A War Hero, a Brilliant Diplomat, and the ‘Corrupt’ 1824 Election

(L) John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart and (R) Andrew Jackson by Thomas Sully, ran against each other for president in 1824. Public Domain

Andrew Jackson’s success as commander of the Seventh Military District against the Creek Indians led to a promotion and a new assignment. He was promoted to major general and was directed to defend the crucial port city of New Orleans against the British. The appointment led to the final climactic act of the War of 1812.

It was during this week in history, on Dec. 1, 1814, that Jackson arrived in New Orleans and began accumulating an almost comic array of soldiers. Among the regular United States troops, the defenders of New Orleans included frontiersmen from Tennessee and Kentucky, militiamen from Louisiana, sailors, marines, New Orleans businessmen, free men of color, Choctaw Indians, and even a collection of pirates, led by Jean Lafitte. There were 5,700 in Jackson’s army.

Gen. Andrew Jackson standing on the parapet of his makeshift defenses. His troops repulse attacking Highlanders during the defense of New Orleans, the final major battle of the War of 1812. Public Domain

The British arrived near New Orleans on the morning of Dec. 23. Jackson led his men in an attack against the British, which lasted several hours before Jackson called for a retreat. The clash had been inconclusive. Jackson ordered his men to build a massive three-quarter mile long earthwork, stretching between the Mississippi River and a large swamp. The earthwork was called Line Jackson.

The Battle of New Orleans

The 8,000 British, led by Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham, twice attempted to defeat the Americans, but to no avail. Frustrated, Pakenham coordinated an all-out attack on Line Jackson in the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 1815. Jackson’s hodgepodge army was prepared at every turn, eventually repulsing the British with bloody efficiency. By the end of the Battle of New Orleans, the casualties on both sides told the story: Americans with 62 and the British with 2,034.

“When the smoke had cleared and we could obtain a fair view of the field, it looked at first glance like a sea of blood,” one Kentucky soldier wrote. “It was not blood itself, but the red coats in which the British soldiers were dressed. The field was entirely covered in prostrate bodies.”

The British never attacked the line again and withdrew from New Orleans altogether on Jan. 18. News of Jackson’s victory spread throughout the country and he was heralded an American hero. His hero status was not diminished despite the fact that the war had officially ended with the Treaty of Ghent, signed two weeks before the battle.

Adams and the Peace Commission

While the War of 1812 was raging in America, John Quincy Adams was on the other side of the world in St. Petersburg as the minister to Russia. Europe, including Russia, had been experiencing its own conflict with the Napoleonic Wars. Czar Alexander I was concerned about the British-American affair and offered to assist in negotiating peace. Adams informed President James Madison, and Madison accepted. In the spring of 1813, he sent Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin and Sen. James A. Bayard as negotiators (their appointment required their resignations from their previous positions). The negotiations were unsuccessful.

A portrait of Henry Clay, 1821, by Charles Bird King. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public Domain

By January 1814, Madison nominated another peace commission composed of Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard, as well as diplomat Jonathan Russell and Speaker of the House Henry Clay. They met directly with British diplomats. The Senate confirmed the nominations on Jan. 18, and Clay resigned his position the following day. Before peace was attained, two significant moments took place: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated in April 1814 and Washington was set on fire by the British in August.

American Bickering

Negotiating peace wasn’t simply between the Americans and British, but also between the Americans themselves. Gallatin’s son, James, attended his father, and wrote an extensive diary on the peace process, which included the inter-commission bickering.

“Father finds greater difficulty with his own colleagues. … Clay uses strong language to Adams, and Adams returns the compliment. … Father said, ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, we must remain united or we will fail,’” young Gallatin wrote in his Aug. 10 entry. Some of his later entries over the coming months, displayed the rather combative relationship between Adams and Clay: “Mr. Adams [is] in a very bad temper. Mr. Clay annoys him. … Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay object to everything except what they suggest.”

This drafting still goes on—endless discussions and violent arguments,” he wrote on Nov. 3. Despite the bickering, the draft and, therefore, the treaty was finally completed and signed in Ghent, Belgium on Christmas Eve 1814. “The British delegates very civilly asked us to dinner” on Christmas Day. “The band played first ‘God Save the King,’ to the toast of the King, and ‘Yankee Doodle,’ to the toast of the President. Congratulations on all sides and a general atmosphere of serenity; it was a scene to be remembered.”

