PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE ELECTORAL
COLLEGES.
Four candidates were before the people for the office of
President--General Jackson, Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. William H.
Crawford, and Mr. Henry Clay. Mr. Crawford had been nominated in
a caucus of democratic members of Congress; but being a minority
of the members, and the nomination not in accordance with public
opinion, it carried no authority along with it, and was of no
service to the object of its choice. General Jackson was the
candidate of the people, brought forward by the masses. Mr. Adams
and Mr. Clay were brought forward by bodies of their friends in
different States. The whole number of electoral votes was 261 of
which it required 131 to make an election. No one had that number.
General Jackson was the highest on the list, and had 99 votes; Mr.
Adams 84; Mr. Crawford 41; Mr. Clay 37. No one having a majority
of the whole of electors, the election devolved upon the House of
Representatives; of which an account will be given in a separate
chapter.
In the vice-presidential election it was different. Mr. John C.
Calhoun (who in the beginning of the canvass had been a candidate
for the Presidency, but had been withdrawn by his friends in
Pennsylvania, and put forward for Vice-President), received 182
votes in the electoral college, and was elected. Mr. Nathan
Sandford, Senator in Congress from New-York, had been placed on
the ticket with Mr. Clay, and received 30 votes. The 24 votes of
Virginia were given to Mr. Macon, as a compliment, he not being
a candidate, and having refused to become one. The nine votes of
Georgia were given to Mr. Van Buren, also as a compliment, he not
being on the list of candidates. Mr. Albert Gallatin had been
nominated in the Congress caucus with Mr. Crawford, but finding
the proceedings of that caucus unacceptable to the people he had
withdrawn from the canvass. Mr. Calhoun was the only substantive
vice-presidential candidate before the people, and his election was
an evidence of good feeling in the North towards southern men--he
receiving the main part of his votes from that quarter--114 votes
from the non-slaveholding States, and only 68 from the slaveholding.
A southern man, and a slaveholder, Mr. Calhoun was indebted to
northern men and non-slaveholders, for the honorable distinction of
an election in the electoral colleges--the only one in the electoral
colleges--the only one on all the lists of presidential and
vice-presidential candidates who had that honor. Surely there was no
disposition in the free States at that time to be unjust, or unkind
to the South.