1824 United States presidential election in the context of "Era of Good Feelings"

Jacksonian democracy, also known as Jacksonianism, was a 19th-century political ideology in the United States that restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it became the nation's dominant political worldview for a generation. The term itself was in active use by the 1830s.

This era, called the Jacksonian Era or Second Party System by historians and political scientists, lasted roughly from Jackson's 1828 presidential election until the practice of slavery became the dominant issue with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 and the political repercussions of the American Civil War dramatically reshaped American politics. It emerged when the long-dominant Democratic-Republican Party became factionalized around the 1824 presidential election. Jackson's supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party. His political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay created the National Republican Party, which would afterward combine with other anti-Jackson political groups to form the Whig Party.

There have been five United States presidential elections in which the successful presidential candidate did not receive a plurality of the popular vote, including the 1824 election, which was the first U.S. presidential election where the popular vote was recorded. In these cases, the successful candidate secured less of the national popular vote than another candidate who received more votes, either a majority, more than half the vote, or a plurality of the vote.

In the U.S. presidential election system, instead of the nationwide popular vote determining the outcome of the election, the president of the United States is determined by votes cast by electors of the Electoral College. Alternatively, if no candidate receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, the election is determined by the House of Representatives. These procedures are governed by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The U.S. Constitution does not require states to hold a popular vote, however, since 1880, electors in every state have been chosen based on a popular election held on Election Day.

Henry Clay (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state. Clay unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 elections. He helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the "Great Compromiser" and was part of the "Great Triumvirate" of Congressmen, alongside fellow Whig Daniel Webster and Democrat John C. Calhoun.

Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1777, and began his legal career in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1797. As a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he won election to the Kentucky state legislature in 1803 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810. Clay was chosen as Speaker of the House in early 1811 and, along with President James Madison, led the United States into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. In 1814, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which brought an end to the War of 1812, and then after the war, Clay returned to his position as Speaker of the House and developed the American System, which called for federal infrastructure investments, support for the national bank, and high protective tariff rates. During 1820, Clay helped bring an end to a sectional crisis over slavery for many years by leading the passage of the Missouri Compromise. He finished with the fourth-most electoral votes in the multi-candidate 1824–1825 presidential election and used his position as speaker to help John Quincy Adams win the contingent election held to select the president. President Adams then appointed him to the prestigious position of Secretary of State. As a result, critics alleged that the two had agreed to a "corrupt bargain".

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He rose to fame as a U.S. Army general and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. His political philosophy, which dominated his presidency, became the basis for the rise of Jacksonian democracy. His legacy is controversial: he has been praised as an advocate for working Americans and preserving the union of states, and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. He was also the founder of, and first president from, the Democratic Party, which dominates American politics to this day along with the Republican Party.

Jackson was born in the colonial Carolinas before the American Revolutionary War. He became a frontier lawyer and married Rachel Donelson Robards. He briefly served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, representing Tennessee. After resigning, he served as a justice on the Tennessee Superior Court from 1798 to 1804. He purchased a plantation later known as the Hermitage, becoming a wealthy planter who profited off the forced labor of hundreds of enslaved African Americans during his lifetime. In 1801, he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander. He led troops during the Creek War of 1813–1814, winning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and negotiating the Treaty of Fort Jackson that required the indigenous Creek population to surrender vast tracts of the present-day U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. In the concurrent war against the British, Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later commanded United States forces during the First Seminole War against the Seminoles and other allied Native groups. This campaign was one of the factors that prompted Spain to negotiate the cession of Florida to the United States, which was finalized in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, in exchange for United States renunciation of territorial claims. He briefly served as Florida's first territorial governor before returning to the Senate. He ran for president in 1824. He won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote, but no candidate won the electoral majority. With the help of Henry Clay, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president. Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay (who joined Adams' cabinet) and began creating a new political coalition that became the Democratic Party in the 1830s.

The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed liberalism, republicanism, individual liberty, equal rights, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, anti-clericalism, emancipation of religious minorities, decentralization, free markets, free trade, and agrarianism. In foreign policy, it was hostile to Great Britain and in sympathy with the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The party became increasingly dominant after the 1800 elections as the opposing Federalist Party collapsed.

Increasing dominance over American politics led to increasing factional splits within the party. Old Republicans, led by John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke, believed that the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—and the Congresses led by Henry Clay—had in some ways betrayed the republican "Principles of '98" by expanding the size and scope of the national government. The Republicans splintered during the 1824 presidential election. Those calling for a return to the older founding principles of the party were often referred to as "Democratic Republicans" (later Democrats) while those embracing the newer nationalist principles of "The American System" were often referred to as National Republicans (later Whigs).

William Harris Crawford (February 24, 1772 – September 15, 1834) was an American politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He later ran for U.S. president in the 1824 election.

Born in Virginia, Crawford moved to Georgia with his parents at a young age, and he grew up to become one of the state’s most popular politicians. After studying law, Crawford won election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1803. He aligned with the Democratic-Republican Party and U.S. Senator James Jackson. In 1807, the Georgia legislature elected Crawford to the U.S. Senate. After the death of Vice President George Clinton, Crawford's position as president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate made him first in the presidential line of succession from April 1812 to March 1813. In 1813, U.S. President James Madison appointed Crawford as the minister to France, and Crawford held that post for the remainder of the War of 1812. After the war, Madison appointed him to the position of Secretary of War. In October 1816, Madison chose Crawford for the position of Secretary of the Treasury, and Crawford would remain in that office for the remainder of Madison's presidency and for the duration of James Monroe's presidency.

Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 31 to December 2, 1828. Just as in the 1824 election, President John Quincy Adams of the National Republican Party faced Andrew Jackson of the Democratic Party, making the election the second rematch in presidential history. Both parties were new organizations, and this was the first presidential election their nominees contested.

With the collapse of the Federalist Party, four members of the Democratic-Republican Party, including Jackson and Adams, had sought the presidency in the 1824 election. Jackson had won a plurality (but not majority) of both the electoral vote and popular vote in the 1824 election, but had lost the contingent election that was held in the House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the election, Jackson's supporters accused Adams and Henry Clay of having reached a "corrupt bargain" in which Clay helped Adams win the contingent election in return for the position of Secretary of State. After the 1824 election, Jackson's supporters immediately began plans for a campaign in 1828, and the Democratic-Republican Party fractured into the National Republican Party and the Democratic Party during Adams's presidency.

The National Republican Party, also known as the Anti-Jacksonian Party or simply Republicans, was a political party in the United States which evolved from a conservative-leaning faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that supported John Quincy Adams in the 1824 presidential election.

Known initially as Adams–Clay Republicans in the wake of the 1824 campaign, Adams's political allies in Congress and at the state-level were referred to as "Adams's Men" during his presidency (1825–1829). When Andrew Jackson became president, following his victory over Adams in the 1828 election, this group became the opposition, and organized themselves as "Anti-Jackson". The use of the term "National Republican" dates from 1830.