through forests infested by Indians, and towns cowed by ruffians; and he
and his rifle were held in great respect. He was renowned as the
foremost Indian fighter in that country, and as a prosecuting attorney
whom no danger and no temptation could swerve from his duty. He was
feared, trusted, and boundlessly popular.

The people therefore rallied about this man. When in 1796 a convention
was called for framing a State constitution, Jackson was one of their
influential delegates; and in December of that year he was sent to
Congress as their most popular representative. Of course he was totally
unfitted for legislative business, in which he never could have made any
mark. On his return in 1797, a vacancy occurring in the United States
Senate, he was elected senator, on the strength of his popularity as
representative. But he remained only a year at Philadelphia, finding his
calling dull, and probably conscious that he had no fitness for
legislation, while the opportunity for professional and pecuniary
success in Tennessee was very apparent to him.

Next we read of his being made chief-justice of the Superior Court of
Tennessee, with no more fitness for administering the law than he had
for making it, or interest in it. Mr. Parton tells an anecdote of
Jackson at this time which, whether true or not, illustrates his
character as well as the rude conditions amid which he made himself
felt. He was holding court in a little village in Tennessee, when a
great, hulking fellow, armed with a pistol and bowie-knife, paraded
before the little court-house, and cursed judge, jury, and all
assembled. Jackson ordered the sheriff to arrest him, but that
functionary failed to do it, either alone or with a posse. Whereupon
Jackson caused the sheriff to summon _him_ as posse, adjourned court
for ten minutes, walked out and told the fellow to yield or be shot.