1820 Elections
1820 United States Presidential Elections
(Voters' Turnout: 79%)
302 Electoral Votes in Total, 152 to Win
Presidential Candidate (VP Candidate): Electoral Votes (Percentage of the Popular Vote)
Joseph Crockett (John C. Calhoun), Frontier-Democratic Party: 152, 49%
John Quincy Adams (Jordan Livingston), Union Party: 94, 32%
Henry Clay (Eliyah Peters), Republican Party: 56, 19%
"... The 1820 United States Presidential Elections was perhaps the most shocking election in the history of the United States. In fact, historians often attribute this election as the one that turned American politics "on its head." In 1819, rookie House Representative Joseph Crockett (nicknamed "Joey") earned the presidential nomination for the Frontier Party (which sought to influence the next president's policies on western expansion and reached an impasse with the Union Party). His humble background and down-to-earth personality, which mirrored closely to Squire Boone's traits (who won a significant chunk of the electoral votes during his presidential run), were seen positively by the members of the Frontier Party's leadership. Additionally, Joey was young and an exciting candidate, being just barely thirty-four years old. The Front believed that they had a good chance to create another coalition group with one of the two major parties (Union and Republican) through Joey Crockett, the "Frontiersman of the West." What they didn't expect was a surprising offer from a rival party...
The Democratic Party was a party that always remained in the shadows of the Republican Party. Popular in the rural areas, the Democratic Party was powerful in its own right, in that it provided invaluable support for the moderate Republican Party's political power. It was through the Republican-Democrat Coalition that the two parties managed to get legislation passed in Congress, as the White House was in the control of the Union Party for sixteen straight years. However, the Democratic Party's leadership was uncertain if the Republican Party would be able to beat the coalition between the Union Party and the Frontier Party for the presidency. While the Republican Party was slowly regaining its influence after losing four presidential elections in a row (the 1804, 1808, 1812, and 1816 elections), the Democrat Party believed that their combined strength was not enough to seize the White House. Additionally, with the Republican Party's platform shifting ever so in favor of the growing urban areas of the South and West, the Democrats felt that they would be sidelined during a Republican presidency. Therefore, once it was confirmed that the Frontier Party would nominate their own candidate, the Democratic Party offered their support for the Frontier Party's candidate. Despite their differences, both parties found a massive amount of support in the rural areas, and with the two working together, it was possible that they would even be able to seize the vaunted White House. It took three months for the two parties to work out their combined policies, but on December 1st of 1819, they had reached an agreement. Joseph Crockett would be the presidential candidate, while Senator John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian Democrat, would become the vice-presidential candidate. The policies of the Front-Democrat Coalition were simple: pass a more radical Homestead Act (with more schools in the west, improved government programs for farming cooperatives, and federally funded infrastructure projects), encourage immigration to fill the newly acquired western territories (even going as far as compensating travel fees), let the territories form into states without government interference, and lay the railroad tracks (which were focused around the eastern seaboard) west.
The Union Party was running high due to its victories in the past four presidential elections. For sixteen years, the Union Party dominated the government and expanded America's power like never before. In fact, much of the Union Party believed that its presidential candidate would win a sweeping victory in the 1820 Presidential Elections, regardless of the Union Party's opponents. Many historians claim that this is why the Union Party was unable to come to an early agreement with the Frontier Party, as the Union Party was so confident in its victory, it alienated its ally. While some in the party panicked at the Frontier Party's independent run for the presidency and its alliance with the Democratic Party, most of the party's members believed that this would only divide the vote from the Republicans and seal the Union Party's ascension into the White House. The Union Party's presidential candidate was John Quincy Adams, son of former Senator and former Secretary of State John Adams. Quincy came from a very prestigious background, graduating from Harvard College and entering Congress as soon as he was eligible. A deep thinker and philosopher, he was well-known as a man that placed the country above his own interests. However, he was unyielding to compromises and his personality was "stiff." While the Union Party saw those qualities positively (as recent Unionists such as Hamilton and Jackson were similar in those regards), many in the nation did not. He confidently pushed out his liberal agenda right after he was nominated by his party: more protections placed in Jackson's Homestead Act to favor American citizens over immigrants when it came to western settlement, a national railroad network fully funded and controlled by the government, government-controlled companies, and an expansion of the federal workforce...
