Andrew Jackson: Presidential Hero, or the First American Monarch?

By Russ Gifford

The Presidential Elections of 1824 and 1828, spanning the 50-year anniversary of 1776, provided an extraordinary moment in American History - and it might not be the story you heard in school.

In the election of 1824, on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the American Revolution, Andrew Jackson, military hero but political outsider with a mercurial temper, outpolled the established Presidential heir apparent, John Quincy Adams. Gen. Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812, had won the popular vote and led in the Electoral College. But he did not get a majority of their ballots.

By the Constitution, the vote for President would be decided by the House of Representatives - each state getting one vote. The candidate who finished out of the running was the legislative genius and acknowledged master of the House. When it was Adams who carried the majority of the States, Jackson seethed. But when Adams then appointed Clay to the position of Secretary of State, Jackson charged an 'unholy alliance' had cheated the American people of their vote.

Technically, the Electoral College had performed as it was intended: It acted as the final failsafe to prevent unqualified men or dangerous demagogues from becoming President and undermining the Republic. The Founders had feared 'the coming of the man on horseback' - the war hero with no understanding or respect of the Constitutional limit on the powers of the Presidency, but able to sway the public. Without a doubt, Jackson certainly met all these qualities.

If the Electoral College did indeed act to protect the Presidency from Jackson, it failed miserably. Jackson spent the next four years charging that Clay had fixed the House vote in a quid pro quo arrangement for his Cabinet appointment. The Secretary of State position acted as the stepping-stone to the Presidency in the first 50 years of the Republic.

When the vote of 1828 arrived, Jackson's voters did not leave the option to the Electoral College. He won an overwhelming majority. Not only was Adams tossed out, but Jackson would prove to be all the things his detractors feared and his followers loved.

Victors write the histories, and in the years following his time in the White House, the schools taught us about the man who preserved the Union, and extended the vote to all white males, not only landowners. But he repeatedly engaged in acts not written in the Constitution, and some explicitly outlawed by it.

It is a story that may sound familiar today. Join me to hear how the story played out 200 years ago!