Andrew Jackson Defines Success and Its Attainment: “By industry and attention to business you will rise over all obstacles that may appear in your way to wealth and honor.”

“Missouri will, I expect sequester the property of the U.S. and hold it for their own use, until it is invited into the Union by Congress, this is the only course she can adopt as an independent State, unless she returns to her Territorial government again; this would be a course too humble for a free people to submit to.""

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 enabled Missouri to join the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, maintaining the Senate balance. It prohibited slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36”30’ latitude. But it was August 1821 before Missouri was finally admitted into the Union, with the wait causing a stir in that territory, and some predicted that Missouri would take action to force Congress to move faster on admission. Jackson was one of those.

By 1821, Congress began to rein in the significant military buildup that was meant to address the mismanagement of the War of 1812. Jackson noted that Secretary of War John C. Calhoun proposed to reduce the size of the army, which would please critics. Calhoun's original proposal, which was rejected, had been to create a professional, efficient, and centrally organized military force that could be rapidly expanded in times of war without requiring a large, expensive peacetime standing army. Some of Calhoun’s ideas, unaccepted then, strongly influenced military strategy for the remainder of the 19th century.

Richard Keith Call was an attorney and politician who became a close friend of Andrew Jackson when he served as Jackson's aide during the Creek War, but the parents of Call's lover, Mary Letitia Kirkman, strongly disapproved of Jackson. Despite a brief attempt to distance himself from her, Call and Mary Kirkman married in 1824 at Jackson's home near Nashville. When Jackson went to Florida to become territorial governor in March of 1821, Call went with him, settling there, eventually becoming territorial governor himself from 1836 to 1839, and again from 1841 to 1844.

Autograph Letter Signed twice, once in full and once with initials, three pages, Hermitage, January 4, 1821, to Call, covering a number of important subjects. In the letter, Jackson reports that he went to Nashville in order to meet with Thomas Kirkman (father of Mary Letitia Kirkman), remarking that he burned Call's letter so that no one could know that Call mentioned Mary Kirkman, and denied consorting with gamblers. He then predicted that Missouri would seize property of the federal government until Congress admits the Territory into the Union, with Jackson agreeing that this would be justified, as a proud, free people would not submit to the indignity of being refused admission. Jackson also encourages Call in his course of study and career, giving Call significant advice: Jackson’s formula for success.

""I rec'd yours of the 29th ult. in due course of mail, and requested our mutual friend Mr. Oldfield to say to you I would answer it as soon as I could have an interview with Mr. Kirkman; for this purpose I went to Nashville on the 2nd instant, but he had not--or yesterday when I left town--returned home. Mr. Oldfield showed me your letter, from which I see your mind is at ease and that you are now reading law in good earnest. This is as it ought to be, and by an attentive course of study you will soon fit yourself for the Bar and by industry and attention to business you will rise over all obstacles that may appear in your way to wealth and honor. When & to whom you write be careful, be care full lest you commit your situation to those who would let it be known to others & by that means get to the ears of those that ought not to know it. Your confidence in Mr. Oldfield is well placed, and with him it ought to rest and with none else, least any eye but my own should see your letter I have burnt it—lest even your naming her should raise suspicions that the spark had rekindled.

""I fear'd great delicacy in calling on Mr. K[irkman] from the source Mr. Oldfield got his information. But as I feel my reputation as well as yours implicated [in allegations they consorted with gamblers] I must approach him, and least ask him of such information he has rec'd, & from whom, if he says he never heard such a report, then my inquiry must end as it would not do to give the author. Should he ask how I heard it I will say from your letter lately rec'd, but how or through what channel you did, I know not—that you requested me to make the inquiry, that if such information had been overstated, you wanted the author, so do I, as you are one of my family, and the Idea that I would associate with gamblers, and make them my companions is as injurious to me as to you; but be assured the inquiry will be made in due time, and be assured your reputation as a man of honor, will never want a defender where I am, so long as you continue to conduct yourself as you have done since I first knew you. “Mrs. J. and Donelson & little Hutchings [Jackson’s nephew] (the other Andrew is at college) all unite with me in best wishes for your welfare and happiness...Andrew Jackson.

“P.S. I have just rec'd Mr. Calhoun's report of a plan for the reduction of the army, it realizes the best hope of his friends, and will put down the yelpers, and little curs, who have been always barking at the army, you will be pleased with it when you see it. The House of Representatives has rejected Missouri, the Senate has admitted it, [John Henry] Eaton has done himself much credit by an amendment which is said produced the admission by the Senate; should not the house reconsider its vote, Missouri will, I expect sequester the property of the U.S. and hold it for their own use, until it is invited into the Union by Congress, this is the only course she can adopt as an independent State, unless she returns to her Territorial government again, this would be a course too humble for a free people to submit to. A.J.”

On August 10, 1821, Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state, in accordance with the Missouri Compromise. Calhoun’s plan for the army was agreed to. Jackson would soon leave for Florida to assume his role as territorial governor. No evidence of his associating with gamblers was ever presented and Jackson’s reputation remained intact.