Jackson was first and last a democrat.  He never lost touch with the commonest people.  Nevertheless there was always something of the grand manner about him.  On formal and ceremonial occasions he bore himself with becoming dignity and even grace; in dress he was, as a rule, punctilious.  During his years at the Hermitage he was accustomed to ride about in a carriage drawn by four spirited iron-gray horses, attended by servants in blue livery with brass buttons, glazed hats, and silver bands.  “A very big man, sir,” declared an old hotel waiter to the visiting biographer Parton long afterwards.  “We had many big men, sir, in Nashville at that time, but General Jackson was the biggest man of them all.  I knew the General, sir; but he always had so many people around him when he came to town that it was not often I could get a chance to say anything to him.”

The question as to who first proposed Jackson for the presidency will probably never be answered.  The victory at New Orleans evidently brought the idea into many minds.  As the campaign of 1816 was beginning, Aaron Burr wrote to his son-in-law that, if the country wanted a President of firmness and decision, “that man is Andrew Jackson.”  Not apparently until 1821 was the suggestion put forward in such a way as to lead Jackson himself to take note of it.  Even then he scoffed at it.  To a friend who assured him that he was not “safe from the presidency” in 1824, he replied:  “I really hope you don’t think that I am d——­ fool enough to believe that.  No sir; I may be pretty well satisfied with myself in some things, but am not vain enough for that.”  On another occasion he declared:  “No sir; I know what I am fit for.  I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit to be President.”

It really mattered little what the General himself thought.  His Tennessee friends had conceived the idea that he could be elected, and already they were at work to realize this vision.  One of the most active was John H. Eaton, who had lately written the hero’s biography down to the return from New Orleans.  Another of his friends was Governor Blount.  John Rhea, Felix Grundy, and half a dozen more helped.  But the man who really made Jackson President was his near neighbor and his inseparable companion of later years, William B. Lewis.

In a day of astute politicians Major Lewis was one of the cleverest.  He knew Jackson more intimately than did any other man and could sway him readily to his purposes in all matters upon which the General’s mind was not absolutely made up.  He had a wide acquaintance over the country; he was possessed of ample means and leisure; he was an adept at pulling judiciously laid and well-concealed political wires; he fully understood the ideas, aspirations, and feelings of the classes whose support was necessary to the success of his plans.  In the present juncture he worked on two main lines:  first, to arouse Jackson’s own State to a feverish enthusiasm for the candidacy of its “favorite son,” and, second, to start apparently spontaneous Jackson movements in various sections of the country, in such a manner that their cumulative effect would be to create an impression of a nation-wide and irresistible demand for the victor of New Orleans as a candidate.