s of young Jackson applied to the legislature
of Virginia for an act preliminary to a divorce. Jackson and Mrs.
Robards, thinking the act of the legislature was a divorce of itself,
were married before the action of the court. Judge Overton, a friend,
was himself surprised to learn that the act of the legislature was not a
divorce, and through his advice they were again married in the early
part of 1794. The fact that Captain Robards' own family sustained Mrs.
Robards in the controversy with her husband must strongly point to the
groundlessness of the charges; while it is further conceded that Andrew
Jackson was not the first victim of the suspicious nature of Captain
Robards. However, this can never be regarded otherwise than a most
unfortunate period in the life of Andrew Jackson, it being the immediate
cause of more than one of the many obstacles with which he was obliged
to contend in after years.

He was appointed district attorney of Tennessee when that country became
a federal territory, and in 1796 when Tennessee became a State, he was a
man of no small wealth. On January 11th, 1796, a convention met at
Knoxville to draft a constitution for the new State, and Jackson was
chosen one of five delegates from Davidson county to meet the other
members from over the State. He was appointed on the committee to draft
that important document. Having been elected to represent his State in
the popular branch of Congress he accordingly took his seat in that
legislative body in December, 1796. As Jackson entered the house on the
eve of the retirement from public life of Washington, he voted on the
measure approving Washington's administration; and, as he could not
conscientiously vote otherwise, not approving some of Washington's
measures, he is recorded among the twelve who voted in the negative.

He at this time belonged to the so-called Republican party, now
Democratic, which was then forming under Jefferson, the incoming
vice-president, under the Federal Adams. His record in Congress is made
exemplary by his action on three important bills, namely: Against buying
peace of the Algerians, against a needlessly large appropriation for
repairing the house of the president, and against the removal of the
restriction confining the expenditure of public money to the specific
objects for which said money was appropriated.

As would be natural, such a course was highly approved by his
constituents, and he was made a senator in 17