Mine have; they're only 9 miles from the city.
- Colonel Ed Livingston: [bounding into the office along with General Butler and an Aide] General Jackson, General Jackson!
- Aide with Message: The enemy is at Villa Rose Plantation, sir.
- Adjutant General Robert Butler: They're bringing up their batteries from the fleet.
- Andrew Jackson: By the eternal, they'll never sleep on American ground!
- Jean Lafitte: If I may suggest, my men are sea fighters, gunners. We ask nothing better than a chance to blow the enemy's batteries off our soil.
- Andrew Jackson: *Our* soil. What claim have you to any part of it? An outlaw, pirate!
- Jean Lafitte: Yes, General, an 'outlaw' if you will; but first, an American.
- Andrew Jackson: You know, Lafitte, I'm gonna give you a chance to make good on that. Colonel Livingston, see that orders are issued commisioning Jean Lafitte as a colonel in the United States militia.
- Colonel Ed Livingston: But Andy, he's a...
- Andrew Jackson: You heard what he said: he's an American! Butler, muster every man in New Orleans who can shoot a gun. Livingston, commandeer those cotton bales; take 'em to lie in a fire.
- [they salute and promptly leave]
- Jean Lafitte: Mon amie?
- [cheerily tosses the long rifle back to the guard from whom he stole it]
- Jean Lafitte: Mercie!
- Andrew Jackson: [during the battle against the British redcoats] Good shot!
- French Gunner: Merci, merci!
- Andrew Jackson: By heavens, you're the dirtiest man I ever saw.
- French Gunner: Merci, mon général! Merci beaucoup!
- Andrew Jackson: [walking over to Tim] How goes it, Tim, ya old muskrat?
- Tim: Not bad, Andy!
- Andrew Jackson: Good shootin'!
- Tim: We stopped them for good this time, Andy! They're runnin' for their ships!
- Jean Lafitte: [approaching Jackson] I hope we've been of service, mon général.
- Andrew Jackson: They'll never hang you as an American, Jean Lafitte; you've been a hero of New Orleans.
- [Lafitte smiles proudly and Jackson continues to rouse the rest of the men]
- Andrew Jackson: Over and after 'em, ya backwood wildcats!
- Narrator: But the real hero of the New Orleans was Andrew Jackson, and following the great American victory that closed the war, the society of all Louisiana honored him at a gala ball. Already the people were acclaiming him as a future president of the United States. But there were others just as determined to keep Old Hickory out of the White House.
- Rachel Jackson: [while very sick and in bed] Andy, I've got to talk to you. I want you to promise me you won't fight another duel.
- Andrew Jackson: Don't ask me that, Rachael. Why, the man who slanders you must look to God for mercy.
- Rachel Jackson: But it's a conspiracy, this man will kill you!
- Andrew Jackson: Perhaps.
- Rachel Jackson: But don't you see, dear, it's your enemies - they're trying to strike at you through me. You mustn't let them do that, you must be strong. I know that in you lies the destiny of our people. You must choose a wise course for them to follow.
- Andrew Jackson: But you're askin' me to take the hardest course of all.
- Rachel Jackson: But it's one of the things I-I must ask of you. Promise me?
- Andrew Jackson: I promise, sweetheart.
- Narrator: Through the long years that followed, Andrew Jackson kept his promise. But his beloved Rachael was never to survive her lingering illness. When death took her from him on the eve of his greatest triumph, only his deep loyalty to the American people gave him the will to go on.
- Narrator: On March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated as the seventh President.
- Andrew Jackson: [being sworn into office at his inauguration] I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will - to the best of my ability - preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
- Narrator: Andrew Jackson was the first President sprung from the common people and the White House was never closed to the many he called his friends.
- Tim: I just wanted to be sure you got in the White House, Andy; now I'm movin' on.
- Andrew Jackson: Where to, Tim?
- Tim: Out west: Illinois. It's gettin' too crowded around these parts.
- Andrew Jackson: By crackey, Tim, I've got to give you somethin' to remember me by.
- Tim: Thank you, Andy. Give me that pipe.
- Andrew Jackson: Oh, not this old pipe; I'll get ya a new one.
- Tim: If ya don't mind, I'd rather have the one smoked by Old Hickory hiself.
- Andrew Jackson: Oh, why sure, Tim.
- [happily hands him his pipe]
- Tim: We're dependin' on you, Andy. Ya ain't gonna let none of these smart politicians fool ya.
- Narrator: The words of the simple backwoodsman worthy prophetic. Soon after Jackson's inauguration an explosive political issue threatened with national upheaval: the North demanded high tariff protective for its factory goods; the South, free trade with its worldwide cotton customers. In Washington, the leading politicians of the nation were gathered in stormy session.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [discussing the tense issue at a political meeting] Of course, none of us know the President's attitude on the Protective Tariff question. But we can do much to
- [suggestively]
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: influence that attitude.
- Secretary of State Van Buren: [skeptically and mockingly] What the Vice President really means is that we should all agree with his way of thinking.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [contentiously] You Northerners want the tariff, Mr. Van Buren, because you make your money trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
- Secretary of State Van Buren: [indignantly] And you oppose it, sir, because you make your money growing cotton down in South Carolina.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [angrily] South Carolina will withdraw from the Union if this criminal law is forced on her!
- Secretary of State Van Buren: [disgustedly] You, Vice President of the United States, you say a thing like that?