As for the Republican Party, they had been left high and dry by the Democratic Party. When they attempted to negotiate with the Democratic Party to reconsider their position, the Democrats pointedly refused and shot the negotiations before they even began. However, the Republicans were somewhat confident in their chances of earning more electoral votes than the Union Party and securing a coalition government with the Front-Democratic power bloc. This was mainly because the Union Party was beginning to become more and more liberal, due to the influence of the past two presidents, and the Republican Party managed to garner some support from the more moderate members of the Union Party. Due to this, the Republican Party did not seek to win the election outright but to secure enough votes to make their party more appealing to the candidate with the most electoral votes and present themselves as the "moderating" influence to secure the approval of the nation. Accordingly, the Republican Party nominated Senator Henry Clay, a Republican from Virginia, as its presidential candidate. Clay was a fiery speaker and the Senate Majority Whip (after the Republican-Democrat Coalition re-took the Senate in the 1816 elections). He was considered a veteran politician at the age of forty-three, having served in Congress for twelve years (House of Representatives from 1808-1810, Senate from 1810 onwards). Unlike John Quincy Adams, he was more flexible to change and was known as the "Great Compromiser" within Congress (as he served as the tenacious balance between the Democratic Party, the Union Party, and the Liberal Party). His policy was an example of this, as he advocated for a "return" of balance between the federal government and the state governments, a hands-off approach to the growing telegraph and railroad industry (though, he proposed that passenger lines remain under federal control), and a minor expansion of federal agricultural and industrial programs. Clay was popular in Virginia and the neighboring states but was received with mixed reactions elsewhere. However, the one bright spot about his presidential run was that he nominated Eliyah Peters, a more conservative-leaning African American Republican from Georgia, as his vice-presidential candidate. Peters was the governor of Georgia and a popular one at that. With this move, Clay believed that he had managed to secure much of the South for the Republican Party, but he was wrong...
Before analyzing the election itself, it is imperative to delve into the campaigning process and the changes in the presidential elections. Quincy and Clay both utilized traditional methods to spread awareness for their campaign, in that they traveled with their vice presidential candidate and mainly met voters through debates and occasional rallies (neither candidates campaigned excessively, as it seemed "distasteful"). Both used railroads to move across the eastern states, but mainly as a form of transportation, not as a political tool. However, Crockett and Calhoun devised an ingenious scheme to raise support for their campaign and edge out their competition. The two remained separate from each other and campaigned independently. In fact, it was not until after the elections were called did they reunite in Lafayette. During their campaign trail, Crockett focused his efforts in the west while Calhoun took to the east. In the west, Crockett walked hundreds of miles with his supporters on a "Campaign March" across the western United States. From Timstown to New Marseille, the Congressman personally met with thousands of voters and visited dozens, if not hundreds, of towns and cities in a non-stop tour. He often rode horses more than he walked (though, he stilled walked hundreds of kilometers) and was able to travel up to thirty kilometers per day. Many voters were awe-struck by Crockett's presence, as he was the first presidential nominee that visited the people of the west in person. As a result, his Campaign March quickly picked up interest from the locals and was reported on daily in western newspapers. His March lasted three months (finally arriving in New Marseille in May after leaving Timstown in February), but after resting for a month in Wisconsin, he decided to restart his March, this time from the north to the south. He and his staff planned their route carefully and visited towns he had never visited before. During their journey back to the south, Crockett was met with expecting and enthusiastic citizens. The popular catchphrase, "Crockett the People's Prophet" sprung up during the Crockett's March and it rang across the entire western frontier. By the time Election Day came, the western states were filled with millions of Crockett supporters, who wanted to see "the man who cared" in the White House. And more importantly, after the redistribution of House seats and electoral votes through the 1820 Census, the western states composed of nearly one-third of all the Electoral Votes available. The west was growing at a rapid pace and many western settlers were now eligible to vote as well. The other two candidates failed to realize the importance of winning the west and allowed the Electoral Votes in the area to fall onto Crockett's laps...
On the east coast, Calhoun implemented a strategy based around reaching as many voters as possible. He rode trains for the majority of his campaign trail like the candidates of other parties, but he utilized the new technology in a different way. Calhoun gave rousing speeches from the passenger cars after his train stopped at a station, talking with voters quickly before the train set off to its next destination. While there were less than a thousand kilometers of rails at the time, Calhoun managed to hit the few dozen towns and cities that held a railroad station. In fact, he was the first candidate that managed to visit almost every single major urban areas in the east, before the other candidates could even mobilize their own support base to spread the message. After he utilized his "Stop and Drop" technique, he moved on foot to the southern areas and spread the message of the Front-Democrat campaign to rural voters. While the south saw some urbanization since the turn of the century, many voters were still in the rural areas and Calhoun made sure that he and his running mate's voices were heard. Like Crockett, Calhoun carried out his own "South March" (from Washington to Richmond) and won over the loyalty of thousands of voters. Comparatively, Quincy remained almost exclusively east of Illinois (traveling as far as Cleveland, Ohio and neglecting the western states entirely) while Clay fought with Calhoun for votes in the south. Interestingly, most of the debates between presidential candidates were handled by Calhoun himself, which made some voters believe that Calhoun was the presidential candidate for the Front-Democratic bloc, instead of Crockett...
