John Eaton (politician)

John Henry Eaton
United States Minister to Spain
In office March 16, 1836 – May 1, 1840
President	Andrew Jackson
Preceded by	William T. Barry
Succeeded by	Aaron Vail
Governor of the Territory of Florida
In office April 24, 1834 – March 16, 1836
President	Andrew Jackson
Preceded by	William Pope Duval
Succeeded by	Richard K. Call
13th United States Secretary of War
In office March 9, 1829 – June 18, 1831
President	Andrew Jackson
Preceded by	Peter Buell Porter
Succeeded by	Lewis Cass
United States Senator from Tennessee
In office September 5, 1818 – March 9, 1829
Preceded by	George W. Campbell
Succeeded by	Felix Grundy
Personal details
Born	(1790-06-18)June 18, 1790 Scotland Neck, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	November 17, 1856(1856-11-17) (aged 66) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican (until 1828) Democratic (1828–40) Whig (1840–56)
Spouse(s)	Myra Lewis (m. 1813; her death 1815) Margaret O'Neill (m. 1829; his death 1856)
Alma mater	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Profession	Lawyer, politician, diplomat
Military service
Service/branch	Tennessee Militia United States Army
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	Creek War War of 1812

John Henry Eaton (June 18, 1790 – November 17, 1856) was an American politician and diplomat from Tennessee who served as U.S. Senator and as Secretary of War in the administration of Andrew Jackson. He was 28 years old when he entered the Senate, making him the second-youngest U.S. Senator in history after Armistead Thomson Mason.

Eaton was a lawyer in Tennessee who became part of a network that supported the political campaigns of Andrew Jackson. He also served in the militia as a major, and during the War of 1812 became an aide to Jackson; Eaton served with Jackson in all his wartime campaigns and battles, including the Battle of New Orleans. After serving in the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1815 and 1816, in 1818 Eaton was elected to the United States Senate, though he had not yet reached the constitutionally mandated age of 30.

Following Jackson's election to the presidency in 1828, Eaton resigned his Senate seat to join Jackson's cabinet as Secretary of War. Eaton and his wife Peggy became the focus of controversy during Jackson's first term; in the so-called Petticoat affair, Washington's society wives refused to socialize with the Eatons. The wives of the vice president, cabinet members, and members of Congress looked down on Peggy because of the circumstances of her marriage to Eaton; they had wed shortly after the death of her first husband, without waiting for the usual mourning period, giving rise to rumors that she had been unfaithful to her first husband before his death. Eaton resigned as Secretary of War as part of a strategy to resolve the controversy; he later received appointments as Governor of Florida Territory and U.S. Minister to Spain.

Upon returning to the United States in 1840, Eaton refused to endorse incumbent Martin Van Buren for reelection to the presidency, angering Jackson. In retirement, Eaton continued to reside in Washington. He died there in 1856, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Early life

John Eaton was born on June 18, 1790 near Scotland Neck, Halifax County, North Carolina^[1] to John and Elizabeth Eaton.^[2] The elder John Eaton was a furniture maker who served as county coroner and member of the North Carolina House of Representatives;^[3] Eaton's uncle, Major Pinketham Eaton (sometimes spelled Pinkerton), was a Continental Army officer who died in combat the Revolutionary War.^[4] Eaton's father owned a large amount of land in middle Tennessee, and the 1790 census lists him as the owner of 12 slaves.^[3] The younger Eaton attended the University of North Carolina from 1802 to 1804.^[5] He then studied law, attained admission to the bar, and moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where he established a law practice.^[6]

Eaton became active in the Tennessee militia, and attained the rank of major.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9] He participated in the Battle of New Orleans, and became a major proponent of Jackson's presidential candidacy following the war.^[8]

Marriages

In 1813, Eaton married his first wife, Myra Lewis (1788–1815), the daughter of William Terrell Lewis, a prominent Tennessee businessman and landowner.^[4] 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.^[3] Eaton married his second wife Peggy O'Neill Timberlake (1799–1879) in 1829, while serving in the Senate.^[10] 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.^[11] Peggy Eaton was the mother of three children with John Timberlake; a son William, who died as an infant, and daughters Virginia and Margaret.^[10][12] Eaton had no children with either wife.^[12]

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.^[1]

