John Eaton (politician)

Early life

John Eaton was born on June 18, 1790 near Scotland Neck, Halifax County, North Carolina to John and Elizabeth Eaton. The elder John Eaton was a furniture maker who served as county coroner and member of the North Carolina House of Representatives; Eaton's uncle, Major Pinketham Eaton (sometimes spelled Pinkerton), was a Continental Army officer who died in combat the Revolutionary War. Eaton's father owned a large amount of land in middle Tennessee, and the 1790 census lists him as the owner of 12 slaves. The younger Eaton attended the University of North Carolina from 1802 to 1804. He then studied law, attained admission to the bar, and moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where he established a law practice.

Eaton became active in the Tennessee militia, and attained the rank of major. He developed a close friendship with Andrew Jackson, and served as an aide to Jackson during the Creek War and the War of 1812. Eaton took part in all Jackson's major campaigns. Eaton supported Jackson's controversial decision in November 1814 to attack Pensacola in Spanish Florida, claiming that Spain had put herself in a belligerent position by allowing its territory to be occupied by British soldiers. He participated in the Battle of New Orleans, and became a major proponent of Jackson's presidential candidacy following the war.

Marriages

In 1813, Eaton married his first wife, Myra Lewis (1788–1815), the daughter of William Terrell Lewis, a prominent Tennessee businessman and landowner. After the death of their father, Jackson and his wife became Myra's and her sister Mary's guardians, and Eaton's marriage to Myra Lewis strengthened his relationship with Jackson. Eaton married his second wife Peggy O'Neill Timberlake (1799–1879) in 1829, while serving in the Senate. Eaton had been a longtime friend of Peggy Timberlake and her husband John B. Timberlake, and John Timberlake had died only a few months before Eaton married his widow. Peggy Eaton was the mother of three children with John Timberlake; a son William, who died as an infant, and daughters Virginia and Margaret. Eaton had no children with either wife.

Senate career

From 1815 to 1816, Eaton was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. In 1818, he was elected to serve as a United States Senator from Tennessee, and he served until 1829. His age of 28 at the time of his entry to the Senate was notable; it contradicted the U.S. Constitution's requirement that all senators be at least 30 years old. During the early years after the creation of the United States, personal details including date of birth were not always well-documented. Eaton, Henry Clay, Armistead Thomson Mason, and possibly others all served in Senate before they had attained the required age.

Unlike many Southerners, Eaton supported the Missouri Compromise of 1820. On March 11, 1820, in a letter to Jackson, he claimed that "it has preserved piece and dissipated angry feelings, and dispelled appearances which seemed dark and horrible and threatening to the interest and harmony of the nation." He was a close personal friend of Jackson, and while in the Senate supported the Jacksonian movement. He urged Jackson to accept an appointment as Governor of the newly acquired Territory of Florida in 1821, which he did.

John Reid, another Jackson aide, began a biography of Jackson in 1816, but died before the work was completed. Eaton finished the book, which was published as The Life of Andrew Jackson. This book was reissued in time for the 1824 presidential election, revised and republished for later campaigns, and became a primary reference for future Jackson biographers. In 1825, Eaton received an honorary degree (Master of Arts) from the University of North Carolina.

Petticoat affair

Jackson, leading the new Democratic Party, won the 1828 presidential election, and in March 1829 Eaton resigned his Senate seat to accept appointment as Jackson's Secretary of War. The appointment was seemingly made because of Jackson's desire to have a personal friend in the Cabinet in whom he could confide.

Women in Washington social circles led by Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, snubbed the Eatons because they married so soon after John Timberlake's death, rather than waiting for the usual mourning period; there were stories that Eaton and Peggy Timberlake had been having an affair before John Timberlake had died. Rumors held that Peggy, as a barmaid in her father's tavern, had been sexually promiscuous or had even been a prostitute. Petticoat politics emerged when the wives of cabinet members, led by Mrs. Calhoun, refused to socialize with the Eatons. Jackson, who had counseled the Eatons to marry, refused to believe the rumors, telling his Cabinet that "She is as chaste as a virgin!" In his view, the dishonorable people were the rumormongers, in part because he was reminded of the attacks that had been made, particularly in the 1828 election, against his wife, Rachel Jackson, over the circumstances of their marriage. Jackson also believed that John Calhoun fanned the flames of the controversy as a way to gain political leverage for a growing anti-Jackson coalition. Duff Green, a Calhoun protégé and editor of the United States Telegraph, accused Eaton of secretly working to have pro-Calhoun cabinet members Samuel D. Ingham (Treasury) and John Branch (Navy) removed from their positions.

Eaton took his revenge on Calhoun. In 1830, reports had emerged accurately stating that Calhoun, while Secretary of War, had favored censuring Jackson for his 1818 invasion of Florida. These infuriated Jackson. For reasons unclear, Calhoun asked Eaton to approach Jackson about the possibility of Calhoun publishing his correspondence with Jackson at the time of the Seminole War. Eaton did nothing. This caused Calhoun to believe that Jackson had approved the publication of the letters. Calhoun published them in the Telegraph. This gave the appearance of Calhoun trying to justify himself against a conspiracy to damage him, and further enraged the President.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, a widower, took Jackson's side and defended the Eatons. This raised Van Buren in Jackson's esteem, and, in addition to disagreements between Jackson and Calhoun on a number of other issues, mainly the Nullification Crisis, marked him as Calhoun's likely vice presidential successor. In the spring of 1831, Van Buren helped end the Petticoat affair by offering to resign as Secretary of State. This gave Jackson the opportunity to reorganize his cabinet by asking for other resignations, and he was able to replace the anti-Eaton secretaries; only Postmaster General William T. Barry remained.

