A School History of the United StatesMcMaster, John Bach
History
A School History of the United States
McMaster, John Bach
United States -- History
Now the people of the different sections of the country were not of one
mind on these questions. The Middle States and Kentucky and some parts
of New England wanted manufactures encouraged. In the West and the
Middle States people were in favor of internal improvements at the cost
of the government. In the South Atlantic States, where tobacco and
cotton and rice were raised and shipped (especially the cotton) to
England, people cared nothing for manufactures, nothing for internal
improvements.
%329. Presidential Candidates in 1824.%--This diversity of opinion on
questions of vital importance had much to do with the breaking up of the
Republican party into sectional factions after 1820. The ambition of
leaders in these sections helped on the disruption, so that between 1821
and 1824 four men, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of
Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, John C. Calhoun of South
Carolina, were nominated for President by state legislatures or state
nominating conventions, by mass meeting or by gatherings of men who had
assembled for other purposes but seized the occasion to indorse or
propose a candidate. A fifth, William H. Crawford, was nominated by the
congressional caucus, which then acted for the last time in our history.
Before election day this list was reduced to four: Calhoun had become
the candidate of all factions for the vice presidency.
[Illustration: John Quincy Adams]
%330. Adams elected by the House of Representatives.%--The
Constitution provides that no man is chosen President by the electors
who does not receive a majority of their votes. In 1824 Jackson received
ninety-nine; Adams, eighty-four; Crawford, forty-one; and Clay,
thirty-seven. There was, therefore, no election, and it became the duty
of the House of Representatives to make a choice. But according to the
Constitution only the three highest could come before the House. This
left out Clay, who was Speaker and who had great influence. His friends
would not vote for Jackson on any account, nor for Crawford, the
caucus candidate. Adams they liked, because he believed in internal
improvements at government expense and a protective tariff. Adams
accordingly was elected President. Calhoun had been elected Vice
President by the electoral college.
[Illustration: The United States July 4, 1826]
The election of John Quincy Adams was a matter of intense disappointment
to the friends of Jackson. In the heat of party passion and the
bitterness of their disappointment they declared that it was the result
of a bargain between Adams and Clay. Clay, they said, was to induce his
friends in the House of Representatives to vote for Adams, in return for
which Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was
ever made. But when Adams did appoint Clay Secretary of State, Jackson
and his followers were fully convinced of the contrary[1].
[Footnote 1: Parton's _Life of Jackson_, Chap. 10; Schurz's _Life of
Clay_, Vol. I., pp. 203-258]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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