The young lawyer became a favorite with these men, and with their wives and sisters and daughters.  He could ride a horse better than any of his neighbors; he entered into their quarrels with zeal and devotion; he was bold, rash, and adventurous, ever ready to hunt a hostile Indian, or fight a duel, or defend an innocent man who had suffered injury and injustice.  He showed himself capable of the warmest and most devoted friendship as well as the bitterest and most unrelenting hatred.  He was quick to join a dangerous enterprise, and ever showing ability to lead it,—­the first on the spot to put out a fire; the first to expose himself in a common danger; commanding respect for his honesty, sincerity, and integrity; exciting fear from his fierce wrath when insulted,—­a man terribly in earnest; always as courteous and chivalric to women as he was hard and savage to treacherous men.  Above all, he was now a man of commanding stature, graceful manners, dignified deportment, and a naturally distinguished air; so that he was looked up to by men and admired by women.  What did those violent, quarrelsome, adventurous settlers on the western confines of American civilization care whether their favorite was learned or ignorant, so long as he was manifestly superior to them in their chosen pursuits and pleasures, was capable of leading them in any enterprise, and sympathized with them in all their ideas and prejudices,—­a born democrat, as well as a born leader.  His claim upon them, however, was not without its worthy elements.  He was perfectly fearless in enforcing the law, laughing at intimidation.  He often had to ride hundreds of miles to professional duties on circuit, 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.