During the first seven or eight years of
his residence he was public prosecutor--an office that called for
nerve and decision, rather than legal acumen, in that turbulent
country.
The appearance of this frontiersman on the floor of Congress was an
omen full of significance. He reached Philadelphia at the close of
Washington's administration, having ridden on horseback nearly eight
hundred miles to his destination. Gallatin (himself a western
Pennsylvanian) afterwards graphically described Jackson, as he
entered the halls of Congress, as "a tall, lank, uncouth-looking
personage, with long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a cue
down his back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners
and deportment those of a rough backwoodsman."[Footnote: Hildreth,
United States, iv., 692.] Jefferson afterwards testified to Webster:
"His passions are terrible. When I was President of the Senate, he
was a Senator, and he could never speak, on account of the rashness
of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often
choke with rage.
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