Editing Andrew Jackson (section)

===Election of 1824===
{{Main|1824 United States presidential election}}

[[File:Andrew Jackson.jpg|thumb|Painting of Jackson based on an 1824 portrait, {{circa}} 1857 attributed to [[Thomas Sully]] now housed at the U. S. Senate Collection<ref>{{cite web|title=Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)|website=U.S. Government Publication Office|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-10719sdoc11/pdf/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11-2-61.pdf|archive-url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11/pdf/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11-2-61.pdf|archive-date=January 13, 2019}}</ref>|alt=A man with wavy gray hair in white shirt, black bowtie, and black coat. Faces left.]]
[[File:Electoral Votes for 1824- Focus on Jackson.png|thumb|alt=Refer to caption|The [[1824 United States presidential election|1824 U.S. presidential election]] results in which Jackson received a plurality of Electoral College votes. Subsequently, John Quincy Adams was elected the sixth president of the United States in a contingent election.]]

The [[Panic of 1819]], the United States' first prolonged financial depression, caused Congress to reduce the military's size and abolish Jackson's generalship.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=40}} In compensation, Monroe made him the first territorial governor of Florida in 1821.{{sfn|Brands|2005|pp=356–357}} He served as the governor for two months, returning to the Hermitage in ill health.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=2}} During his convalescence, Jackson, who had been a [[Freemasonry|Freemason]] since at least 1798, became the [[Grand Master (Masonic)|Grand Master]] of the [[Grand Lodge of Tennessee]] for 1822–1823.{{sfn|Burstein|2003|p=39}} Around this time, he also completed negotiations for Tennessee to purchase Chickasaw lands. This became known as the [[Jackson Purchase]]. Jackson, Overton, and another colleague had speculated in some of the land and used their portion to form the town of [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]].<ref name="Jackson Purchase">{{cite web |last=Semmer |first=Blythe |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=698 |title=Jackson Purchase, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture |publisher=Tennessee Historical Society |access-date=April 12, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160807120650/http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=698 |archive-date=August 7, 2016}}</ref>

In 1822, Jackson agreed to run in the 1824 presidential election, and he was nominated by the Tennessee legislature in July.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=48–49}} At the time, the Federalist Party had collapsed, and there were four major contenders for the Democratic-Republican Party nomination: William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Jackson was intended to be a [[stalking horse]] candidate to prevent Tennessee's electoral votes from going to Crawford, who was seen as a Washington insider. Jackson unexpectedly garnered popular support outside of Tennessee and became a serious candidate.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=40}} He benefited from the expansion of suffrage among white males that followed the conclusion of the War of 1812.{{sfn|Schlesinger|1945|pp=36–38}}{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=489–492}} He was a popular war hero whose reputation suggested he had the decisiveness and independence to bring reform to Washington.{{sfn|Phillips|1976|p=501}} He also was promoted as an outsider who stood for all the people, blaming banks for the country's depression.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|pp=41–42, 45–46}}

During his presidential candidacy, Jackson reluctantly ran for one of Tennessee's U.S. Senate seats. Jackson's political managers [[William Berkeley Lewis]] and [[John Eaton (politician)|John Eaton]] convinced him that he needed to defeat incumbent [[John Williams (Tennessee politician)|John Williams]], who opposed him. The legislature elected Jackson in October 1823.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=51–52}}{{sfn|Brands|2005|pp=376–377}} He was attentive to his senatorial duties. He was appointed chairman of the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Committee on Military Affairs]] but avoided debate or initiating legislation.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=67}} He used his time in the Senate to form alliances and make peace with old adversaries.{{sfn|Meacham|2008|p=38}} Eaton continued to campaign for Jackson's presidency, updating his biography and writing a series of widely circulated pseudonymous letters that portrayed Jackson as a champion of republican liberty.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=75–77}}

Democratic-Republican presidential nominees had historically been chosen by informal [[congressional nominating caucus]]es. In 1824, most of the Democratic-Republicans in Congress boycotted the caucus,{{sfn|Morgan|1969|p=195}} and the power to choose nominees was shifting to state nominating committees and legislatures.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=45}} Jackson was nominated by a Pennsylvania convention, making him not merely a regional candidate but the leading national contender.{{sfn|Phillips|1976|p=490}} When Jackson won the Pennsylvania nomination, Calhoun dropped out of the presidential race.{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=101}} Afterwards, Jackson won the nomination in six other states and had a strong second-place finish in three others.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=46}}

In the presidential election, Jackson won a 42-percent [[Plurality (voting)|plurality]] of the popular vote. More importantly, he won a plurality of [[Electoral College (United States)|electoral votes]], receiving 99 votes from states in the South, West, and Mid-Atlantic. He was the only candidate to win states outside of his regional base: Adams dominated [[New England]], Crawford won Virginia and Georgia, and Clay took three western states. Because no candidate had a [[Majority vote|majority]] of 131 electoral votes, the House of Representatives held a [[contingent election]] under the terms of the [[Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Twelfth Amendment]]. The amendment specifies that only the top three electoral vote-winners are eligible to be elected by the House, so Clay was eliminated from contention.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=81–83}} Clay, who was also [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]] and presided over the election's resolution, saw a Jackson presidency as a disaster for the country.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=47}} Clay threw his support behind Adams, who won the contingent election on the first ballot. Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State, leading supporters of Jackson to accuse Clay and Adams of having struck a "[[corrupt bargain]]".{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|pp=45–48}} After the Congressional session concluded, Jackson resigned his Senate seat and returned to Tennessee.{{sfn|Wilentz|2005|p=49}}