In 1818, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States with a three-fourth majority in both houses. The Amendment read:
"All Organized Territories and Federal Districts, as voting members of the United States, will be granted electoral votes in the Presidential Elections proportional to their population."
This response was in due part to Newfoundland's objections for remaining a territory for the past forty years and lacking any voting rights in the Presidential Elections (citizens in the territories and Federal Districts were allowed to vote in the presidential elections, but had no say in the actual election process). As such, Congress agreed to allow electoral votes for all Organized Territories and Federal Districts provided that they met the same guideline set for the states as well. In 1820, this meant 57,715 people per House seat (which was one Electoral Vote). Only two territories met the qualifications set by the Eighteenth Amendment: Newfoundland and Labrador (with over 60,000 inhabitants) and Mississippi (with over 70,000 inhabitants). Both had one Electoral Vote each, which meant that instead of 300 Electoral Votes, there were now 302 Electoral Votes up in the air. While Bermuda, Columbia, and Lakota had zero Electoral Votes combined (as none of them met the minimum population requirement), the Eighteenth Amendment was seen as a "fair" method of providing electoral votes to non-state entities. Unknowingly, this Amendment would be the most critical part of the 1820 Presidential Elections...
When November 7th of 1820 rolled around, the American people stormed the ballots and voted for their preferred candidate. Unsurprisingly, Crockett/Calhoun swept the west. Surprisingly, they also took the biggest majority of electoral votes from the south, robbing Clay from his biggest support base (though Clay won Virginia and its surrounding states handily). Quincy took the New England states easily, but surprisingly, despite his own running mate being Canadien (Jordan Livingston, a Quebecois and the son of a Revolutionary War hero), he was unable to win a plurality in Quebec or Ontario. Indeed, it was Crockett that won the plurality in the two Canadien states, owing to his March and Calhoun's visits (amusingly, there were several newspaper clippings from Quebec that showed Calhoun attempting to learn Quebecois French in an effort to pander to the voters there). Since Quincy believed he had all but won the northern Canadien states, he focused his efforts elsewhere. Unfortunately, it was Crockett and Calhoun that won the hearts and minds of the Canadien voters. By the time the dust settled, Crockett had won the plurality of the popular vote and a near majority of the Electoral Votes. On December 10th, the Electoral Votes from all the states and territories, except Newfoundland and Labrador and Mississippi were known: 150 to Joseph Crockett, 94 to Quincy Adams, and 56 to Henry Clay. Crockett wrote in his journal that he was "both terrified and excited to see the results from the two territories, as it [would] determine the next president of the United States." Indeed, it was reported that Clay was outraged at the results and demanded major compromises if Crockett wanted to form a coalition government with him. Meanwhile, Quincy stubbornly refused to entertain the idea of a coalition government and instead, desired for the vote to go to the House. The House of Representatives would vote for the next president of the United States if Crockett failed to win the two remaining Electoral Votes, and the House was controlled by the Unionist-Front Coalition (which was beginning to splinter due to the 1820 Presidential Elections). However, it was all but certain that the Unionists would refuse to support Crockett. Instead, it was likely that the Republicans and Unionists would attempt to push either Quincy or Clay into the White House (since the two parties, if combined, formed a majority in the House of Representatives).
A week later, the final electoral votes from the two territories arrived. Newfoundland voted for Crockett (as they were in favor of Crockett's pro-immigration policies), while Mississippi also threw in their hat for Crockett (as they supported Crockett's plans for an improved Homestead Act). With those votes, Crockett was confirmed as the next president of the United States, barely earning a majority of the Electoral Votes..."
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List of American Presidents/Vice Presidents:
1780-1788 Samuel Kim (Independent) [Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, Independent]
1788-1796 Thomas Jefferson (Republican) [James Madison, Virginia, Republican]
1796-1804 James Madison (Republican) [Henry Lee III, Virginia, Republican]
1804-1812 Alexander Hamilton (Unionist-Front) [James Worthington, Ohio, Front]
1812- 1820 Andrew Jackson (Unionist) [Christopher G. Champlin, Rhode Island, Unionist]
1820 -? Joseph Crockett (Front-Democrat) [John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, Democrat]