Election of 1824 -- may be the most important election in US history

• no one candidate strong enough in 1824 to control the Republican Party
• Caucus candidate -- William Crawford (GA) -- Sec of Treasury
• State Legislatures also put forth candidates
• John Q. Adams (MA) -- Sec of State
• Henry Clay (KY) -- Speaker of the House
• John C. Calhoun (SC) -- Sec of War
• Andrew Jackson (TN) -- hero of New Orleans
• Calhoun dropped out of the race for President and appeared on the ballot as VP for both Adams and Jackson
• During the Campaign, each candidate ran on his strengths. Jackson refused to commit to a plan and simply tried to ride New Orleans to victory.
• Almost 25% of eligible voters voted -- new voters supported Jackson
• Popular Vote
• Jackson 153,544 (42.1 %)
• Adams 108,740 (31.9 %)
• Clay 47,136 (13 %)
• Crawford 46,618 (13%)
• Electoral Vote
• 1. Jackson 99
• 2. Adams 84
• 3. Crawford 41
• 4. Clay 37
• according to the Constitution, when no one candidate receives a majority of the electoral vote, the election is thrown into the House of Reps, where the body would choose from the top THREE
• Clay is eliminated, but will preside over the election as Speaker
• Crawford was out -- soon after the election he suffered a stroke.
• Clay had not developed an attachment to Adams -- Clay was a hard-drinking westerner while Adams was a Puritanical sour New Englander. Adams did, however, support most of Clay's American System (he was lukewarm on the tariff)
• Clay's view of Jackson, however, made the decision easy -- Clay considered Jackson unqualified for the office
• Clay threw his support to Adams and the House voted him president on the first ballot
• Adams then made Clay his Secretary of State (stepping stone to the White House)
• Jackson's followers screamed that it was a "corrupt bargain"
• Jackson will campaign for 1828 for four years, feeling that he had been cheated
• Adams will struggle for four years as president
• Best Sec of State we ever had -- terrible president -- no people skills

• "Yankee misfit" in the white house
• very nationalistic
• supports Clay's American System
• national university proposed
• federal support for education and science
• called for higher tariffs to protect NE and to pay for internal improvements

• Tariff of 1828
• Called "Tariff of Abominations" in the South -- Especially South Carolina
• 45% tax
• Calhoun secretly publishes the South Carolina Exposition where he calls the tariff unconstitutional and calls on all southern states to nullify the tariff (first sign of a shift from Calhoun to sectionalism)
• Important fact to remember -- by 1828, cotton was really the cash crop for the South
• The south hated the tariff because it drained money from the South to the North
• Jackson will campaign throughout Adams' term
• Jacksonites never let Adams pass anything meaningful in Congress
• Adams was too stubborn to try to heal the rift
• By the end of 1828, Adams is really a man who knows he'll be defeated

• National Republicans -- Adams
• Democrats -- Jackson
• Popular Vote -- record turnout (almost 75% of eligible voters)
• Jackson 56%
• Adams 44% (it's really amazing that he did that well)
• Electoral Vote
• Jackson 178
• Adams 83

• Jackson's two terms bring a new brand of politician to Washington -- Rise of the Common man into politics (Mobocracy)
• Calhoun -- Vice President -- remember that he had been VP under Adams as well.
• It's important to remember that there had been only one political party that split into two
• Jackson's supporters -- Democrats
• Jackson's opponents -- National Republicans (often a wide variety of people whose only common ground lay in their opposition to Jackson)
• Jackson's cabinet -- generally worthless bunch of political appointments -- Sec of state (Martin Van Buren) is the only one worth his weight
• "Kitchen Cabinet" -- group of unofficial advisors to Jackson -- really his closest advisors -- many newspaper editors and owners -- Jackson understood the power of the media and the need to control his supporters
• Nullification Crisis (1828 to 1832)
• started in Adams's presidency with the 1828 tariff (Tariff of Abominations)
• South supported Jackson in the Election
• Jackson was supposed to fight for a lower tariff, but he came to realize the tariff was necessary to protect the country's only growing economic sector (the Northeast)
• 1832 -- South Carolina finally had enough -- led by Calhoun, the state passes an Ordinance of Nullification -- state militia troops take up positions in Charleston and begin to drill
• South Carolina never wanted war, but figured that the rest of the South would support the Palmetto state
• The other southern states, however, refused to follow
• Jackson went ballistic -- he's a nationalist first before a southerner
• Jackson went to Congress and got a Force Bill (authorized him to invade South Carolina)
• South Carolina realized that it had gone too far -- the legislature rescinds its nullification paperwork
• In a defiant gesture, however, South Carolina nullified the Force Bill
• A generation of South Carolinians will tell their children of the lack of support from their Southern brothers in 1832, and will work for the day when that support will be there. That day will come on 20 Dec 1860 when South Carolina issues an Ordinance of Secession and leaves the Union
• Logical steps to Civil War
• VA and KY Resolutions of 1798 -- idea of nullification
• Hartford Convention of 1814 -- idea of Secession
• Nullification Crisis of 1832 -- nullification in practice
• Secession Winter of 1860-1861 -- Secession in practice

• Peggy Eaton Affair (1831)
• Jackson's wife Rachael -- scandal regarding her marriage to Jackson exposed during the campaign -- she dies before Jackson can take office -- probably suffered from clinical depression and later pneumonia -- Jackson blamed her death on his political enemies who, he said, "killed his beloved Rachel"
• Martin van Buren -- widower as well
• Since Jackson has no first lady, Floride Calhoun will take over the "duties" -- she leads the Washington social circle and the right people
• Floride Calhoun -- linked to real southern families and South Carolina's elite
• Secretary of War John Eaton -- widower who married a Washington tavern owner's daughter Peggy
• Peggy O'Neal (Eaton) -- rumor was that she gave her bar customers extra "special" services
• Floride Calhoun snubbed Peggy Eaton
• Jackson sided with the Eatons and saw Calhoun as a political enemy (similar to the ones who killed his Rachel)
• Martin Van Buren -- since he's a widower as well, sides with the Eatons and puts himself closer to Jackson
• Calhoun -- ends up resigning in 1832 over the split with Jackson
• Van Buren, not Calhoun will be Jackson's successor
• Calhoun will turn to extreme Southern Sectionalism
• Some historians will say that Peggy Eaton caused the civil war by driving Calhoun away from Nationalism -- after 1832, Calhoun's political future lay in the hands of South Carolina's families -- any national hopes and aspirations were gone
• Jackson vs. the National Bank
• Jackson, as a Westerner, hated the National Bank (BUS)
• Henry Clay (champion of the Bank through his American System and the chief political rival of Jackson's) pushed for the renewal of the Bank's charter in 1832
• BUS -- undeniably tied to Northeastern money and the elite
• If Jackson didn't oppose the bank in the election year of 1832, he might have lost some of his support out west
• Jackson will oppose Clay's bill and later Veto it, calling it "unconstitutional"
• Jackson cared little for the McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819) decision that declared the bank to be constitutional and simply acted as though the decision didn't exist
• The Bank becomes the main issue of the 1832 election
• Clay misread the people -- most ordinary people considered the bank to be unconstitutional as well -- John Marshall's ruling not withstanding
• Problem -- BUS was full of corruption
• Nicholas Biddle -- President of the BUS -- intimately tied to money interests of the Northeast
• BUS -- was a highly profitable and financially sound institution that the country really needed
• After Jackson won the election of 1832, he really went after the Bank -- he thinks he has a mandate from the American people
• Jackson pulled the Federal money out of the BUS
• Biddle was forced to call in loans to make up for the shortfall of money
• 1836 -- BUS closes -- US without a national bank
• Jackson will never have to pay for his financial mistake -- his successor Van Buren will inherit a financial mess
• Trail of Tears -- Jackson's Removal of the Indians
• Jackson -- never a friend to the Indians
• As Americans moved west, Native tribal lands were surrounded by settlement
• Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast (over 100,000 Indians)
• Cherokee -- Northwestern Georgia (Black Belt Cotton)
• Creek -- Western Alabama (Black Belt Cotton)
• Chickasaw -- Northern Mississippi (Black Belt Cotton)
• Choctaw -- Central to Northern Mississippi (Black Belt Cotton)
• Seminole -- Central Florida
• 1830 -- Congress passes the Indian Removal Act -- sends Indians to "Indian Territory" (Oklahoma)
• Thousands die walking to Oklahoma -- becomes known as the Trail of Tears
• A Lone Star Shining Bright -- The Republic of Texas
• 1820s -- Slaveholding Americans from the old Southwest pour into Mexican province of Tejas (Texas)
• Stephen F. Austin -- led the push for settlement -- "John Winthrop" of Texas
• Texas drew all kinds -- farmers looking for good land and a fresh start, renegades, roughnecks, fighters, gamblers, etc…
• By 1830 -- Texans outnumber Mexicans in the province
• Slavery was outlawed in the province, but no one cared -- Mexico City a long ways away
• 1836 -- Texans declare their independence
• Sam Houston -- commander in chief of the Texan Army -- slaveholder and ex-governor from Tennessee (personal friend of Andy Jackson)
• Santa Anna -- Mexican Dictator and Commander -- heads into Texas personally in command of 6000 soldiers -- he's determined to crush the rebellion
• March 6, 1836 -- After a 13 day siege -- 186 defenders die at the Alamo -- becomes a rallying cry for the revolution ("Remember the Alamo")
• 21 April 1836 -- Sam Houston catches the Mexicans at their siesta hour and attacks -- Santa Anna captured and forced to sign papers granting independence
• Santa Anna will later say that the agreement was null in void because it was signed under duress
• Mexico will consider Texas a province in Rebellion
• Texas wants annexation, but a growing abolitionist presence in the North refused to support it -- Texas question will linger for 9 years
• Much of the American public supports annexation, but Jackson doesn't do it yet
• Sam Houston -- elected President of the Republic of Texas
• We'll come back to Texas in 1845

• Election of 1832 -- Clay's American System defeated
• Birth of the Whigs (Anti-Jackson)
• Election of 1836
• Martin Van Buren (1837 to 1841)
• Panic of 1837 -- Fall of America's financial "house of cards" -- Van Buren refused to help
• Independent Treasury -- divorces federal money from Bank and uses it only as a reserve
• Amistad Case -- another notch down the road to civil war
• Election of 1840 -- Tippecanoe and Tyler too vs. Martin van Ruin