United States presidential election, 1828
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The United States presidential election of 1828 featured a rematch between incumbent President John Quincy Adams and chief rival Andrew Jackson, who was now a candidate under the banner of the new Democratic Party.
Unlike the 1824 election, no other major candidates appeared in the race, allowing Jackson to consolidate a power base and easily win an electoral victory over Adams.
Background
Andrew Jackson had won a plurality of both the popular(a) and electoral votes in the election of 1824, but had still been beaten by John Quincy Adams when the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, the then-Speaker of the House, had played kingmaker by throwing his support to Adams; when Adams made Clay his Secretary of State, Jackson and his followers accused Clay and Adams of a "corrupt bargain", and had been bashing Adams' presidency as illegitimate ever since.
(a) It should be noted that a full quarter of the states did not hold a popular vote.
General election
Campaign
This campaign was marked by an impressive amount of mud-slinging. Jackson's marriage came in for attack: when he had married his wife Rachel, the couple had believed that she was divorced; however, the divorce was not yet finalized, so he had had to remarry her once the legal papers were complete. In the Adams campaign's hands, this became a scandal. One pamphlet asked: "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and christian [sic] land?"
The notorious Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his courts martial and execution of deserters, for his massacres of Indian villages, and for his habit of dueling.
Adams did not escape attack. It was charged that Adams, while serving as Minister to Russia, had surrendered an American servant girl to the appetites of the Czar. Adams was accused of using public funds to buy gambling devices for the presidential residence; it turned out that these were a chess set and a pool table.
Results
The selection of electors began on October 31 with elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania and ended on November 13 with elections in North Carolina. The Electoral College met on December 3.
Adams won exactly the same states that his father had won in the election of 1800: the New England states, New Jersey, and Delaware. Jackson won everything else. Unfortunately for Adams, there was a lot more everything else in this election than there had been in 1800, and he lost in a landslide.
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. [1828 Presidential Election Results]. [Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections] (July 27, 2005).
Source (Electoral Vote): [Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996]. [Official website of the National Archives]. (July 31, 2005).
(a) The popular vote figures exclude Delaware and South Carolina. In both of these states, the Electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.
Aftermath
Rachel Jackson had been having chest pains throughout the campaign, aggravated by the personal attacks on her marriage. She became ill and died, humiliated, on December 22, 1828. Jackson accused the Adams campaign of causing her death, saying, "May God Almighty forgive her murderers as I know she forgave them. I never can."
Electoral college selection
{| class="wikitable"
! Method of choosing Electors
! State(s)
|-
| each Elector appointed by state legislature
| Delaware
South Carolina
|-
| state is divided into electoral districts, with one Elector chosen per district by the voters of that district
| Maryland
Tennessee
|-
|
- two Electors chosen by voters statewide
- one Elector chosen per Congressional district by the voters of that district
- one Elector chosen per Congressional district by the voters of that district
- remaining two Electors chosen by the other Electors
- redirect
See also
External Links
References
- Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956), vol 2. Pulitzer prize biography.
- Holt, Michael F. Political Parties and American Political Development: From the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln (1992)
- McCormick, Richard P. The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (1966).
- Remini, Robert V. Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party. (1959).
- Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 (1981);
- Watson, Harry L. Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (1990) (ISBN 0374521964)
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