geeky
The story goes back to the election of 1824, one in which Jackson received the most electoral votes and popular votes, but lost anyhow. When Jackson failed to receive a majority if electoral votes, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. After Henry Clay threw his support behind John Quincy Adams, Jackson believed that a "corrupt bargain" had been struck after Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State. Jackson began planning his next run for the presidency in 1828.
Jackson was nominated for president by the Tennessee legislature in October 1825, more than three years before the next election. Jackson's supporters attacked Adams's policies, including New York Senator Martin Van Buren. Van Buren and other Jackson allies established numerous pro-Jackson newspapers and clubs around the country. Jackson made himself available to visitors at his Hermitage plantation. In the election, Jackson won 56 percent of the popular vote and a 178 to 83 margin in the electoral vote. But the campaign was a nasty one. Both candidates were viciously attacked in the press. Jackson was called a slave trader, and a series of pamphlets known as the Coffin Handbills were published to attack Jackson for his order to execute his own soldiers at New Orleans. Another accused him of engaging in cannibalism by eating the bodies of American Indians killed in battle, while still another labeled his mother a "common prostitute" and stated that Jackson's father was a "mulatto man."
Jackson could withstand these attacks. But what hurt him was that his wife Rachel Jackson was also a frequent target of attacks. Rachel was accused of bigamy, something that was technically true at one time when Rachel mistakenly believed that her first husband, an abusive man named Lewis Robards, had obtained a divorce. Jackson's supporters slung their won mud back at Adams, claiming that while serving as Minister to Russia, Adams had procured a young girl to serve as a prostitute for Emperor Alexander I. They also stated that Adams had a billiard table in the White House and that he had charged the government for it.
Rachel had been in poor health before the election and when she became aware of how she was being publicly attacked, she began experiencing significant physical stress during the election season. Jackson described her symptoms as "excruciating pain in the left shoulder, arm, and breast." After experiencing pain for three days, Rachel finally died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828 three weeks after her husband's victory in the election and 10 weeks before Jackson took office as president. Jackson was distraught. He believed that the accusations from Adams's supporters had caused Rachel's death and never forgave Adams for it. At Rachel's funeral Jackson cursed Adams and his supporters, saying "May God Almighty forgive her murderers," Jackson swore at her funeral. "I never can."
Jackson left his home at the Hermitage near Nashville on January 19 and arrived in Washington on February 11. He then set about choosing his cabinet members. Jackson chose Van Buren as Secretary of State. He chose John Eaton of Tennessee as Secretary of War. Eaton was a fellow Tennessee lawyer who had served under Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. He was also a US Senator representing Tennessee. Samuel D. Ingham of Pennsylvania was picked as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch of North Carolina as Secretary of Navy, John M. Berrien of Georgia as Attorney General, and William T. Barry of Kentucky as Postmaster General.
Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill was the daughter of William O'Neill, who owned The Franklin House, a boarding house and bar in Washington, D.C. which was a short distance from the presidential mansion. It was a popular social center for politicians and military officials. Peggy O'Neill was no simple barmaid. She was well-educated and had studied French. She was also an excellent pianist. In antebellum America, her reputation was adversely affected by the fact that she worked in a bar frequented by men and conversed casually with the clientele. She had once attempted to elope with an army officer, only to have the scheme prevented by her father. In 1816, at age 17, she married 39 year old John B. Timberlake, a purser in the United States Navy, an alcoholic who was heavily in debt. The Timberlakes befriended John Eaton in 1818. Eaton was a wealthy 28-year-old widower, newly elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee and a long time friend of Andrew Jackson.
Eaton helped Timberlake with his financial problems, and Eaton unsuccessfully attempted to get the Senate to pass legislation authorizing payment of debts Timberlake accrued while in the Navy. Eaton paid Timberlake's debts and helped him to get a lucrative posting to the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean Squadron. Many believed that he did so because he had designs on Peggy Eaton. While with the Mediterranean Squadron, Timberlake died in 1828. It was rumored that Timberlake killed himself as the result of Eaton's affair with Peggy, but in fact Timberlake died of pneumonia brought on by pulmonary disease.
