Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States of America and a former soldier, general, and frontier man. As president, Jackson fought to advance the rights of a “common man” against a “corrupt aristocracy.”
Born in 1767, Jackson was born in the colonial Carolinas to Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson, ten years before the American Revolutionary War. Jackson wasn’t born to a wealthy family, but he did make a title for himself by becoming a general, expert duelist, and merchant.
Briefly, he served at the House of Representatives, representing Tennessee. After that, he became a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court and became a commander of a militia in the same state. Jackson served and was present in the many battles of the American Revolutionary War, including the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
In 1824, Jackson ran for the presidency and won. He served as president until 1837. In his retirement, Jackson remained an active member of the Democratic Party until his death in 1845.
Here are some of the best and famous Andrew Jackson quotes and sayings that reveal his thoughts on war and peace, governing a nation, freedom, and more.
1. “No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.”
2. “Disunion by force is treason.”
3. “Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that… the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.”
4. “The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.”
5. “I’ve got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.”
6. “I would sincerely regret, and which never shall happen whilst I am in office, a military guard around the President.”
7. “Never take counsel of your fears.”
8. “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”
9. “War is a blessing compared with national degradation.”
10. “To the victors belong the spoils.”
11. “Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.”
12. “In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.”
13. “There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.”
14. “Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.”
15. “Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.”
16. “The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.”
17. “The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.”
18. “If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.”
19. “I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.”
20. “Americans are not a perfect people, but we are called to a perfect mission.”
21. “You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.”
22. “I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.”
23. “I am a Senator against my wishes and feelings, which I regret more than any other of my life.”
24. “It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.”
25. “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.”
26. “I have always been afraid of banks.”
27. “Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.”
28. “Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.”
29. “Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.”
30. “Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.”
31. “Mr. Van Buren, your friends may be leaving you but my friends never leave me.”
32. “Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”
33. “The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.”
34. “The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.”
35. “We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.”
36. “Nullification means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down.”
37. “I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.”
38. “The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key… and bolt the door at once.”
39. “It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.”
40. “There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.”
41. “One man with courage makes a majority.”
42. “Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.”
43. “The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.”
44. “As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.”
45. “The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.”
46. “The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer… form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.”
47. “All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.”
48. “There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.”
49. “Elevate those guns a little lower.”
50. “Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted.”
If you’d like to know more about the 7th US President Andrew Jackson, we suggest you read his biography The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini.
