A History of the American People

he addressed to himself are a curious mixture of naivety, shrewdness, insight, and prejudice. His
tone of voice, in speech and writings, was sub-Biblical. I weep for my country,' he asserted, often. Banks, Washington in general, the War Department in particular, and his massed enemies wereThe Great Whore of Babylon.' Hostile newspapers poured on him what he called their viols of wrath.' He himself wouldcleans the orgean stables.' By contrast, his aide, Major John
Eaton (1790-1854), who became a US senator in 1818, and acted as Jackson's political chief-of-
staff and amanuensis, was a skilled writer. He turned the clean up Washington' theme into a national campaign, the first modern election campaign, in fact. In early summer 1823, Eaton wrote a series of eleven political articles signedWyoming,' for the Columbian Observer of
Philadelphia. They were reprinted as a pamphlet, Letters of Wyoming, and reproduced in
newspapers all over the country. The theme, worked out in specific detail and couched in
impressive rhetoric, was that the country had fallen into the Hands of Mammon' and that the voters must now insure that it returned to the pure principles of the Revolution. Jackson was attacked in turn in this newspaper and pamphlet warfare, the most damaging assault coming from the highly respected former Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, who asserted that whenever Jackson had been entrusted with power he had abused it. With the appalling example of Latin America in mind, Gallatin reminded voters:General Jackson has
expressed a greater and bolder disregard for the first principles of liberty than I have ever known
to be entertained by any American.' This line, too, was widely reproduced. Yet Jackson, despite
the warnings, proved an outstanding candidate, then and later. Tall, slender, handsome, fierce,
but also frail and often ill-looking, he made people, especially women, feel protective. With his
reputation for wildness and severity, his actual courtesy, when people finally met him, was
overwhelming. Daniel Webster testified: `General Jackson's manners are more presidential than
those of any of the candidates ... my wife is for him decidedly.' It was the first case, in fact, of
presidential charisma in American history.
The presidential election of 1824 was an important landmark for more than one reason.
Originally there were five candidates; Crawford, Calhoun, Clay, Adams, and Jackson. But
Calhoun withdrew to become vice-presidential candidate on both tickets, and a stroke rendered
Crawford a weak runner: he came in a poor third. In the event it was a race between Adams and
Jackson. The electoral college system was still a reality but this was the first election in which
popular voting was also important. In Georgia, New York, Vermont, Louisiana, Delaware, and
South Carolina, the electors of the president were chosen by state legislatures. Elsewhere there
were already statewide tickets, though voting by districts still took place in Maine, Illinois,
Tennessee, Kentucky, and Maryland. The number of electors was larger than ever before, though
with the country prosperous again there was no wrathful rising of the people-and America was
already showing a propensity towards low turnouts, or low registrations of eligible voters. In
Massachusetts, where Adams was the Favorite Son, only 37,000 votes were cast, against 60,000
for governor the year before. In Ohio, where 76,000 turned out for the governorship race earlier
in the autumn, only 59,000 voted for the presidency. Virginia had a white population of 625,000:
only 15,000 voted and in Pennsylvania only 47,000 voted, though the population had already
passed the million mark. All the same, with 356,038 votes cast, Jackson, with 153,544, emerged
the clear leader. Adams, the runner-up, was 40,000 votes behind, with 108,740. Jackson also
won more electoral college votes, having ninety-nine, against eighty-four for Adams, forty-one
for Crawford, and thirty-seven for Clay. He carried eleven states, against seven for Adams. By
any reckoning, Jackson was the winner. However, under the Twelfth Amendment, if no
presidential candidate scored a majority of the electoral votes, the issue had to be taken to the