As the period of election drew nigh, interest in it absorbed everything else; indeed during the last year of Monroe's Administration public affairs were so quiescent and the public business so seldom transcended the simplest routine, that there was little else than the next Presidency to be thought or talked of. The rivalship for this, as has been said, was based not upon conflicting theories concerning public affairs, but solely upon individual preference for one or another of four men no one of whom at that moment represented any great principle in antagonism to any of the others. Under no circumstances could the temptation to petty intrigue and malicious tale-bearing be greater than when votes were to be gained or lost solely by personal predilection. In such a contest Adams was severely handicapped as against the showy prestige of the victorious soldier, the popularity of the brilliant orator, and the artfulness of the most dexterous political manager then in public life. Long prior to this stage Adams had established his rule of conduct in the campaign. So early as March, 1818, he was asked one day by Mr. Everett whether he was "determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the Presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe," and he had replied that he "should do absolutely nothing." To this resolution he sturdily adhered. Not a breach of it was ever brought home to him, or indeed—save in one instance soon to be noticed—seriously charged against him. There is not in the Diary the faintest trace of any act which might be so much as questionable or susceptible of defence only by casuistry. That he should have perpetuated evidence of any flagrant misdoing certainly could not be expected; but in a record kept with the fulness and frankness of this Diary we should read between the lines and detect as it were in its general flavor any taint of disingenuousness or concealment; we should discern moral unwholesomeness in its atmosphere. A thoughtless sentence would slip from the pen, a sophistical argument would be formulated for self-comfort, some acquaintance, interview, or arrangement would slide upon some unguarded page indicative of undisclosed matters. But there is absolutely nothing of this sort. There is no tinge of bad color; all is clear as crystal. Not an editor, nor a member of Congress, nor a local politician, not even a private individual, was intimidated or conciliated. On the contrary it often happened that those who made advances, at least sometimes stimulated by honest friendship, got rebuffs instead of encouragement. Even after the contest was known to have been transferred to the House of Representatives, when Washington was actually buzzing with the ceaseless whisperings of many secret conclaves, when the air was thick with rumors of what this one had said and that one had done, when, as Webster said, there were those who pretended to foretell how a representative would vote from the way in which he put on his hat, when of course stories of intrigue and corruption poisoned the honest breeze, and when the streets seemed traversed only by the busy tread of the go-betweens, the influential friends, the wire-pullers of the various contestants,—still amid all this noisy excitement and extreme temptation Mr. Adams held himself almost wholly aloof, wrapped in the cloak of his rigid integrity. His proud honesty was only not quite repellent; he sometimes allowed himself to answer questions courteously, and for a brief period held in check his strong natural propensity to give offence and make enemies. This was the uttermost length that he could go towards political corruption. He became for a few weeks tolerably civil of speech, which after all was much for him to do and doubtless cost him no insignificant effort. Since the days of Washington he alone presents the singular spectacle of a candidate for the Presidency deliberately taking the position, and in a long campaign really never flinching from it: "that, if the people wish me to be President I shall not refuse the office; but I ask nothing from any man or from any body of men."
Yet though he declined to be a courtier of popular favor he did not conceal from himself or from others the chagrin which he would feel if there should be a manifestation of popular disfavor. Before the popular election he stated that if it should go against him he should construe it as the verdict of the people that they were dissatisfied with his services as a public man, and he should then retire to private life, no longer expecting or accepting public functions. He did not regard politics as a struggle in which, if he should now be beaten in one encounter, he would return to another in the hope of better success in time. His notion was that the people had had ample opportunity during his incumbency in appointive offices to measure his ability and understand his character, and that the action of the people in electing or not electing him to the Presidency would be an indication that they were satisfied or dissatisfied with him. In the latter event he had nothing more to seek. Politics did not constitute a profession or career in which he felt entitled to persist in seeking personal success as he might in the law or in business. Neither did the circumstances of the time place him in the position of an advocate of any great principle which he might feel it his duty to represent and to fight for against any number of reverses. No such element was present at this time in national affairs. He construed the question before the people simply as concerning their opinion of him. He was much too proud to solicit and much too honest to scheme for a favorable expression. It was a singular and a lofty attitude even if a trifle egotistical and not altogether unimpeachable by argument. It could not diminish but rather it intensified his interest in a contest which he chose to regard not simply as a struggle for a glittering prize but as a judgment upon the services which he had been for a lifetime rendering to his countrymen.
How profoundly his whole nature was moved by the position in which he stood is evident, often almost painfully, in the Diary. Any attempt to conceal his feeling would be idle, and he makes no such attempt. He repeats all the rumors which come to his ears; he tells the stories about Crawford's illness; he records his own temptations; he tries hard to nerve himself to bear defeat philosophically by constantly predicting it; indeed, he photographs his whole existence for many weeks; and however eagerly any person may aspire to the Presidency of the United States there is little in the picture to make one long for the preliminary position of candidate for that honor. It is too much like the stake and the flames through which the martyr passed to eternal beatitude, with the difference as against the candidate that he has by no means the martyr's certainty of reward.
