United States presidential election of 1828, American presidential election held in 1828, in which Democrat Andrew Jackson defeated National Republican John Quincy Adams .Appealing to the masses
The election of 1828 was arguably one of the most significant in United States history, ushering in the era of political campaigns and paving the way for the solidification of political parties. The previous election, of 1824, had seen John Quincy Adams become president although his opponent Andrew Jackson had earned the most electoral votes. Because no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, however, that election was decided by the House of Representatives in Adams’s favour after fellow candidate and Speaker of the House Henry Clay (who finished fourth) threw his support behind Adams. Adams subsequently appointed Clay his secretary of state, giving merit to rumours of a “corrupt bargain” in the eyes of Jackson supporters. During the contested election of 1824, followers of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams began calling themselves National Republicans, and backers of Andrew Jackson emerged as Democratic Republicans. By the election of 1828, the Jacksonians had become known simply as the Democrats. Unlike previous elections, in which the parties’ congressional delegations would generally gather to nominate a candidate (this had failed to coalesce support around a single candidate among the Democratic-Republicans in 1824), this election was the first in which a majority of states held conventions to endorse a candidate.
Nevertheless, American politics became increasingly democratic during the 1820s and ’30s. Local and state offices that had earlier been appointive became elective. Suffrage was expanded as property and other restrictions on voting were reduced or abandoned in most states. The freehold requirement that had denied voting to all but holders of real estate was almost everywhere discarded before 1820, while the taxpaying qualification was also removed, if more slowly and gradually. In many states a printed ballot replaced the earlier system of voice voting, while the secret ballot also grew in favour. Whereas in 1800 only two states provided for the popular choice of presidential electors, by 1832 only South Carolina still left the decision to the legislature. Conventions of elected delegates increasingly replaced legislative or congressional caucuses as the agencies for making party nominations. By the latter change, a system for nominating candidates by self-appointed cliques meeting in secret was replaced by a system of open selection of candidates by democratically elected bodies
The Protestant Reformation encouraged growth of nationalism in Europe by encouraging people to identify their religion with their local and state language.
