United States presidential election, 1828
← 1824 October 31 - December 2, 1828 1832 →
 
Nominee Andrew Jackson John Quincy Adams
Party Democratic National Republican
Home state Tennessee Massachusetts
Running mate John C. Calhoun Richard Rush
Electoral vote 178 83
States carried 15 9
Popular vote 642,553 500,897
Percentage 56.0% 43.6%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Jackson and Calhoun or Smith, light yellow denotes those won by Adams/Rush. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election

John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican

Elected President

Andrew Jackson
Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1828 featured a rematch between John Quincy Adams, now incumbent President, and Andrew Jackson. As incumbent Vice President John C. Calhoun had sided with the Jacksonians, the National Republicans led by Adams, chose Richard Rush as Adams' running mate.

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. The Democratic Party drew support from the existing supporters of Jackson and their coalition with the supporters of Crawford (the "Old Republicans") and Vice President Calhoun.

Background

Andrew Jackson won a plurality of electoral votes in the Election of 1824 but still lost to John Quincy Adams when the election was deferred to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, unsuccessful candidate and Speaker of the House, despised Jackson, in part due to their fight for Western votes during the election and supported Adams, leading to Adams being elected President. A few days after the election, Adams named Clay his Secretary of State, a position which at that time often led to the presidency. Jackson and his followers immediately labeled Clay and Adams as striking a “corrupt bargain", and they continued to lambast the President until the 1828 election. In a prelude to the presidential election, the Jacksonians bolstered their numbers in Congress in the 1826 Congressional elections; Jackson ally Andrew Stevenson was chosen as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives over Adams ally Speaker John W. Taylor.

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidate:

Within months after the inauguration of John Quincy Adams in 1825, the Tennessee legislature renominated Jackson for president, thus setting the stage for a rematch between these two very different politicians three years hence. No nominating caucus was held. Jackson accepted the incumbent vice president John C. Calhoun as his running mate. Jackson's supporters called themselves Democrats, thus marking the evolution of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party into the modern Democratic Party.[1]

National Republican Party nomination

National Republican candidate:

President John Quincy Adams was renominated on the endorsement of state legislatures and partisan rallies. No nominating caucus was held. Adams accepted Richard Rush of Pennsylvania as his vice presidential running mate. Adams supporters called themselves National Republicans and would later evolve into the Whigs.[1]

General election

Campaign

The campaign was marked by an impressive amount of mudslinging. 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 to remarry her once the legal papers were complete. In the Adams campaign's hands, this became a scandal. Charles Hammond in his Cincinnati Gazette asked: “Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?”

The notorious Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his court 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 also 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.

Adams' praise of internal improvements in Europe such as "lighthouses of the skies" (observatories) in his first annual message to Congress and his suggestion that Congress not be "palsied by the will of our constituents" was given attention in and out of the press. John Randolph stated on the floor of the Senate that he'd "never will be palsied by any power save the constitution, and the will of my constituents." Jackson wrote that a lavish government combined with contempt of the constituents could lead to despotism, if not checked by the "voice of the people".

Hunters of Kentucky
Jackson supporters used this Battle of New Orleans anthem as their campaign song.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Jefferson's opinion

Thomas Jefferson wrote favorably in response to Jackson in December 1823 and extended a preemptive welcome to Monticello: "I recall with pleasure the remembrance of our joint labors while in the Senate together in times of great trial and of hard battling, battles indeed of words, not of blood, as those you have since fought so much for your own glory & that of your country; with the assurance that my attamts continue undiminished, accept that of my great respect & consideration."[2]

Jefferson wrote in dismay at the outcome of the contingent election of 1825 to Congressional caucus nominee William H. Crawford, saying that he had hoped to congratulate Crawford but "events had not been what we had wished."[3]

In the next election, Jackson's and Adams' supporters saw value in establishing the opinion of Jefferson in regards to their respective candidates and against their opposition.[4] Jefferson died on July 4, 1826.

A goal of the pro-Adams press was to depict Jackson as a "mere military chieftain".[4] Edward Coles recounted that Jefferson told him in a conversation in August 1825 that he feared the popular enthusiasm for Jackson: "It has caused me to doubt more than anything that has occurred since our Revolution." Coles used the opinion of Thomas Gilmer to back himself up; Gilmer said Jefferson told him at Monticello before the election of Adams in 1825: "One might as well make a sailor of a cock, or a soldier of a goose, as a President of Andrew Jackson."[4] Daniel Webster, who was also at Monticello at the time, made the same report. Webster recorded that Jefferson told him in December 1824 that Jackson was a dangerous man unfit for the presidency.[5] Historian Sean Wilentz described Webster's account of the meeting as "not wholly reliable."[6] Biographer Robert V. Remini said that Jefferson "had no great love for Jackson."[7]

