The 1824 Election And Plans B, C, D. . .
Robert Barnes's offhand remark anout the 1824 and 1876 elections brought me to think for rhe first time about actual US elections that weren't resolved in the Electoral College as outlined in Article II, Section 1 and the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution. The 1824 election is so far the only one that was resolved in the House as specified in the Twelfth Amendment. As I said yesterday, of the two candidates with the most votes, John Quincy Adams was selectd over Andrew Jackson, who went on to win the 1828 election. All four of the candidates in 1824 were Democrats, by the way. Exactly what went on in the House is a different subject that I won't discuss here, except to say that 1824, being pre-Reconstruction, must not have been governed by the same behind-the-scenes forces, such as the post-Civil War industrial fortunes, that governed 1876-77. But let's look at the bigger picture. In its first 100 years, the US had not two, but three elections that weren'...