judicial and state constitutional reform, and voted for moving the state capital to Murfreesboro (his wife, Sally Dickinson, was a granddaughter of the town's namesake, Hardy Murfree). After serving a single term, Bell declined to run for reelection and instead moved to Nashville, where he established a law partnership with Henry Crabb. U.S. House of Representatives In 1826, Bell ran for Tennessee's 7th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which had been vacated when the incumbent, Sam Houston, was elected governor. Bell and his opponent, Felix Grundy, engaged in a bitter campaign in which both claimed to support the initiatives of Andrew Jackson. Although Jackson eventually endorsed Grundy, Bell was more popular with younger voters, and he won the election by just over a thousand votes. Like many Southern congressmen, Bell opposed the Tariff of 1828. He also opposed federal funding for improvements to the Cumberland Road, arguing that the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to fund such a project. One of Bell's biggest initiatives was the Tennessee land bill, in which he and fellow Tennessee congressmen James K. Polk and Davy Crockett proposed the federal government give some of its lands in Tennessee to the state in order to establish public schools. Congressmen from eastern states rejected this, however, stating that Tennessee's mismanagement of its land resources was not the federal government's fault, and the bill was shelved. During Bell's second term (1829–1831), he was chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs. As such, he wrote the Indian Removal Act, which was submitted by the committee in February 1830, and signed by President Jackson later that year. This act led to the removal of the Cherokee and other tribes to Oklahoma, via the Trail of Tears, in the latter half of the decade. One of the bill's most vocal opponents was Massachusetts congressman Edward Everett, Bell's future running mate in the 1860 presidential election. Following the shake-up of Jackson's cabinet in the wake of the Petticoat affair in 1831, Senator Hugh Lawson White recommended Bell for Secretary of War, but the appointment went to Lewis Cass instead. Bell nevertheless remained a staunch Jackson ally through his third term, opposing nullification and supporting the Force Bill. The rift between Bell and Jackson began to show during Bell's fourth term (1833–1835). Jackson opposed the idea of a national bank and withdrew the government's deposits from the Bank