he moved to the state capital, Frankfort. He became part owner and editor-in-chief of the Argus of Western America. In 1829, Kendall was appointed Fourth Auditor of the United States Department of the Treasury and moved to Washington, DC. He soon discovered evidence of embezzlement by his predecessor, Tobias Watkins, which led to a high-profile trial at Andrew Jackson's behest. The following year, Jackson supporters won control of the Washington Globe newspaper in Washington, D.C. The newspaper became the house organ of the Jackson administration, and Kendall brought Jackson's nephew, Francis Preston Blair, to Washington to be the paper's editor-in-chief. Along with men such as Blair, Duff Green, Isaac Hill, and William Berkeley Lewis, Kendall was a member of Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet. Over time, Kendall came to dominate the Kitchen Cabinet. He had arguably more influence over Jackson than any other Cabinet official or Kitchen Cabinet member. Kendall took many of Jackson's ideas about government and national policy and refashioned them into highly polished, erudite official government statements and newspaper articles. These were published in the Globe and other newspapers, enhancing President Jackson's reputation as an intellectual. Kendall also drafted most of Jackson's five annual messages to Congress, and his statement vetoing the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832. Kendall was appointed U.S Postmaster General on May 1, 1835. During his time in office, he worked to eliminate corruption in the Post Office Department. He also manipulated operations of the Post Office Department so that western newspapers (which tended to support Jackson) were delivered faster and received better service than eastern ones. Despite having no legal basis for his action, he also allowed postal officials in the Deep South to refuse to deliver abolitionist literature. Suffering from extreme poor health, he resigned as Postmaster General effective May 18, 1840. John Quincy Adams, a bitter foe of both Jackson and Van Buren, confided to his diary in December 1840 that he believed both men had been "for twelve years the tool of Amos Kendall, the ruling mind of their dominion." Kendall wrote extensively for the Washington Extra Globe newspaper in the summer and fall of 1840 in an unsuccessful effort to boost Van Buren's chances for re-election. Jackson, meanwhile, was interested in finding someone to write a biography of his life. He eventually settled on Kendall, who accepted the task. Of the projected