On June 17, the day before Eaton formally resigned, a text appeared in the Telegraph stating that it had been "proved" that the families of Ingham, Branch, and Attorney General 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 stating that, while he was not the source for the article, the information was still true. On June 18, Eaton challenged Ingham to a duel through his second, a Dr. Randolph, who visited him twice and the second time threatened him with personal harm. He was dismissed, and the next morning, sent a note to Eaton declining the invitation. Eaton wrote a letter back to Ingham accusing him of cowardice. Ingham was then informed that Eaton, Randolph, and others were looking to assault him. He gathered together his own bodyguard, and was not immediately molested. However, he reported that for the next two nights Eaton and his men continued to lurk about his dwelling and threaten him. He then left the city, and returned safely to his home. Ingham informed Jackson of what took place, and Jackson then asked Eaton to answer for the charge. Eaton admitted that he "passed by" Ingham's house, "but at no point attempted to enter...or besiege it."

In 1832, Jackson nominated Van Buren to be Minister to England. Calhoun killed the nomination with a tie-breaking vote against it, claiming his act would "...kill him, sir, kill dead. He will never kick, sir, never kick." However, Calhoun only made Van Buren seem the victim of petty politics, which were rooted largely in the Eaton controversy. Van Buren was nominated for vice president, and was elected as Jackson's running mate when Jackson won a second term in 1832. The affair also had a hand in the replacement of the Telegraph as the main propaganda instrument for the administration. Jackson enlisted the help of longtime supporter Francis Preston Blair, who in November 1830 established a newspaper known as The Washington Globe, which from then on served as the official mouthpiece of the Democratic Party.

Indian affairs

In the summer of 1830, following the passage of the Indian Removal Act, allowing for the transportation of the "Five Civilized Tribes" from their homes in the South to lands in the west, Jackson, Eaton, and General John Coffee negotiated with the Chickasaw, who quickly agreed to move west. Jackson put Eaton and Coffee in charge of negotiating with the Choctaw. Lacking Jackson's skills at negotiation, they frequently bribed to the chiefs in order to gain their submission. Their tactics typically worked, and the chiefs signed an agreement to move west. The removal of the Choctaw took place in the winter of 1831 and 1832, and was wrought with misery and suffering.

Later career and death

Following his resignation as Secretary of War, Eaton returned to Tennessee. His wife suffered a period of ill health after arriving. Jackson planned to replace him in the War Department with Tennessee senator Hugh Lawson White. This would vacate White's senate seat, which Eaton would presumably fill. However, White refused the cabinet position. Eaton attempted to return to the Senate by running against incumbent Felix Grundy in 1832. Jackson officially remained neutral during the election, as Grundy was also a Democrat. Eaton was defeated. He served as a delegate to the 1832 Democratic National Convention. In a letter to Jackson before the convention, Eaton declared his strong support for Jackson's choice of Van Buren for vice president. He also requested that several of his friends be given appointments in the administration.

He later received appointments that took him away from Washington, D.C.. He served first as Governor of the Florida Territory from 1834 to 1836. In 1835, violence began to escalate between the Seminole Indians and white settlers. Members of the Seminole had signed Treaty of Payne's Landing in which they agreed to move westward. However, many began to resist. Eaton warned Jackson against an excessive show of military force, fearing that this would only provoke the Seminole further. Jackson heeded his advice at first, but continuing to do so proved impossible, as Seminole attacks continued. The violence eventually led to the Second Seminole War. In 1836, Eaton was replaced as governor by Richard K. Call. Eaton was then appointed Ambassador to Spain, serving until 1840.

Upon returning from Spain, Eaton announced that he was unwilling to support Van Buren's campaign for reelection to the presidency in 1840. The declaration deeply upset Jackson, who in a letter to Blair went so far as to accuse Eaton of having "apostatised and taken the field with the piebald opposition of abolitionists, antimasons and blue light federalists." Eaton officially joined the Whig Party, but for the remainder of his life was not politically active. He and Jackson remained unreconciled.

Eaton and his wife lived comfortably in retirement in Washington, D.C. He chose not to join any church. Eaton died in Washington on November 17, 1856 at age 66. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington.

Legacy

Contemporary William Joseph Snelling, in his 1831 biography of Jackson, strongly criticizes Eaton. Of Eaton's Jackson biography, he wrote, "it is hard to say which is more disgraced, the hero [Jackson] or the historian. The book contains scarcely a period of good English, but makes amends by abundance of fulsome adulation, by the admission of many disgraceful acts and the palliation of others." By 1831, Snelling says, he had become "the laughing-stock of the nation." Of the Petticoat affair, historian Robert V. Remini says that "the entire Eaton affair might be termed infamous. It ruined reputations and terminated friendships. And it was all so needless."

Eaton County, Michigan, is named in Eaton's honor.