But rather than focus on his famous gunfights, we might take a closer look at a political duel he fought with the man who served as his vice president and nemesis, John C. Calhoun.
The setting was not a windswept prairie, a dusty crossroad, nor a vacant lot. Instead, Jackson and Calhoun dueled during a dinner honoring Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.
This dueling of minds had roots in early arguments over states’ rights, the power of the federal government, and the founder’s intentions for the American republic. In fact, the origin of the Jackson-Calhoun intellectual duel lay within the founding generation.