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."^[13] He was a close personal friend of Jackson, and while in the Senate supported the Jacksonian movement. He urged Jackson to accept appointment as Governor of the newly acquired Territory of Florida in 1821, which he did.^[14]

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.^[3]

Secretary of War

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.^[3] The appointment was seemingly made because of Jackson's desire to have a personal friend in the Cabinet in whom he could confide.^[15]

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.^[11] Rumors held that Peggy, as a barmaid in her father's tavern, had been sexually promiscuous or had even been a prostitute.^[16][11] Petticoat politics emerged when the wives of cabinet members, led by Mrs. Calhoun, refused to socialize with the Eatons.^[17] Jackson, who had counseled the Eatons to marry, refused to believe the rumors, telling his Cabinet that "She is as chaste as a virgin!"^[16] 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.^[18] 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.^[19] 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.^[20]

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.^[21] 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.^[22] Calhoun published them in the Telegraph.^[23] This gave the appearance of Calhoun trying to justify himself against a conspiracy to damage him, and further enraged the President.^[22]

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, a widower, took Jackson's side and defended the Eatons.^[19] 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.^[24] 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.^[25]

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."^[26] However, Calhoun only made Van Buren seem the victim of petty politics, which were rooted largely in the Eaton controversy. This raised Van Buren even further in Jackson's esteem.^[27] Van Buren was nominated for vice president, and was elected as Jackson's running mate when Jackson won a second term in 1832.^[28] 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.^[29]

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.^[30] 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.^[31]

Later career and death

Following Eaton's resignation as Secretary of War, 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.^[32] Jackson officially remained neutral during the election, as Grundy was also a Democrat.^[33] Eaton was defeated.^[32] He later received appointments that took him away from Washington, D.C., first as Governor of Florida Territory from 1834 to 1836, and then as ambassador to Spain from 1836 to 1840.^[6]

Upon returning from Spain, Eaton announced that he was unwilling to support Van Buren's campaign for reelection to the presidency in 1840.^[34] 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."^[35] Eaton officially joined the Whig Party,^[36] but for the remainder of his life was not politically active.^[3]

Eaton and his wife lived comfortably in retirement in Washington, D.C. He chose not to join any church.^[3] Eaton died in Washington on November 17, 1856 at age 66. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington.^[6]

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."^[15] By 1831, Snelling says, he had become "the laughing-stock of the nation."^[37]

Eaton County, Michigan, is named in his honor.^[38]

See also

• List of federal political sex scandals in the United States

References

Bibliography

• Youngest Senator in history – Senate.gov
• Bates, Christopher G. (2015). The Early Republic and Antebellum America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History. Routledge. 
• Cheathem, Mark Renfred (2008). Jacksonian and Antebellum Age: People and Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-017-9. 
• Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Govt. Print. Off. 
• Howe, Daniel Walker (2007). What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 
• James, Edward T. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. 1. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5. 
• Latner, Richard B. (2002). "Andrew Jackson". In Graff, Henry. The Presidents: A Reference History (7th ed.). 
• Marszalek, John F. (2000). The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-2634-9. 
• Marszalek, John F. (December 25, 2009). "Biography, John Henry Eaton". Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Nashville, TN: Tennessee Historical Society. 
• McKellar, Kenneth (1942). Tennessee Senators as Seen by One of their Successors. Kingsport, TN: Southern Publishers, Inc. 
• Meacham, Jon (2008). American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8129-7346-1. 
• Powell, William S. (1986). Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. 2. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-1329-4. 
• Ratner, Lorman A. (1997). Andrew Jackson and His Tennessee Lieutenants: A Study in Political Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29958-2. 
• Remini, Robert V. (1977). Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8018-5911-3. 
• Remini, Robert V. (1981). Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8018-5913-7. 
• Remini, Robert V. (1984). Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-06-015279-6. 
• Snelling, William Joseph (1831). A Brief and Impartial History of the Life and Actions of Andrew Jackson. Boston, MA: Stimpson & Clapp. 
• Stokes, Melvyn; Conway, Stephen (1996). The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 978-0-8139-1649-1. 

External links

•  "Eaton, John Henry". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 
•  "Eaton, John Henry". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 
• John Eaton at Find a Grave
• Eaton, John Henry (1824). The Life of Andrew Jackson. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Samuel F. Bradford.