Back قضية بيتيكوت Arabic Petticoat Affair German Caso Petticoat Spanish Affaire Petticoat French פרשיית התחתונית HE Petticoataffaire Dutch Petticoat affair Swedish
The Petticoat affair (also known as the Eaton affair) was a political scandal involving members of President Andrew Jackson's Cabinet and their wives, from 1829 to 1831. Led by Floride Calhoun, wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, these women, dubbed the "Petticoats", socially ostracized Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife, Peggy Eaton, over disapproval of the circumstances surrounding the Eatons' marriage and what they deemed her failure to meet the "moral standards of a Cabinet Wife".
The Petticoat affair rattled the entire Jackson administration and eventually led to the resignations of Vice President Calhoun (the first such departure in U.S. history) and all but one Cabinet member. The ordeal facilitated Martin Van Buren's rise to the presidency and was in part responsible for reducing Calhoun's stature from that of a nationwide political figure with presidential aspirations into a major sectional leader of the Southern United States.