United States 1828

United_States_1828_1_3

After his controversial victory through a backroom deal with House Speaker Henry Clay when no candidate actually got a majority of Electoral Votes in the 1824 election, John Quincy Adams has had a rough presidential term, constantly fighting with a Congress dominated by supporters of his main rival, Andrew Jackson, and little has actually been accomplished. The once monolithic Democratic-Republican Party that dominated US politics as a one-party system since 1816 has been split now into the National Republican Party, built around President Adams and supported by Clay, which has come to resemble the now-defunct Federalist Party in doctrine and policy, and the Democratic Party, built around Jackson, a war hero who won a plurality of the Electoral Votes and popular vote in 1824, and feels the Adams-Clay deal robbed him of his rightful victory. Now the two bitter rivals from the previous election once again go head-to-head for the presidency.