A New Chapter in American Politics

by David Kennedy, The American Pageant 

[1] The so-called Era of Good Feelings was never entirely tranquil, but even the illusion of national consensus was shattered by the panic of 1819 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Economic distress and the slavery issue raised the political stakes in the 1820s and 1830s. Vigorous political conflict, once feared, came to be celebrated as necessary for the health of democracy. New political parties emerged. New styles of campaigning took hold. A new chapter opened in the history of American politics. The political landscape of 1824 was similar, in its broad outlines, to that of 1796. By 1840 it would be almost unrecognizable.

[2] The deference, apathy, and virtually nonexistent party organizations of the Era of Good Feelings yielded to the boisterous democracy, frenzied vitality, and strong political parties of the Jacksonian era. The old suspicion of political parties as illegitimate disrupters of society’s natural harmony gave way to an acceptance of the sometimes wild contentiousness of political life. 

[3] In 1828 an energetic new party, the Democrats, captured the White House. By the 1830s the Democrats faced an equally vigorous opposition party in the form of the Whigs. This two-party system institutionalized divisions that had vexed the Revolutionary generation and came to constitute an important part of the nation’s checks and balances on political power.

[4] New forms of politicking emerged in this era, as candidates used banners, badges, parades, barbecues, free drinks, and baby kissing to “get out the vote.” Voter turnout rose dramatically. Only about one-quarter of eligible voters cast a ballot in the presidential election of 1824, but that proportion doubled in 1828, and in the election of 1840 it reached 78 percent. Everywhere the people flexed their political muscles.

The “Corrupt Bargain” of 1824

[5] The last of the old-style elections was marked by the controversial “corrupt bargain” of 1824. The woods were full of presidential timber as James Monroe, last of the Virginia dynasty, completed his second term. Four candidates towered above the others: John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, highly intelligent, experienced, and aloof; Henry Clay of Kentucky, the gamy and gallant “Harry of the West”; William H. Crawford of Georgia, an able though ailing giant of a man; and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, the gaunt and gusty hero of New Orleans.  All four rivals professed to be “Republicans.”

[6] Well-organized parties had not yet emerged; their identities were so fuzzy, in fact, that John C. Calhoun appeared as the vice-presidential candidate on both the Adams and the Jackson tickets.  The results of the noisy campaign were interesting but confusing. Jackson, the war hero, clearly had the strongest personal appeal, especially in the West, where his campaign against the forces of corruption and privilege in government resonated deeply. He polled almost as many popular votes as his next two rivals combined, but he failed to win a majority of the electoral vote In such a deadlock, the House of Representatives, as directed by the Twelfth Amendment, must choose among the top three candidates. Clay was thus eliminated, yet as Speaker of the House, he presided over the very chamber that had to pick the winner.

[7] The influential Clay was in a position to throw the election to the candidate of his choice. He reached his decision by the process of elimination. Crawford, recently felled by a paralytic stroke, was out of the picture. Clay hated the “military chieftain’’ Jackson, his archrival for the allegiance of the West.  Jackson, in turn, bitterly resented Clay’s public denunciation of his Florida foray in 1818. The only candidate left was the puritanical Adams, with whom Clay—a free-living gambler and duelist—had never established cordial personal relations. But the

two men had much in common politically: both were fervid nationalists and advocates of the American System. Shortly before the final balloting in the House, Clay met privately with Adams and assured him of his support.

[8] Decision day came early in 1825. The House of Representatives met amid tense excitement, with  sick members being carried in on stretchers. On the first ballot, thanks largely to Clay’s behind-the scenes influence, Adams was elected president. A few days later, the victor announced that Henry Clay would be the new secretary of state.

[9] The office of secretary of state was the prize plum then, even more so than today. Three of the four preceding secretaries had reached the presidency, and the high cabinet office was regarded as an almost certain pathway to the White House. By allegedly dangling the position as a bribe before Clay, Adams, the second choice of the people, apparently defeated Jackson, the people’s first choice. Masses of angry Jacksonians, most of them common folk, raised a roar of protest against this “corrupt bargain.’’ The clamor continued for nearly four years. Jackson condemned Clay as the “Judas of the West,’’ and John Randolph of Virginia publicly assailed the alliance between “the Puritan [Adams] and the black-leg [Clay],’’ who, he added “shines and stinks like rotten mackerel by moonlight.’’ Clay, outraged, challenged Randolph to a duel, though poor marksmanship and shaky nerves rendered the outcome bloodless.

[10] No positive evidence has yet been unearthed to prove that Adams and Clay entered into a formal bargain. Clay was a natural choice for secretary of state, and Adams was both scrupulously honest and not given to patronage. Even if a bargain had been struck, it was not necessarily corrupt. Deals of this nature have long been the stock-in-trade of politicians.  But the outcry over Adams’s election showed that change was in the wind. What had once been common practice was now condemned as furtive, elitist, and subversive of democracy. The next president would not be chosen behind closed doors.