On Reading "The Birth of Modern Politics"

Results of the 1828 Presidential Election

This is a continuation of an earlier post on The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Hudson Parsons. The book's title is perhaps somewhat misleading. The book briefly accounts for the careers of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson prior to the presidential election of 1824. It discusses the elections of 1824 and 1828 in comparable detail, as well as the Adams administration from 1825 to 1829, and more briefly the Jackson administration.

Adams and Jackson were polar opposites. Adams, from Massachusetts, was the son of a president, well educated and multilingual, with extensive European diplomatic experience, the most prominent of his generation in a family that has been prominent in American life for many generations. Jackson, orphaned at an early age with little formal education, was born in the south but migrated to Tennessee; he accumulated wealth as a land speculator and slave holding plantation owner, and rose to prominence as a general in Indian wars and as the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson was a duelist known for a violent temper while Adams seems to have been a man of more guarded emotions.

In the half century after the beginning of the American Revolution, the United States population had increased, the road system had improved, and there were many more newspapers and presses. The initial division between federalists and anti-federalists had diminished; President Monroe had sought to reduce party partisanship as did President Adams in his 1825-29 term of office.

The division between southern slave states and northern free labor states remained; the American system of manufacturing was being born in the north. Western settlers were becoming an important part of the electorate with their own issues and concerns. "The American System" (a philosophy of government that called for a central bank, protective tariffs for American manufactures, and a vigorous government program supporting construction of roads and canals) was a significant political issue.

There were 24 states in 1824 and 1828. All but six chose their electors for president by popular vote in 1824, all but 2 in 1828. Suffrage was still limited to white men, but had expanded significantly. States had their number of representatives in the House of Representatives were apportioned according to the free population plus 3/5th of the slave population. Poling places were more universally available, but candidates supplied their own ballots and in some cases votes were cast verbally. The presidential election was held at a different time than the congressional elections. All very different than today.

Four candidates ran for President in 1824 -- Jackson, Adams, Clay and Crawford. Both Adams and Jackson assumed the role of "mute tribune", refraining from campaigning publicly. Jackson won the plurality but not the majority of the popular vote nor of the electoral college; Adams second in both. The election was thrown into the House of Representatives, and Adams emerged with a majority there. Jackson's supporters charged that Henry Clay swayed the Congress in support for appointment to Adams' cabinet as the result of a corrupt agreement between Adams and Clay.

Adams was what today we might call a progressive. He proposed creating better U.S. charts for the Atlantic Coast, the creation of a Naval Academy, improvement of the transportation infrastructure, creation of a Department of the Interior, creation of a national university, creation of a national system of weights and measures, and the creation of a national astronomical observatory. The Congress, dominated by Jackson's supporters, passed very little of the legislation to implement his program. The progressive nature of that program became a key issue in the next election.

In the election of 1828 there were two candidates, sitting president John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Adams' vice president from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, switched sides and ran as Jackson's running made; Adams ran with Pennsylvanian Richard Rush, one of his existing cabinet members. Thus neither side balanced the ticket geographically; two northeners ran against two southerners.

Adams again played the mute tribune while Jackson was much more active making public appearances. The Jackson supporters, having formed the Democratic Party, organized a more active campaign than had ever been seen before; they did polling and research, created networks of party supporting newspapers, distributed handbills and  pamphlets widely, held public meetings, and even used campaign songs; Adams supporters were far less organized and active. The Democrats selected their candidate through a national convention for the first time in American history, setting a precedent that has been followed ever since. The campaign would today be seen as pretty dirty including, for example, aspersions on candidates' wives; perhaps it was not different in that respect than previous campaigns. Jackson carried the southern states and the western states and -- importantly -- Pennsylvania and most of the electoral votes from New York; Adams carried only the northern states and lost the election.

The Democratic Party won six of the next 8 elections, the new Whigs Party only two. (There was also an Anti-Mason Party at the time.)  Jackson went on to greatly strengthen the office of the presidency, overcoming South Carolina's effort to nullify a federal law, refusing to follow Supreme Court orders to intercede in southern states expulsion of the Cherokee Indian tribe, and vetoing the extension of the authorization of a national bank. History has proven Adams' program and Jackson's Party to be the more lasting.

The book is well illustrated, relatively short and easy to read. I would have found it useful to have an appendix with brief biographies of the secondary characters (e.g. Calhoun, Clay, Van Buren, Crawford, Webster).

I was bothered by author Parsons explaining what the candidates really thought. I assume that motivations are complex and sometimes unconscious. Do politicians ever really reveal their ideas and motives even to their close collaborators?  I tend to doubt that contemporaries fully understand the motivations of major figures of their time, nor do those major figures fully and frankly document their motives (even as they themselves understand them) in documents that they expect to be revealed to the public. As they say, the past is a different country and historians view their topic through the interests of the historians own time.

Still, I found the book interesting, especially as it illuminated American political history after the time of the founding fathers and before Jackson's presidency -- a time I had not previously read about.