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [furiously] I'll not be the only one to say it. Let me remind you, the President comes from the South. He was elected by the Southern vote. What do you think he'll say?
- [pounds his fist]
- Narrator: This question grew more vital as the tariff controversy raged ever higher. In Washington, Robert Hayno of South Carolina met Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in a debate that has become a classic of its time.
- Robert Hayno: [at a political meeting in the United States Capitol building] And our brethren of the North turn a deaf ear to the complaints of South Carolina. We are acting on a principle we have always held sacred: resistance to unauthorized taxation. We will set up a government of our own before we bow to such a tariff.
- [the congressmen start to bicker]
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: Order, order!
- Politician: Mr. Hayno, I fought with Washington for the Federal Government. You're talking treason!
- Daniel Webster: Mr. Speaker...
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: Chair recognizes Mr. Daniel Webster.
- Daniel Webster: I can not regard him as a safe consolate who, in the affairs of his government, should be mainly bent on considering not how the Union may be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed!
- [many congressmen cheer]
- Daniel Webster: God grant that, in my day at least, the curtain may not rise on such a scene. And when my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feud; or drenched it may be with fraternal blood. But let the last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the courageous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced; its armies and trophies streaming in their original luster; not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable, interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' - nor those other words of delusion or folly: 'Liberty first and Union afterward'; but everywhere spread all over in the characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind over the whole world, the whole Heavens, that of the sentiment dear to every true American heart, 'Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'
- [the congressmen cheer verily]
- Andrew Jackson: Livingston, that was a fine speech Dan Webster made today.
- Colonel Ed Livingston: Andy, it's time you showed your hand on this tariff question. South Carolina may actually secede.
- Andrew Jackson: [regrettably] South Carolina, our knave state. You know, Ed, I'll bet every man down there voted for me.
- Colonel Ed Livingston: And it's these same supporters who oppose the tariff, while your political enemies like Daniel Webster are for it.
- Andrew Jackson: Fine talker, this fellow Webster.
- [reading the ending from a copy of Webster's speech]
- Andrew Jackson: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseperable.'
- Dissenter in Montage: [various prominent men's opinions on the tariff issue spliced together in a montage] If you ask me, Jackson hasn't the nerve to speak.
- Elderly Jackson Supporter: Gentlemen, the whole country is waiting for Jackson.
- Colonel Ed Livingston: It's time Andy came out in the open.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: Gentlemen, we must force the decision from the President.
- Narrator: A Jefferson Day dinner was arranged, the President formally invited. It was a political trap!, planned by those willing to split the Union rather than submit to the tariff of abominations.
- Robert Hayno: We'll soon smoke Old Hickory out.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: All we need is the President's endorsement and the country's split open like a melon.
- Robert Hayno: It's all arranged: first I deliver the Jefferson Day eulogy emphasizing the fact that all the great leaders who framed the Constitution were believers in state's rights.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: An out and out endorsement of Carolina's stand.
- Robert Hayno: Calhoun, we've got it.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: Definitely. For, right there we call on the worthy sucessor of Jefferson, another firm believer in state's rights. What else can Jackson say?
- Robert Hayno: [advancing further into the dinner during Jackson's introduction] The President of the United States.
- [Everyone claps as Jackson stands up]
- Andrew Jackson: Gentlemen, our Federal Union must and shall be preserved.
- [takes a drink]
- Andrew Jackson: Excuse me, please.
- [walks away]
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: Mr. President...
- Andrew Jackson: [turning around] Well?
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [sharply] What will your friends in South Carolina think?
- Andrew Jackson: I've already prepared a proclamation for my friends in South Carolina. It will be enforced, by arms if necessary.
- Robert Hayno: [dismayed] Arms? Against your own people?
- Andrew Jackson: [sternly] Against my own flesh and blood if they try to destroy the Union.
- Vice President John C. Calhoun: [aghast] Do you mean to say that you're going to force this abominable tariff on the South?
- Andrew Jackson: It's not a question of the tariff, we can modify that. The issue you've brought up is disunion.
- [gallantly]
- Andrew Jackson: This country is an asylum for the weak and the oppressed, to find refuge and support. And as long as I retain my strength, it shall remain united.
- [infuriated]
- Andrew Jackson: And if you, sir, continue along the line you're going, by the eternal, I'll try you for treason and hang you as high as Haman!
- Elderly Jackson Supporter: Three cheers for Old Hickory!
- [All the men at the dinner cheer 'Hooray!' three times]
- [last lines]
- Narrator: Even the farthest outposts of the nation rejoiced in the news of a Union preserved. On the western plains, a frontier expedition made it's slow way homewards from the Indian Wars. A young village lawyer, serving as Captain of Militia, was reading over the mail that had just come in.
- Tim: What are ya readin', Captain?
- Capt. Abraham Lincoln: President's proclamation to South Carolina.
- Tim: Andy Jackson's proclamation, eh?
- Capt. Abraham Lincoln: Yeah. You knew him pretty well, didn't you, Tim?
- Tim: Andy? Sure. He give me this pipe. What does Andy say in his proclamation?
- Capt. Abraham Lincoln: [reading from the proclamation] 'The Constitution forms a government, not a league. To say that any state may, at pleasure, secede from the Union is to say the United States is not a nation.' Tim, if ever - in my small way - I'm called to serve the Union, I'll shape my course by those words.
- Tim: You won't go wrong, Abe Lincoln, if ya follow in the footsteps of Old Hickory.
- [the End]