[3] He suffered financially, possibly struggling to pay debts after the Panic of 1819, reportedly as a consequence of being "land poor.
To serve as an opportunity offers to give him a surveyor's district, in order to mortify me his appointment will be opposed and Crockett will represent him as intemperate.
Senator George Poindexter objected, on the basis that Hays was a Tennesseean and the position should go to a Mississippian.
[5] Eventually, "A temporary truce was reached on this issue, when Hays was appointed to the lesser office of register of the Clinton Land Office, while Jackson nominated Poindexter's candidate to the surveyorship," but this incident was the beginning of a deeper rift between Jackson and Poindexter.
[6]: 55 Hays died shortly after his appointment and Jackson sought to replace him with Samuel Gwin, "son of an old comrade," and brother of future U.S.