The Ballad of Frankie Silver - By Sharyn McCrumb Page 0,46

of its own, independent of any actual, long-ago crime.

Burgess Gaither

CHOOSING COUNSEL The snows of January deepened into a bleak February chill, and we town folk gathered at our firesides, passing the time away in desultory conversation. We discussed the presidential election coming in autumn, and what the reelection of Andrew Jackson boded for the Western lands. Since the time of the Revolution, the landholdings of the Cherokee nation had shrunk from many thousands of acres stretching from Alabama to Virginia to the present remnant of their past glory: a few townships in the steep mountains to the southwest of us. Now, even that pittance was begrudged them. Since the recent discovery of gold in those mountains, the United States government had been besieged with demands to move the Indians westward so that better use could be made of their mineral-rich acreage. The Indian Removal Act had passed in 1830, ordering all Indians to be resettled on lands west of the Mississippi,

but so far it had not been enforced. People were growing impatient. Andrew Jackson, who rose to fame as an Indian fighter, was said to be sympathetic to the plight of the settlers, and people claimed that he’d see to the eviction of the Cherokee to win the support of the voters on the frontier. Gold fever had swept the mountains.

There was much local speculation about the gold fields, and what effect the discovery might have on our own prosperity. Old John Tate, who is seventy if he’s a day, has already taken his family off to the hills of Georgia to seek their fortunes, and other folk talk of joining him. They are waiting to hear if he strikes it rich.

Aside from the economics involved, there is much concern among my colleagues that Andrew Jackson may ruin the country if his presidency continues. Most of the gentlemen of my acquaintance think that Jackson is a lout, an uncouth peasant who would turn the country over to the mob rule of uneducated dirt farmers. He is an Antrim Irishman who prides himself on his common touch.

He is also a lawyer. He read law not far from here—with Spruce MaCay in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1787, when my father-in-law the squire was a young clerk of court in Morganton, Andrew Jackson was the public prosecutor for the Western District of North Carolina. The older gentlemen remember him as a hard-drinking, quick-tempered scarecrow who would sooner fight than gamble.

People still talk about the incident that occurred when Jackson was practicing law over the mountain in Jonesborough in the months before he moved on to Nashville. He was invited to an elegant ball at the home of one of the county’s prominent families. Jackson asked if he might bring a companion, and the request was granted, no doubt in hopes that he might introduce another eligible frontier gentleman to polite society. Instead Andrew Jackson arrived at the home of his host in the company of five bawds, tavern women of easy virtue whom he tried to pass off as “ladies.” The shock and outrage of those present meant nothing to Andrew Jackson; it only satisfied him that the gentry had correctly interpreted his message of contempt.

Now gentlemen everywhere talk bitterly of President Jackson’s 1829 inaugural party, when a drunken mob of his beloved “common people” were allowed to rampage through the White House, leaving a trail of mud and broken china in their wake. The aristocrats are afraid that if this ruffian is allowed to run the country for another term of office, ruin will follow. There is talk of placing tariffs on imported goods, which worries a good many people. They do not criticize the president so publicly, however, for Jackson was a hero in the war with England twenty years ago, and his ties to western North Carolina are cherished by many. Jackson’s popularity with the local farmers and backwoodsmen is as undeniable as it is bewildering. I confess, though, that I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be independent of rich and powerful old men, and to be able to oppose them with impunity. Andrew Jackson is every inch a self-made man, and it heartens me to see that such a feat is possible, although I would wish to have more respect from educated and wellborn gentlemen were I in his place.

Besides these political and economic topics, and the ever-present discussions about the weather, we all spoke endlessly, obsessively, perhaps even morbidly, of Frankie Silver. Her trial was