Andrew Jackson Donelson

Andrew Jackson Donelson. Jackson's Protégé. Of all the young men Andrew Jackson helped raise, perhaps none showed as much promise as Rachel's nephew Andrew Jackson Donelson. Donelson became Jackson's ward at age five when his father died., Jackson saw to young Donelson's education, sending him to West Point and later to law school. Donelson then served as Jackson's private secretary through his presidential campaigns and most of his presidency., After their return to Tennessee in 1837, Donelson continued to serve as Jackson's aide while pursuing his own political career. In the 1840s, Donelson served as Chargé d'Affaires to the Republic of Texas. In that position, he pushed for the annexation of Texas to the United States. After Texas entered the Union in 1845, President Polk made Donelson Minister to Prussia, where he remained until 1849., As the United States headed towards civil war, Donelson, as did many southerners, followed in Jackson's pro-slavery and pro-Union footsteps. In 1856, Millard Fillmore selected Donelson as his running mate on the third-party American ticket. Their ticket received twenty-one percent of the vote, with the majority of support coming from states that would form the border between North and South during the Civil War., Donelson sold Tulip Grove in 1858 and moved to Memphis, where he could better manage his Mississippi plantations. Donelson opposed secession and did not fight in the Civil War. He died in Memphis on June 26, 1871.,

For I will not disguise, I look forward, if you live, to the time when you will be selected to preside over the destiny of America. , Andrew Jackson to Andrew Jackson Donelson, May 1822

, Captions , (Left, top) These paintings show Andrew Donelson and his wife Emily a few years after their marriage in 1824. They lived with Jackson at the White House for the majority of his presidency and Emily served as his White House hostess. Two of the Donelson's four children were born in the White House. Emily died of tuberculosis in 1836. , (Left, center) Born in 1815, Elizabeth Martin married Meriwether Lewis Randolph, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Randolph died shortly after Donelson's wife Emily passed. Andrew and Elizabeth's shared loss of a spouse developed into a romance over time. They married in 1841 and had eight children. Elizabeth died in 1871, just two months after her husband Andrew. , (Left, bottom) The American Party that Fillmore and Donelson represented in the 1856 presidential campaign was more commonly known as the “Know Nothing” party. Besides being anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, the “Know Nothings” represented disaffected pro-slavery, pro-Union Democrats. , (Center, bottom) Andrew Jackson Donelson served as editor of the Washington Union newspaper from 1851 to 1852. Donelson promoted moderation between Unionists and Secessionists in the Democratic Party, while supporting the presidential candidacy of Franklin Pierce.