John Quincy Adams                         Andrew Jackson      

The Election of 1824 was a landmark election in American history for several reasons. The most notable was this: it remains the only Presidential election in U.S. history where the winner did not have the most votes in either the popular election or in the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams initially was the beneficiary of this result, but, over the course of his four years in office, was eventually undone by it.

Background

There were four major candidates for President in the 1824 election:

• Andrew Jackson, military general and hero of the Battle of New Orleans
• William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury
• Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives
• John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State

It is interesting to note how different the campaigns were conducted in this time period compared to today. Samuel Flagg Bemis, in his book “John Quincy Adams and The Union” (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1956), writes that, “There was no campaign by any of the candidates in the sense of going about the country making speeches on the issues of the day…they were all rivals who believed in much the same things, in a contest of personalities.”

Since no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes, the election was submitted to the House of Representatives, who would choose among the top three, as outlined in the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution. This meant that Clay was eliminated. Crawford was also cast aside, as he had suffered several paralyzing strokes during the campaign. The choice came down to Jackson or Adams.

The “Corrupt Bargain”

Andrew Jackson’s supporters believed that since the General had a plurality in each of the vote totals, that he should naturally be declared the winner. Adams and his supporters, meanwhile, worked hard to gain favor with individual state delegations. But perhaps most importantly, Henry Clay wielded tremendous power in the House. He eventually cast his support behind Adams, who was declared the winner in February of 1825. Not long after, Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State. This conflict of interest (real or perceived) resulted in condemnation from the Jackson camp, who declared this new arrangement between Adams and Clay a “corrupt bargain“. This charge of corruption would haunt Adams throughout his presidency and stalled many of his Presidential initiatives.

The Election of 1828

The Jackson camp was relentless in its criticism during the four years of Adams’ administration and repeated their claims that Adams’ presidency was “illegitimate”. Adams favored programs that would have introduced many improvements on a national scale, but Jackson’s group felt this put too much power in Adams’ administration’s hands. The end result was a re-introduction of the two-party system to America, with Jackson (Democratic) and Adams (National Republican) serving as the perceived heads of each party. The campaign of 1828 was essentially a smear campaign between the two groups, but Jackson and his supporters pushed their message through. Jackson defeated Adams fairly convincingly in 1828 (by a count of 178 to 83 in the Electoral College).

With it ended the presidential career of one of America’s most distinguished citizens.