Columns

The “Stolen Election” of 1824: Since no candidate had received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives was given the task, on December 1, 1824, of deciding the winner of that year’s presidential race in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The congressional vote took place on February 9, 1825 — the only time in U.S. election history that Congress decided an election in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment.

Democratic candidate Andrew Jackson was none too pleased about Congress’s selection of John Quincy Adams over himself, despite his winning the greatest number of popular and Electoral College votes. He charged Henry Clay and Adams with having struck a “Corrupt Bargain,” and campaigned for four years on the grievance of a “stolen election.”

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

Hannah Arendt, The New Yorker (September 12, 1970).

June 4, 1989

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts