01:512:205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Corrupt Bargain, National Republican Party, Jacksonian Democracy
18 May 2018
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Chapter 13: The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-
1840
1. The Corrupt Bargain of 1824
1. As James Monroe, the last of the Virginia dynasty, complete his second
term; four candidates towered above the others: John Quincy Adams of
Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, William H. Crawford of Georgia,
and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
2. All four rivals professed to be Republicans but well-organized parties
had not yet emerged and John C. Calhoun was vice-presidential
candidate to Adams and Jackson
3. The results of the noisy campaign were interesting but confusing
1. Jackson, the war hero, clearly had the strongest personal appeal,
especially in the West, where his campaign against corruption and
privilege in govt. resonated deeply
2. Jackson polled as many popular votes as his next two rivals combined
but he failed to win majority of electoral votes and in such a deadlock,
the House of Representatives, as directed by the Twelfth Amendment,
must choose among the top three candidates and Clay was thus
eliminated but as Speaker, he presided over the House
4. The influential Clay was in a position to throw the election to the candidate
of his choice and he reached his decision by the process of elimination
1. Crawford, recently felled by a paralytic stroke, was out of the picture
2. Clay hated the military chieftain Jackson, his archrival for allegiance
of the West and in turn, Jackson bitterly resented Clay’s public
denunciation of his Florida attack
3. The only candidate left was the puritanical Adams, with whom Clay
had never established a cordial personal relations but the two men
were common politically because both were fervid nationalists and
advocates of the American System
4. Shortly before the final balloting in the House, Clay met privately with
Adams and assured him of his support and decision Day came early
in 1825 when on the first ballot, thanks largely to Clay’s influence,
Adams was elected president
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5. A few days later, Adams announced that Henry Clay would be the new
secretary of state
6.
7. The office of secretary of state was the coveted position as three of the
four preceding secretaries had reached the presidency; by allegedly
dangling the position as a bribe before Clay, Adams, the second choice of
the people, apparently defeated Jackson
8. Masses of angry Jacksonians raised a roar of protest against this corrupt
bargain and Jackson condemned Clay as Judas of the West and John
Randolph assailed the alliance
2. A Yankee Misfit in the White House
1. A closeted thinker rather than a politician, John Quincy Adams was
irritable, sarcastic, and tactless; a man of puritanical honor, Adams
entered the White House under charges of bargain, corruption, and
usurpation—he was the first minority president
2. Adams achieved high office by commanding respect rather than by
courting popularity
3. While Adams’s enemies accused him of striking a corrupt bargain, his
political allies wished that he would strike a few more but Adams
resolutely declined to oust efficient officeholders in order to create
vacancies for his supporters
4. Adams’s nationalistic views gave him further woes; much of the nation
was turning away from post-Ghent nationalism and toward states’ rights
and sectionalism
1. Adams swam against he tide and Adams urged upon Congress in his
first annual message the construction of roads and canals, renewed
Washington’s proposal for a national university and advocated federal
support for an astronomical observatory
2. The public reaction to these proposals was prompt and unfavorable
and South, in particular was annoyed; if the federal government
should take on such heavy financial burdens, it would have to
continue the hated tariff duties to pay for its debt
3. Adams’s land policy antagonized the westerners who clamored for
wide-open expansion and resented the president’s well-meaning
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attempts to curb feverish speculation in the public domain—fate of
Cherokee Indians brought out bitterness
4. The Georgia governor, by threatening to resort to arms, resisted the
efforts of the Washington government to interpose federal authority on
behalf of the Cherokees
3. Going Whole Hog for Jackson in 1828
1. The presidential campaign for Andrew Jackson started early—on
February 9, 1825, the day of John Quincy Adams’s controversial election
and continued for four straight years
2. Even before the election of 1828, the temporarily united Republicans of
the Era of Good Feelings had split into two camps: the National
Republicans supporting Adams and the Democratic-Republicans
supporting the fiery Jackson as their head
1. Rallying cries of the Jackson zealots were Bargain and Corruption,
Huzza for Jackson, and All Hail Old Hickory—Jacksonites planted
hickory poles for hero
2. Adamsites adopted the oak as the symbol for their oakenly
independent candidate
3. Jackson’s followers presented their hero as a frontiersman and a stalwart
champion of the common man and denounced Adams as a corrupt
aristocrat and argued that the will of the people had been thwarted in 1825
by the backstairs bargain of Adams and Clay
4. Much of this talk was political hyperbole as Jackson was a wealthy planter
and Adams though perhaps an aristocrat, was far from corrupt (puritanical
models were too elevated)
5. Mudslinging reached new lows in 1828, and the electorate developed a
taste for bare-knuckle politics; Adams would not stoop to gutter tactics but
his backers did
6. Criticism of Adams was directed at the federal salaries Adams had
received over time
7. On voting day the electorate split on largely sectional lines
1. Jackson’s strongest support came from the West and South; the
middle states and the Old Northwest were divided, while Adams won
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Document Summary
Chapter 13: the rise of a mass democracy, 1824- 1840: the (cid:1688)corrupt bargain(cid:1689) of 1824, as james monroe, the last of the virginia dynasty, complete his second term; four candidates towered above the others: john quincy adams of. Adams and assured him of his support and decision day came early in 1825 when on the first ballot, thanks largely to clay"s influence, Cherokees became cotton planters and slaveholders: for these efforts the cherokees along with the creeks, choctaws, Indians lands; the cherokees appealed this move to the supreme. Illinois and wisconsin, ably led by black hawk, resisted eviction; they were bloodily crushed in 1832 by regular troops, including lieutenant. Kentuckian; a jacksonian wave again swept over the west and (cid:1688)south, surged into pennsylvania and new york, and even washed into rock-ribbed new england (219 to 49) Burying biddle"s bank: its charter denied, the bank of the united states was due to expire in.
