[LS]

Run some numbers of personnel per capita. Also, note that we had land sales as a MAJOR source of revenue and Jackson benefited from the sale of the entire Louisiana purchase. I don’t recall each statehood date, but from Monroe to AJ you had MO and ME come into the Union, but really you were just beginning to see the sale of federal land in MS, IL, and other border areas.

So, it’s pretty easy to pay off the debt if you a) don’t have a major war and b) can sell off millions of unused acres.

It would be interesting therefore to go back over this list and look at the admission of western states and then the subsequent presidents budgets.

[BroJoeK]

LS: "So, it’s pretty easy to pay off the debt if you a) don’t have a major war and b) can sell off millions of unused acres."

Agreed.
I now notice here where tariff receipts back in those days typically ran around 90% of total federal revenues.
But in 1835, at the time Jackson was paying off the national debt, tariff receipts fell to just 54% of total revenues which, at $35 million, were higher than ever before and than they would be again for another 15 years.
That must be those land sales you mention.

I also see where in his first year (1829) Jackson's government spent $17 million and in his final year (1836) $34 million, which however did not drive up the debt, it was still zero in 1836.
The national debt did not begin to rise again until your favorite villain, Ol' Kinderhook, spent $42 million in 1837.

LS: "Run some numbers of personnel per capita."

I don't have those, but throughout our first century-plus both population and GDP rose at astonishing rates, by today's lethargic standards.
That's how Federal spending as a percent of GDP was virtually the same in 1916 pre-war under President Wilson (2.1%) as it was in 1792 under President Washington (2.3%).
In Washington's time national debt fell from 35% to 20% of GDP, in Wilson's it rose from 8% pre-war to 30% in 1920.
Today's spending runs 20+% and national debt over 100% of GDP.