and thus could dictate the choice of a president. Van Buren, however, continued to regard it as a necessary tool of party discipline. With most congressmen fearing
their constituents, only a minority showed up for the caucus vote. They dutifully nominated Crawford.
With Republican Party unity broken, the list of sectional candidates grew. John
Quincy Adams was the son of a Federalist president, successful secretary of state under Monroe, and one of the northeastern Federalist converts to Republicanism
who, according to people like Van Buren and Crawford, had blunted the republican
thrust of Jefferson’s old party. Adams entered the contest as New England’s favorite son. Henry Clay of Kentucky, chief proponent of the American System, expected to
carry the West. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina announced his candidacy, but
when he saw the swarm of candidates, he dropped out and put himself up as the
sole candidate for vice president.
The wild card was Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, who in 1824 was known
only as a military hero—scourge of the southern Indians and victor over the British at New Orleans (see Chapter 8). He was also a frontier nabob with a reputation for violence: He had killed a rival in a duel, had engaged in a shoot-out in a Nashville John Quincy
Adams. Adams
enjoyed a remarkably
productive career as
Monroe’s Secretary of
State, then rode into the
presidency in the
conflicted and
controversial election of
1824. The intelligence
and erudition that the
picture projects had
served him well as a
diplomat. As president, it
marked him as aloof,
aristocratic, and
incapable of governing a
democratic nation.
York
New
Collection,
Granger
The©
Republican Revival
385
tavern, and had reputedly stolen his wife from her estranged husband. According
to Jackson’s detractors, such impetuosity marked his public life as well. As
commander of U.S. military forces in the South in 1818, Jackson had led an unau-
thorized invasion of Spanish Florida, claiming that it was a hideout for Seminole warriors who raided into the United States and a sanctuary for runaway Georgia
slaves. During the action, he had occupied Spanish forts, summarily executed Seminoles, and hanged two British subjects. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams had
belatedly approved the raid, knowing that the show of American force would
encourage the Spanish to sell Florida to the United States. Secretary of War
Crawford, on the other hand, as an “economy” measure, had reduced the number
of major generals in the U.S. Army from two to one, thus eliminating Jackson’s job.
After being appointed governor of newly acquired Florida in 1821, Jackson retired from public life later that year. In 1824, eastern politicians knew Jackson only as a
“military chieftain,” “the Napoleon of the woods,” a frontier hothead, and, possibly, a robber-bridegroom.
Jackson may have been all of those things, but he was immensely popular, par-
ticularly in the new states of the South and West. In the election of 1824, in the 16
states that chose presidential electors by popular vote (six states still left the choice to their legislatures), Jackson polled 152,901 votes to Adams’s 114,023 and Clay’s 47,217. Crawford, who suffered a crippling stroke during the campaign, won
46,979 votes. Jackson’s support was not only larger but also more nearly national than that of his opponents. Adams carried only his native New England and a portion of New York. Clay’s meager support was limited to the Northwest, and
Crawford’s to the Southeast and to the portions of New York that Van Buren was
able to deliver. Jackson carried 84 percent of the votes of his own Southwest, won victories in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Indiana, and Illinois, and ran a close second in several other states.
“A Corrupt
Jackson assumed that he had won the election: He had
Bargain”
received 42 percent of the popular vote to his nearest rival’s
33 percent, and he was clearly the nation’s choice, but his 99
electoral votes were 32 shy of the plurality demanded by the Constitution. And so, acting under the 12th Amendment, the House of Representatives selected a president from among the top three candidates. As the candidate with the fewest elec-
toral votes, Henry Clay was eliminated, but he remained Speaker of the House and
had enough support to throw the election to either Jackson or Adams. Years later, Jackson told a dinner guest that Clay had offered to support him in exchange for
Clay’s appointment as secretary of state—an office that traditionally led to the
presidency. When Jackson turned him down, according to Jacksonian legend, Clay
went to Adams and made the same offer. Adams accepted what became known as
the “Corrupt Bargain” in January 1825. During the House vote, Clay’s supporters,
joined by several old Federalists, switched to Adams, giving him a one-vote victory.
The new president appointed Henry Clay as his secretary of state.
Reaction to the alleged Corrupt Bargain dominated the Adams administration
and created a rhetoric of intrigue and betrayal that nourished a rising democratic movement. Before the vote took place in the House of Representatives, Andrew
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