The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828

277 Pages·2009·2.6 MB·English

by  Lynn Hudson Parsons

THE BIRTH OF
MODERN
POLITICS
PIVOTAL MOMENTS
IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Series Editors
David Hackett Fischer
James M. McPherson
James T. Patterson
Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy
Maury Klein
Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929
James M. McPherson
Crossroads of Freedom: The Battle of Antietam
Glenn C. Altschuler
All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed America
David Hackett Fischer
Washington’s Crossing
John Ferling
Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800
Joel H. Silbey
Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War
Raymond Arsenault
Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
Colin G. Calloway
The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America
Richard Labunski
James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights
Sally McMillen
Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement
Howard Jones
The Bay of Pigs
Elliott West
The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story
T H E B I R T H O F
M O D E R N
POLITICS
Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams,
and the Election of 1828
LYNN HUDSON PARSONS
1
2009
1
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Copyright © 2009 by Lynn Hudson Parsons
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parsons, Lynn H.
The birth of modern politics : Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams,
and the election of 1828 / by Lynn Hudson Parsons.
p. cm. — (Pivotal moments in American history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-531287-4
1. Presidents—United States—Election—1828.
2. Political campaigns—United States—History—19th century.
3. Jackson, Andrew, 1767–1845. 4. Adams, John Quincy, 1767–1848.
5. Political culture—United States—History—19th century.
6. Political parties—United States—History—19th century.
7. United States—Politics and government—19th century.
8. Presidents—United States—Biography. I. Title.
E380.P372009
324.70973—dc22 2008037359
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Anne
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Contents
Editor’s Note, ix
Prologue,xi
Chapter One, 1
Chapter Two, 39
Chapter Three, 69
Chapter Four, 109
Chapter Five, 133
Chapter Six, 159
Epilogue, 189
Acknowledgments, 199
Notes, 201
Index, 241
This page intentionally left blank
Editor’s Note
The Founding Fathers of the United States feared the potential of politi-
cal parties to undermine the stability of the republic. The evils of “fac-
tion,” as they termed parties, would eat away the foundation of selfl ess
“virtue” necessary to uphold the public interest until the nation degener-
ated into tyranny or collapsed from the weight of corruption. “There is
nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great
parties . . . concerting measures in opposition to each other,” wrote John
Adams in 1780. “This, in my opinion, is to be dreaded as the greatest evil
under our Constitution.” James Madison defended the division of powers
under the Constitution of 1787 for “its tendency to break and control the
violence of faction.”
Despite these sentiments, political parties evolved in the 1790s—and
both Adams and Madison played prominent parts in that process. The
Founding generation nevertheless continued to deplore parties as fac-
tions that endangered the polity. They were “the curse of the country,”
wrote President James Monroe in the 1820s. By then, however, parties
were on course to becoming a permanent fi xture on the political land-
scape. The presidential election of 1824, in which none of the four can-
didates received a majority of electoral votes, temporarily masked this
trajectory. In the next few years, however, the New York politico Martin
Van Buren placed himself at the head of a new party that in 1828 called
itself the Democratic Republicans and nominated Andrew Jackson for
president. Van Buren essentially invented the modern national two-party
system, which he considered the bedrock of the American republic and
guarantor of its stability. “We must always have party distinctions,” wrote
Van Buren. They “are inseparable from a free government” because they
“rouse the sluggish to exertion, give increased energy to the most active