In those days of slow communication it was not until December, 1824, that it became everywhere known that there had been no election of a president by the people. When the Electoral College met the result of their ballots was as follows:—
| General Jackson led with | 99 votes. |
| Adams followed with | 84 " |
| Crawford had | 41 " |
| Clay had | 37 " |
| --- | |
| Total | 261 votes. |
Mr. Calhoun was elected Vice-President by the handsome number of 182 votes.
This condition of the election had been quite generally anticipated; yet Mr. Adams's friends were not without some feeling of disappointment. They had expected for him a fair support at the South, whereas he in fact received seventy-seven out of his eighty-four votes from New York and New England; Maryland gave him three, Louisiana gave him two, Delaware and Illinois gave him one each.
When the electoral body was known to be reduced within the narrow limits of the House of Representatives, intrigue was rather stimulated than diminished by the definiteness which became possible for it. Mr. Clay, who could not come before the House, found himself transmuted from a candidate to a President-maker; for it was admitted by all that his great personal influence in Congress would almost undoubtedly confer success upon the aspirant whom he should favor. Apparently his predilections were at least possibly in favor of Crawford; but Crawford's health had been for many months very bad; he had had a severe paralytic stroke, and when acting as Secretary of the Treasury he had been unable to sign his name, so that a stamp or die had been used; his speech was scarcely intelligible; and when Mr. Clay visited him in the retirement in which his friends now kept him, the fact could not be concealed that he was for the time at least a wreck. Mr. Clay therefore had to decide for himself, his followers, and the country whether Mr. Adams or General Jackson should be the next President of the United States. A cruel attempt was made in this crisis either to destroy his influence by blackening his character, or to intimidate him, through fear of losing his reputation for integrity, into voting for Jackson. An anonymous letter charged that the friends of Clay had hinted that, "like the Swiss, they would fight for those who pay best;" that they had offered to elect Jackson if he would agree to make Clay Secretary of State, and that upon his indignant refusal to make such a bargain the same proposition had been made to Mr. Adams, who was found less scrupulous and had promptly formed the "unholy coalition." This wretched publication, made a few days before the election in the House, was traced to a dull-witted Pennsylvania Representative by the name of Kremer, who had obviously been used as a tool by cleverer men. It met, however, the fate which seems happily always to attend such ignoble devices, and failed utterly of any more important effect than the utter annihilation of Kremer. In truth, General Jackson's fate had been sealed from the instant when it had fallen into Mr. Clay's hands. Clay had long since expressed his unfavorable opinion of the "military hero," in terms too decisive to admit of explanation or retraction. Without much real liking for Adams, Clay at least disliked him much less than he did Jackson, and certainly his honest judgment favored the civilian far more than the disorderly soldier whose lawless career in Florida had been the topic of some of the great orator's fiercest invective. The arguments founded on personal fitness were strongly upon the side of Adams, and other arguments advanced by the Jacksonians could hardly deceive Clay. They insisted that their candidate was the choice of the people so far as a superiority of preference had been indicated, and that therefore he ought to be also the choice of the House of Representatives. It would be against the spirit of the Constitution and a thwarting of the popular will, they said, to prefer either of his competitors. The fallacy of this reasoning, if reasoning it could be called, was glaring. If the spirit of the Constitution required the House of Representatives not to elect from three candidates before it, but only to induct an individual into the Presidency by a process which was in form voting but in fact only a simple certification that he had received the highest number of electoral votes, it would have been a plain and easy matter for the letter of the Constitution to have expressed this spirit, or indeed to have done away altogether with this machinery of a sham election. The Jackson men had only to state their argument in order to expose its hollowness; for they said substantially that the Constitution established an election without an option; that the electors were to vote for a person predestined by an earlier occurrence to receive their ballots. But besides their unsoundness in argument, their statistical position was far from being what they undertook to represent it. The popular vote had been so light that it really looked as though the people had cared very little which candidate should succeed; and to talk about a manifestation of the popular will was absurd, for the only real manifestation had been of popular indifference. For example, in 1823 Massachusetts had cast upwards of 66,000 votes in the state election, whereas in this national election she cast only a trifle more than 37,000. Virginia distributed a total of less than 15,000 among all four candidates. Pluralities did not signify much in such a condition of sentiment as was indicated by these figures. Moreover, in six States, viz., Vermont, New York, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, the electors were chosen by the legislatures, not by the people; so that there was no correct way of counting them at all in a discussion of pluralities. Guesses and approximations favored Adams, and to an important degree; for these six States gave to Adams thirty-six votes, to Jackson nineteen, to Crawford six, to Clay four. In New York, Jackson had hardly an appreciable following. Moreover, in other States many thousands of votes which had been "cast for no candidate in particular, but in opposition to the caucus ticket generally," were reckoned as if they had been cast for Jackson or against Adams, as suited the especial case. Undoubtedly Jackson did have a plurality, but undoubtedly it fell very far short of the imposing figure, nearly 48,000, which his supporters had the audacity to name.
The election took place in the House on February 9, 1825. Daniel Webster and John Randolph were tellers, and they reported that there were "for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, thirteen votes; for Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, seven votes; for William H. Crawford, of Georgia, four votes." Thereupon the speaker announced Mr. Adams to have been elected President of the United States.