I’ve been rereading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 and the sections on Andrew Jackson are just scary. Here’s a portion on Jackson’s truthfulness:

Whether the president really believed in Margaret Eaton’s sexual fidelity is doubtful and not even altogether relevant. He insisted that her case paralleled that of his late wife. Yet he would have known his protestations of Rachel’s innocence of adultery to be untrue. For Jackson, such matters were issues not of fact but of his authority. Jackson demanded loyalty, and to him this meant acceptance of his assertions, whether he was insisting on Peggy Eaton’s chastity or (as he did in the course of another tirade) that Alexander Hamilton “was not in favor of the Bank of the United States.”³¹ In the same spirit of privileging his will over truth, Jackson claimed in 1831 that he had received a message from President Monroe through John Rhea (pronounced “Ray”) authorizing his conduct in the invasion of Florida. Historians working over a period of half a century have carefully proved the story a complete fabrication. Nevertheless, Old Hickory persuaded John Rhea to vouch for its truth!³² After all, Jackson had prevailed upon his friends to endorse the story of his 1791 marriage to Rachel in Natchez. And in 1829-30, with no issue save Indian Removal yet defining the administration’s position, personal loyalty to the president meant everything. (italics in original)