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In the end, Jackson won the election easily, with 56 percent of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes to Adams's 83. He carried New York and Pennsylvania as well as the entire West and South. He was the first President elected from west of the Appalachians and, at that time, and was also the oldest man to assume the office. But his victory was touched with grief. Perhaps reacting to the torrent of abuse hurled in her direction, Rachel's health got worse and she died on December 22, 1828. Jackson felt that Adams' accusations had caused Rachel's death and he never forgave him for it. Rachel was buried on Christmas Eve. At her funeral service, Jackson exclaimed, "May God Almighty forgive her murderers, I never can."
Jackson's first inauguration took place on March 4, 1829. It was the first time in which the ceremony was held on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. Ten thousand people arrived in town for the ceremony. Jackson invited the public to attend the White House inaugural ball. Many ordinary people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes, which the social elite of Washington found offensive. The crowd became so large that the guards could not keep them out of the White House. It became so crowded with people inside that dishes and decorative pieces in the house were broken. Some people stood on good chairs in muddied boots just to get a look at the President. The crowd had become so wild inside that the attendants poured punch in tubs and put it on the White House lawn to lure people outside.
For his cabinet, Jackson chose successful businessmen at the time whom he believed would be loyal to him. Jackson chose his political ally Martin Van Buren as Secretary of State, John Eaton as Secretary of War, Samuel Ingham as Secretary of Treasury, John Branch as Secretary of the Navy, John Berrien as Attorney General, and William T. Barry as Postmaster General. Jackson's first cabinet choices proved to be problematic, full of bitter partisanship and personal animosity, especially between Eaton, Vice President John C. Calhoun, and Van Buren.
Perhaps the most bitter feud within Jackson's initial cabinet selections was the one that led to what became known as the "Petticoat Affair". When ugly sexual rumors circulated about Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John Eaton, it caused division within the cabinet, caused for the most part not by the cabinet members themselves, but by their wives, most of whom refused to associate with the Eatons. Jackson spent more time than he wished dealing with the matter. Having seen his own wife viciously attacked in the last campaign, he detested the attacks on Mrs. Eaton.
In the Petticoat affair gossip circulated concerning Peggy Eaton, who was accused of being of loose morals while working at her father's tavern when her naval officer husband was away at sea. Less than a year after the husband died, Eaton has married the widow, but gossip circulated that she had been his mistress while she was still married, as well as the mistress of many other men. After losing his own wife to horrible rumors however, Jackson could not abide these attacks. As one historian has observed, "when he defended the honor of Peggy Eaton, Jackson was also defending the honor of his recently deceased wife." Jackson expected his cabinet members would control their wives, but the cabinet wives persisted in their gossip and in their political ostracism of the Eatons. The issue had wider implications, because of factions within the cabinet.
Both Jackson and Martin Van Buren, who was also a widower, defended the Eatons. Vice-President John C. Calhoun's wife Floride and the wives of the other cabinet members publicly shunned both Eatons. The issue persisted well past the first 100 days and was not resolved until 1831, when Jackson had the entire cabinet resign. Jackson concluded Calhoun was responsible for spreading the rumors. Van Buren grew in Jackson's favor and was nominated to be Minister to England. Calhoun's supporters in the Senate blocked the nomination. Ultimately Van Buren lost the battle, but won the war when he became Jackson's running mate in 1832 and succeeded him as President in 1836.
When he became President in 1829, Jackson enforced the Tenure of Office Act, a law that limited appointed office tenure and authorized the president to remove and appoint political party associates. Jackson said that he believed that rotation in office prevented dynasty politics of the type that had led to John Quincy Adams political ascension. He also said that it made the civil service more responsible to the popular will. Jackson told Congress in December 1829, "In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another." Jackson said that he believed that rotating political appointments would prevent the development of a corrupt bureaucracy. This was really the continuation of the patronage system by replacing federal employees with friends or party loyalists. Jackson replaced about 20% of federal office holders during his first term. He used his presidential power to award loyal Democratic Party followers by giving them Federal office appointments.
Jackson made partisan appointments despite his personal reservations. Bureaus and departments whose operations were outside of Washington, such as the New York Customs House; the Postal Service; the Departments of Navy and War; and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, were all areas where political rewards could be doled out to supporters. This became known as the "spoils system". It included the buying of offices with campaign donations, forced political party campaign participation, and collection of assessments, though many of these practices did not become rampant until after Jackson's presidency.
Jackson not only rewarded past supporters, but he also promised future jobs if local and state politicians joined his team. The spoils system had actually originated under Thomas Jefferson when he removed Federalist office-holders after becoming president, but Jackson saw this practice as a means of enhancing the power of the presidency to expand its sphere of influence.
On of the major issues that Jackson had to confront at the start of his presidency was what became known as The Nullification Crisis of 1828–1832. This was a disagreement over tariffs passed in Congress during the latter part of the Adams administration and it would escalate into threats of secession by one state (South Carolina) and military intervention by President Jackson. Southern politicians complained that high tariffs imposed by the new tariff (which the referred to as the "Tariff of Abominations") on imports of common manufactured goods made in Europe made those goods more expensive than ones from the northern U.S. The tariff raising the prices paid by planters in the South. It was now more expensive for southerners to buy goods manufactured in the northern states than it had been previously to import them from England. Southern politicians argued that tariffs benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers.
The issue escalated to a major crisis when Vice President Calhoun, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, supported the claim of his home state, South Carolina, that it had the right to "nullify" (declare void) the tariff legislation of 1828. More generally, this meant that each state had the right to nullify any Federal laws that went against its interests. Jackson sympathized with the South in the tariff debate, but he also vigorously supported a strong union, with effective powers for the central government. He found himself at odds with his Vice-President over a very major issue.
The conflict would not be resolved in the first 100 days, but it was one that Jackson would ultimately win. At the April 13, 1830 Jefferson Day dinner, during the after-dinner toasts, Robert Hayne began by toasting to "The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States". Jackson then rose, and in a booming voice added "Our federal Union: It must be preserved!" The issue was later resolved with the Tariff of 1832, one that was more favorable to Southerners.
Jackson had more battles ahead, most significantly, his battle with the Bank of the United States. The decisive and populist tone he established early on in his presidency would lead to a second term in office and to a prominent place in presidential history.