David S. Brown: How Andrew Jackson lost a presidential election and wound up in the White House
. He teaches history at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvaniaharges of stolen presidential elections are rare in American history. Only three candidates—Andrew Jackson, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump—have been associated with such claims. In Nixon’s case, rumors of voting irregularities in the 1960 race against John F. Kennedy prompted many of his supporters—including president Eisenhower—to demand recounts in Texas and Illinois.
Even before the House met, Jackson, sensing the possibility of defeat, had written to a colleague alleging “intrigue” and “abuses” by designing politicians. These partisans were wary of western populism, he supposed, and eager to upend his attempt to become the first president to hail from neither Virginia nor Massachusetts.
In fact, the steal assertion lacks credibility. Nearly 60% of the electorate voted for Jackson’s opponents, while the Twelfth Amendment simply asserts that when the House selects the president “a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice”—and does not stipulate that the candidate with the most popular or electoral votes should receive any advantage.
Jackson went on to win the presidency in 1828 and reelection in 1832, but it was the 1824 campaign, prefaced by his momentous victory at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, that forged his path to power. He successfully portrayed himself as a political outsider , eager to take on an arrogant coastal aristocracy. The results of the contingent House election only burnished his credentials as the candidate that the circa 1820s “deep state” had wished to destroy.
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