The Jackson-Adams Mutual Benefit

Jackson and Adams had been two sides of the same coin. Their respective successes in war and in peace negotiations only elevated their careers. Jackson maintained his generalship, while Adams became Secretary of State for President James Monroe. In 1818, their individual positions would benefit each other.

Jackson viewed East Florida, which was under Spanish rule, as a threat to America, mostly due to Seminoles conducting raids on Americans and then fleeing back into what was another country. Jackson took a bold chance; he invaded Spanish Florida and defeated the Seminoles.

Believing the recent invasion was a precursor to America taking Florida, the Spanish directed Minister Don Luis de Onís to negotiate with Secretary Adams. The negotiation resulted in the Adams-Onís Treaty. Spain ceded East and West Florida to the United States and relinquished claims in the Northwest Territory. Both countries established the long-debated boundaries that made up the Louisiana Purchase.

Spanish West Florida and East Florida (1810–1821). Public Domain

Just as the decade between 1815 and 1825, known as the “Era of Good Feelings,” would come to an end, this Jackson-Adams military-diplomatic mutuality would also end, eventually devolving into political rivalry.

A Political Showdown

As the son of America’s second president, John Adams, and Monroe’s secretary of state for nearly eight years, John Quincy Adams was immensely experienced in diplomatic affairs. A negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent, the lead negotiator for the Adams-Onis Treaty, and the author of the Monroe Doctrine, Adams seemed the obvious choice to become the sixth president. Jackson’s fame, however, could not be dimmed. He was not only a national hero, nearly on par with George Washington, but his story of overcoming economic and familial hardships, made him the ultimate “common man.” In 1823, he was elected senator of Tennessee. The state legislature also nominated him as a candidate for president in 1822.

Part of the “Era of Good Feelings” was the fact that there was political singularity. The Democratic-Republicans had dispensed with the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and Adams. In the election of 1824, there were four presidential candidates: Jackson, Adams, Clay, and William Crawford. All four were Democratic-Republicans.

It was during this week in history, on Dec. 1, 1824, that the results of the election were announced. Jackson had come out on top in both the electoral college (99) and popular vote (151,271), with Adams coming in second (84 and 113,122). The problem for Jackson was twofold: He may have been first, but he hadn’t received the 131 electoral votes needed to win the majority; and secondly, he was Washington’s “novus homo.” The benefit for Adams, though, was that he was well established in Washington and he had a close colleague as speaker of the House: Henry Clay.

The 12th Amendment and a ‘Corrupt Bargain’

The 12th Amendment at the National Archives. Public Domain

The 12th Amendment, created after the fiasco of the 1800 election, placed the top three candidates—in this case Jackson, Adams, and Crawford—before the House of Representatives. The House would then vote for who would become president. Clay, who disliked Jackson, worked to garner enough votes for Adams to become president.

Jackson took the defeat well. That was until Adams made Clay his secretary of state. At the time, the position was the second most powerful in American politics. Jackson and his supporters claimed Adams and Clay had coordinated a “corrupt bargain.” It was an accusation that would stain Adams’s first and only term.

Additionally, the “Era of Good Feelings” was over. Jackson formed a new political party: the Democratic Party. The Democratic-Republican Party met its demise. Jackson and Adams faced each other again in 1828. Jackson, the Democrat, defeated Adams, the National Republican, in a landslide: 178 to 83. Jackson would also win 56.1 percent of the popular vote. Jackson won again in 1832 in an even bigger landslide with 219 electoral votes. His closest competitor was Clay, who could muster only 49 electoral votes.

In 1836, Jackson’s vice president, Martin Van Buren, won the election against four members of a new political party: the Whigs. The Whigs would become a powerful party in its own right, but never more so than when it eventually shed the name and some of its members, to become the Republican Party, which ran its first presidential candidate in 1856. The party would win the following election in 1860 with the man who would become its most famous and celebrated member: Abraham Lincoln.

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