With Jackson's blessing, Peggy and John Eaton were married on January 1, 1829, only a few months after her husband's death. The marriage shocked the mucky-mucks in Washington society. Second Lady Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun led a group of wives of other Washington political figures, most notably the wives of Jackson's cabinet members, in a concerted effort to shun the Eatons in public, and exclude them from parties and other social events.
Emily Donelson, the niece of Andrew Jackson's late wife Rachel, and the wife of Jackson's confidant Andrew Jackson Donelson, performed the ceremonial duties of a "First Lady". She too sided with those shunning Peggy Eaton, causing Jackson to replace her with his daughter-in-law Sarah Yorke Jackson as his official hostess. One of the only members of the cabinet who was friendly to the Eatons was Martin Van Buren, the Secretary of State, who was a widower and unmarried. He liked Eaton and this only made Jackson like Van Buren even more for not joining those who disliked the Eatons. Postmaster-General William T. Barry also sided with the Eatons.
Jackson was friendly to the Eatons, in part, because his late wife Rachel had been the subject of innuendo and in part because he had a long friendship with John Eaton. Vice-President John C. Calhoun was becoming an enemy of Jackson's not only because of his wife's leadership of the anti-Eaton group, but also because Calhoun had his own presidential aspirations. The two also differed on the subject of the protective tariff that came to be known as the Tariff of Abominations. The dispute over the tariff would lead to the Nullification Crisis of 1832, with southerners including Calhoun arguing that states could refuse to obey federal laws to which they objected, even to the point of secession from the Union, while Jackson vowed to prevent secession and preserve the Union at any cost.
In 1830, it was revealed that Calhoun, while Secretary of War, had favored censuring Jackson for his 1818 invasion of Florida. Calhoun had asked Eaton to approach Jackson about the possibility of Calhoun publishing his correspondence with Jackson at the time of the Seminole War, likely believing that this would put him in a good light when he decided to run for president. Eaton refused to do so, but Calhoun published the letters anyhow. This further enraged the President.
In 1831, Martin Van Buren offered to resign, in order to give Jackson the opportunity to reorganize his cabinet by asking for the resignations of the anti-Eaton cabinet members. The entire cabinet resigned except for Postmaster General William T. Barry was the lone cabinet member to stay. Eaton was later appointed as governor of Florida Territory, and then as minister to Spain.
On June 17, 1831, the day before Eaton formally resigned, an article appeared in the Telegraph alleging that the families of three cabinet members (Samuel Ingham, John Branch, and John M. Berrien) had refused to associate with Mr. Eaton. Eaton wrote to all three men demanding that they answer for the article. Ingham sent back a contemptuous letter admitting the allegation. On June 18, Eaton challenged Ingham to a duel through Eaton's brother in law, Dr. Philip G. Randolph. The next morning Ingham sent a note to Eaton discourteously declining the invitation, calling the situation one of "pity and contempt." Eaton wrote a letter back to Ingham accusing him of cowardice. Ingham was informed that Eaton, Randolph, and others were looking to assault him. Ingham told Jackson his version of what took place, and Jackson then asked Eaton to answer for the charge. Eaton admitted that he had "passed by" Ingham residence, but did nothing more.
In 1832, Jackson nominated Van Buren to be Minister to Great Britain. Calhoun organized opposition in the senate to the nomination and cast a tie-breaking vote against it. This made Jackson think even more of Van Buren and in 1832 Van Buren was nominated for vice president, and was elected as Jackson's running mate when Jackson won a second term in 1832. Van Buren thus became the heir to the presidency, and succeeded Jackson in 1837.
After the controversy ended Jackson asked Emily Donelson to return as his official hostess and she did so, along with Sarah Yorke Jackson. Emily later returned to Tennessee after contracting tuberculosis, leaving Sarah Yorke Jackson to serve alone as Jackson's hostess.
John Calhoun resigned as vice president shortly before the end of his term, and returned with his wife to South Carolina.
In later writing a letter to a friend, Jackson said of the Petticoat affair, "I would rather have live vermin on my back than the tongue of one of these Washington women on my reputation."
In his book The Best Looking One Always Wins, the author Dr. Ryil Adamson tested the theory that is the premise of his book as it applied to one of Andrew Jackson's elections, by polling the servers at a bar that he and some friends were attending, in homage to Peggy Eaton.