Gilmer accused Coles of misrepresentation, for Jefferson's opinion had changed, Gilmer said. Jefferson's son-in-law former Virginia Governor Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. said in 1826 that Jefferson had a "strong repugnance" to Henry Clay.[4] Randolph publicly stated that Jefferson became friendly to Jackson's candidacy as early as the summer of 1825, perhaps because of the "corrupt bargain" charge, and thought of Jackson as "an honest, sincere, clear-headed and strong-minded man; of the soundest political principles" and "the only hope left" to reverse the increasing powers assumed by the federal government.[8] Others said the same thing, but Coles could not believe Jefferson's opinion had changed.[4]

In 1827, Virginia Governor William B. Giles released a letter from Jefferson meant to be kept private to Thomas Ritchie's Richmond Enquirer. It was written after Adams' first annual message to Congress and it contained an attack from Jefferson on the incumbent administration. Giles said Jefferson's alarm was with the usurpation of the rights of the states, not with a "military chieftain."[4] Jefferson wrote, "take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal bench, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic." Of the Federalists, he continued, "But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry."[9] The Jacksonians and states' rights men heralded its publication; the Adams men felt it a symptom of senility.[4] Giles omitted a prior letter of Jefferson's praise of Adams for his role in the embargo of 1808. Thomas Jefferson Randolph soon collected and published Jefferson's correspondence.

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 almost exactly the same states that his father had won in the election of 1800: the New England states, New Jersey, and Delaware. In addition, Adams picked up Maryland. Jackson won everything else, resulting in a landslide victory.

Electoral results
Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral
vote 		Running mate
Count Percentage Vice-presidential candidate Home state Electoral vote
Andrew Jackson Democratic Tennessee 642,553 56.0% 178 John Caldwell Calhoun South Carolina 171
William Smith South Carolina 7
John Quincy Adams National Republican Massachusetts 500,897 43.6% 83 Richard Rush Pennsylvania 83
Other 4,568 0.4% — Other —
Total 1,148,018 100% 261 261
Needed to win 131 131

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1828 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 27, 2005. Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 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, and she became aggravated by the personal attacks on her marriage. She became ill and died on December 22, 1828. Jackson accused the Adams campaign, and Henry Clay even more so, of causing her death, saying, "I can and do forgive all my enemies. But those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for mercy."

When the results of the election were announced, a mob entered the White House, damaging the furniture and lights. Jackson escaped through the back and large punch bowls were set up to lure the crowd outside. Conservatives were horrified at this event, and held it up as a portent of terrible things to come from the first Democratic president.[10]

Andrew Jackson was sworn in as President on March 4, 1829.

Electoral College selection

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
 Maine
  • One Elector chosen per Congressional district by the voters of that district
  • Remaining two Electors chosen by the other Electors
 New York
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide (all other states)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
  2. ^ Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson, December 18, 1823 Retrieved on 2006-11-21.
  3. ^ Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, February 15, 1825. Retrieved on 2006-11-21.Transcript.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Peterson, Merrill D.. The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, p. 25-27
  5. ^ Webster, Daniel (1857). Webster, Fletcher (ed.) (ed.). The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 371. ((cite book)): |editor= has generic name (help)
  6. ^ Wilentz, Sean. Andrew Jackson (2005), p. 8.
  7. ^ Remini, Jackson 1:109
  8. ^ Peterson, Merrill D.. The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, p. 26. See also: Andrew Stevenson's Eulogy of Andrew Jackson: B. M. Dusenbery (ed.), ed. (1846). Monument to the Memory of General Andrew Jackson. Philadelphia: Walker & Gillis. pp. 250, 263–264. ((cite book)): |editor= has generic name (help)
  9. ^ Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, Dec. 26, 1825. Peterson characterized this letter as "one of the most influential that Jefferson ever wrote."
  10. ^ See The Limits of Liberty, American History, 1607-1992, Second Edition, Maldwyn A. Jones, OUP, p(139)

References

Books
  • Bemis, Samuel Flagg (1956). John Quincy Adams and the Union. vol. 2.
  • Butterfield, Roger (1947). The American Past: A History of the United States from Concord to Hiroshima, 1775-1945. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  • Holt, Michael F. (1992). Political Parties and American Political Development: From the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln.
  • McCormick, Richard P. (1966). The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era.
  • Parsons, Lynn H. The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 (2009) excerpt and text search
  • Remini, Robert V. (1959). Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party.
  • Remini, Robert V. (1981). Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832.
  • Swint, Kerwin C. (2006). Mudslingers: The Top 25 Negative Political Campaigns of All Time. Praeger Publishers.
  • Watson, Harry L. (1990). Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America. ISBN 0-374-52196-4.
  • Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.
Web sites
Elections by year
Elections by state
Primaries and caucuses
Nominating conventions
Electoral College
and popular vote
Related
Categories