United States presidential election, 1824

The presidential election in the United States in 1824 is generally regarded as reorientation. The previous years had been led by a one-party government, as the Federalists had dissolved and thus only remained the Democratic- Republican Party United States. In this election, the party split their on, when four of its candidates competed for the presidency.

The part of the party, which was led by Andrew Jackson, later developed for today's Democratic Party, which circles around John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were later to the National Republican Party, from the mid-1830s the United States Whig Party emerged.

This choice is remarkable, as it was the only one that was decided in the House of Representatives since the introduction of the 12th Amendment, because none of the candidates in the electoral college was able to unite a majority support. From this choice is also often said that it would have been the first in which a president would have the popular vote did not win. This is difficult to determine, since a quarter of states no elections in the true sense were holding, but the respective parliaments chose the electors.

Candidates

To the presidency competed:

• General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, a charismatic hero of the war of 1812 and a former Member of Parliament and Senator;
• John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, the son of former President John Adams;
• William H. Crawford of Georgia, former U.S. Ambassador to France, a former senator from Georgia and former Minister of War, the U.S. and the then Minister of Finance;

And

• Henry Clay of Kentucky, known as the ' Great Compromise Finder', who was then Speaker of the House.

Result

None of the presidential candidates could unite an absolute majority in the Electoral College to be, so the House of Representatives had to decide the presidency. John Caldwell Calhoun won during his election to the Vice President without further difficulties with a score of 182 electoral votes.

The required number of votes in the Electoral College would have been 131; no candidate reached this majority.

The election in the House of Representatives

By 12.Verfassungszusatz only the three candidates were allowed to stand for election, who received the most votes in the Electoral College. Henry Clay resigned from the presidency and so decided between Andrew Jackson, John Q. Adams and William Crawford. Clay, Jackson hated supported in the election in the House of Representatives ( whose spokesman he was at the time) Adams - also because his ideas with those of Adams covered for the most part.

John Q. Adams was in the election on 9 February 1825 in the first ballot, 87 votes, Jackson 71 and Crawford 54 The decisive factor for victory are in an election in the House of Representatives but the States, here revealed with 13 to 11 votes, an absolute majority for Adams.

Adams ' victory shocked Jackson, who, as he had received both the most votes and the most electoral votes, in his view, actually the president should have been chosen. When President Adams Clay his Secretary of State and made ​​him so to his unofficial successor - Adams and his three predecessors had each previously been Minister of Foreign Affairs - Jackson accused Adams and Clay to have made a deal. The Jacksonians carried the the next four years on their flags, which ultimately led to Jackson's victory in 1828, when Jackson again ran against Adams, the choice then but won.