military judiciary. After the Civil War ended in 1865, Jackson returned to Memphis. Since he had served in the Confederate government, he had to secure a presidential pardon before he could continue the practice of law. Arguing that his role in the Confederate civil service was small, Jackson claimed in his petition that no formal sequestration orders had ever been issued under his tenure. Scholar Terry Calvani has contended these statements in Jackson's application "simply were not true", characterizing them as perjury. President Andrew Johnson initially rejected Jackson's petition, but he granted a second request in 1866. Since Currin had died during the war, Jackson started a new legal practice with a former colleague. Their clients consisted mainly of banks and other business enterprises. The firm was successful, arguing numerous cases before the Memphis courts. Jackson's political sympathies had by this time moved toward the Democratic Party. A Redeemer, he was against Reconstruction-era policies and efforts toward racial equality. After his first wife died in 1873, he returned to the town of Jackson, where he started a law practice with General Alexander W. Campbell. Their firm litigated many cases involving property and criminal law. Jackson was well regarded as a lawyer: he sat as a judge on the local courts and served as a law professor at Southwestern Baptist University. Service in state government Jackson practiced law in Jackson until 1880. In 1875, however, he was appointed a judge of the temporary Court of Arbitration for Western Tennessee, which heard cases stemming from the large backlog created by the Civil War. When that court was dissolved, Jackson sought the Democratic nomination for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court, running against incumbent Thomas J. Freeman. At the convention, Jackson lost by a single vote; he refused the entreaties of his supporters to challenge the result. Jackson then became involved in what was then Tennessee's key political dispute: whether to pay back the state debt. Republicans generally supported its repayment, while Democrats were split between a state-credit faction, which was supportive of fulfilling the state's financial obligations and a low-tax faction, which favored repudiating the debt. Jackson, who viewed repudiation to be immoral, was firmly on the state-credit side of this debate. After giving a speech on the debt, he was urged to run for a seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Jackson reluctantly agreed, and he was elected in