He did not become president. The year was a political turning point in which none of the old rules applied. For the first time, the popular vote mattered—eighteen states were to choose their presidential electors by popular vote while only six states still left the choice up to their state legislatures. The electorate also featured a new swath of regionally focused voters only recently enfranchised thanks to the removal of property ownership as a criterion for white male suffrage.
In this new climate regional endorsements of candidates by state conventions or state assemblies—popularity—rather than congressional intrigue, would drive the nomination process. Although John Quincy Adams should have been the heir apparent to the presidency as James Monroe's secretary of state, four other men also wanted to be President, each with substantial regional backing. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina had served as secretary of war in the Monroe administration and had support from slave owners in the South.
The politically ambitious and able William H. Crawford had served as secretary of war and of the treasury in the two previous administrations. The most visible candidate was House Speaker Henry Clay. A leading War Hawk during the War of , Clay had a power base in Kentucky, was a gifted public speaker, and had support for his so-called American System of protective tariffs and federally sponsored internal improvements.
Jackson's reputation as an Indian fighter and western expansionist, owing to his military escapades in Spanish Florida, gave him national standing above all other candidates. It also helped that Jackson could enter the race as an outsider, a defender of the Republic who had risked his life in service of his nation. In fact, his supporters talked about him as another George Washington. Brands on Jacksonian democracy. Although Adams was a centrist politician of sorts—a Jeffersonian-Federalist, to coin a new term—many Americans still identified him as a New Englander and as the son of the old Federalist leader John Adams.
Additionally, many staunch Democratic-Republicans blamed Adams and his supporters for having transformed the party of Jefferson into a disguised form of Federalism under the rubric of "National Republicans.
In the summer of , an unofficial caucus of less than a third of the congressmen eligible to attend nominated Crawford for president. Supporters of Adams denounced the caucus bid, and the Massachusetts legislature nominated Adams as their favorite-son candidate. The Kentucky legislature did the same for Clay. Both nominations followed the pattern set by the Tennessee legislature, which had nominated Andrew Jackson back in and sent him to the Senate to burnish his credentials.
Calhoun of South Carolina dropped out of the presidential race by announcing his bid for the vice presidency. All four remaining candidates were nominal Democratic-Republicans—the Federalist Party had disintegrated by this point—and the election proceeded without reference to party affiliation. Jackson, whose credentials were based largely on his personality and heroic exploits, emerged as the man to beat.
Jackson was the only candidate to attract significant support beyond his regional base, and his Jackson's popularity foretold a new era in the making.
After the demise of the First Party System , the United States seemed to enter what is called the Era of Good Feelings , a period of unity and patriotism following the War of In , President James Monroe of Virginia ran for reelection virtually unopposed, winning nearly all the votes in the Electoral College.
But this apparent political unity did not last. Four years later, in , the nation experienced one of the most contentious and controversial elections in its history. Four candidates vied for the presidency; all were Jeffersonian Republicans representing different regional interests. Secretary of the Treasury William H. The candidates and their supporters each make remarks about their chances and their sectional interests.
On Election Day in November, Jackson carried more than 40 percent of the popular vote, garnering ninety-nine votes in the Electoral College. Adams came in second, with roughly 31 percent of the popular vote and eighty-four electoral votes.
Bringing up the rear were Crawford with 11 percent of the popular vote and forty-one electoral votes, and Clay with 13 percent and thirty-seven electoral votes. State legislatures chose the electors in six of the twenty-four states at this time.
No candidate garnered the electoral votes needed to secure a majority in the Electoral College and thus win the election. As a consequence, in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment, the election was constitutionally thrown to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would cast one vote.
If all four candidates had remained on the ballot, Clay would have had a tremendous advantage because he exercised a great deal of influence and authority in the House. But the Twelfth Amendment stipulated that only the top three vote-getters in the Electoral College were placed before the House. In the weeks after the general election, Clay carefully weighed whom to support in the upcoming House election.
On Sunday night, January 9, , Clay and Adams had a meeting. Jacksonians soon accused them of making a bargain in which Clay would support Adams in exchange for his choice of a position in the cabinet.
The accusation was based on the assumption that Clay would want to be secretary of state, because that office was the primary stepping-stone to the presidency in the early nineteenth century. There was no evidence for the charge and Adams and Clay vehemently denied it, but the Jacksonians suspected a conspiracy against them. To win, a candidate needed the votes of thirteen of the twenty-four state delegations in the House.
Clay went to work, lobbying members of Congress to support Adams. As the day of the election approached, Adams had the support of twelve state delegations, Jackson seven, and Crawford four. Only one state, New York, was unpledged. Its delegation, which consisted of thirty-four men, was evenly divided between Adams and Crawford. Clay, however, knew that if he could persuade just one Crawford man from New York to switch to Adams, the New Englander would carry the day.
Indeed, when the balloting was complete, Adams had won the New York delegation and the election. This portrait is from about That night, President Monroe held a reception at the White House. Eventually, he dropped out of the Presidential race to run for Vice President.
A third candidate, Henry Clay of Kentucky, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, represented the western states. He favored an active federal government committed to internal improvements and infrastructure in order to strengthen national economic development and settlement of the West.
William H. Crawford, a slaveholder from Georgia, suffered a stroke in that left him more or less incapacitated, but he continued his campaign with the support of the New York machine led by Martin Van Buren. Jackson was popular for his military victories in the War of and in wars against the Creek in and the campaigns against Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws and his conduct of the First Seminole war in Florida. He had been elected to the Senate in , and his popularity soared as pro-Jackson newspapers promoted the narrative of his courageous exploits.
The election was as much a match of favorite sons as it was a struggle over policy. In general, the candidates were favored by different sections of the country, with Adams strong in the Northeast; Jackson in the South, West, and mid-Atlantic; Clay in parts of the West; and Crawford in parts of the East.
With tens of thousands of new voters in the United States, the older system of having members of Congress assemble congressional caucuses to determine who would run was no longer tenable. It became clear that voters had regional interests and for the first time, the popular vote had significant implications in a Presidential election.
Electors were chosen by popular vote in 18 states, while the 6 remaining states employed the older system in which state legislatures selected electors. The Electoral College, however, was another matter. Of the electoral votes, Jackson needed or more to win but secured only Adams won 84, Crawford 41, and Clay
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