Volume 18 , Issue 40

1824 Presidential Election Controversy

The election of 1824 likewise had to go to the House of Representatives for a decision. All four candidates were Democratic-Republicans: war-hero Andrew Jackson, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, and House Speaker Henry Clay.

Found on Newspapers.com

[Nashville Whig, dated 28 Feb. 1825, Monday, page 2. Henry Clay's involvement in Adam's election.]

It was on a Thursday, February 3 (1825), The Speaker, Henry Clay, rose from his place, and requested the indulgence of the house for a few moments, whilst he asked its attention to a subject, in which he felt himself deeply concerned. It seems a note appeared that morning in the National Intelligencer, under the name and with the authority, as he presumed, of a member of the House from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kremer, which adopted, as his own, a previous letter, published i another, containing serious and injurious imputations against him, and which the author avowed his readiness to substantiate by proof. Those charges implicated his conduct, in regard to the pending presidential election; and the respectability of the station which the member holds, who thus openly prefers them, and that of the people whom he represents, entitled them to grave attention. - [Click on image to read the 1825 news story.]

Although Jackson won the popular vote, he only won a plurality of Electoral College votes (rather than a majority), so it was up to the House of Representatives to decide the election. Henry Clay (who got the least electoral votes and was thus no longer under consideration for president) got his supporters to switch to Adams, making Adams president instead of Jackson. Adams, in turn, made Clay his secretary of state in what Jackson called a “corrupt bargain.”
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---