AHC/WI: Successful John Quincy Adams

I've always had a soft spot for President John Quincy Adams. What would it take to get his domestic policies (major investments in internal development that included a road from DC to New Orleans), the creation of a national university and a national astronomical observatory, gradual assimilation of Natives through consensual agreements? What if he got to send a delegation to the Congress of Panama? Second term?
 
Always good to see a fellow JQA enthusiast :)

The basic problem with the Adams presidency is that it was hamstrung from the start by the Jacksonian allegation that his election in 1824-1825 was in some way illegitimate. This meant that relations with Congress were pretty poor from the very start, and got even worse after the 1826 elections.

For Adams to have more success with his programme, I think we need to remove the whole 'corrupt bargain' charge. One option is have him win the 1824 election outright, but that seems pretty tough—there were at least seven candidates vying for the presidency in 1824 and even if you take (say) Jackson or Crawford out, I think that would just create room for somebody else. With so many candidates in the race, I'm not sure there's a way of avoiding the contingent election, so we have to make the best we can of it.

Ideally, Adams needs to finish first in the electoral college; this removes the sting from the Jacksonian allegation that their man is somehow the rightful president. The popular vote is, IMHO, less important—too many states didn't use it as a method and anyway, I'm not sure whether anybody was adding it up nationally in the way we do with hindsight.

So, the easiest way is probably for Adams to win New Jersey over Jackson. If everything else stays the same, this leaves us with:

Adams 92
Jackson 91
Crawford 41
Clay 37

The election goes to the House as OTL and as OTL Adams is elected on the first ballot.

Here is the tricky bit. Adams placing first in the EC will remove some of the strength of the 'corrupt bargain' charge but if Clay is appointed as secretary of state, it still has a bit of power, since Adams wins in the House by winning states like Kentucky and Missouri that voted for Clay first and Jackson second.

The trouble is, Clay really wants the secretary of state job—he was cross about being passed over for Adams by Monroe in 1817 and he probably feels with some justification that he's the highest ranking Republican with the necessary experience. If Adams doesn't offer it to him, he might well throw his lot in with the opposition, which definitely dooms the Adams presidency.

So, we need Adams to offer him the job, but ideally for him to be smart enough to decline it. There is some possibility of this; Clay himself remarked later that he should have turned in down in OTL. Let's say he's prescient enough to do so, and somebody like Richard Rush becomes secretary of state, at least for the first year or so.

So where does that leave us? Obviously, the Adams administration is much stronger but also if Clay is still speaker of the house then both Congress and the White House are firmly lined up being the kind of nationalist programme you're envisaging.

TL;DR: Adams wins New Jersey—wins the House election—Clay turns down the secretaryship of state.
 
Always good to see a fellow JQA enthusiast :)

The basic problem with the Adams presidency is that it was hamstrung from the start by the Jacksonian allegation that his election in 1824-1825 was in some way illegitimate. This meant that relations with Congress were pretty poor from the very start, and got even worse after the 1826 elections.

For Adams to have more success with his programme, I think we need to remove the whole 'corrupt bargain' charge. One option is have him win the 1824 election outright, but that seems pretty tough—there were at least seven candidates vying for the presidency in 1824 and even if you take (say) Jackson or Crawford out, I think that would just create room for somebody else. With so many candidates in the race, I'm not sure there's a way of avoiding the contingent election, so we have to make the best we can of it.

Ideally, Adams needs to finish first in the electoral college; this removes the sting from the Jacksonian allegation that their man is somehow the rightful president. The popular vote is, IMHO, less important—too many states didn't use it as a method and anyway, I'm not sure whether anybody was adding it up nationally in the way we do with hindsight.

So, the easiest way is probably for Adams to win New Jersey over Jackson. If everything else stays the same, this leaves us with:

Adams 92
Jackson 91
Crawford 41
Clay 37

The election goes to the House as OTL and as OTL Adams is elected on the first ballot.

Here is the tricky bit. Adams placing first in the EC will remove some of the strength of the 'corrupt bargain' charge but if Clay is appointed as secretary of state, it still has a bit of power, since Adams wins in the House by winning states like Kentucky and Missouri that voted for Clay first and Jackson second.

The trouble is, Clay really wants the secretary of state job—he was cross about being passed over for Adams by Monroe in 1817 and he probably feels with some justification that he's the highest ranking Republican with the necessary experience. If Adams doesn't offer it to him, he might well throw his lot in with the opposition, which definitely dooms the Adams presidency.

So, we need Adams to offer him the job, but ideally for him to be smart enough to decline it. There is some possibility of this; Clay himself remarked later that he should have turned in down in OTL. Let's say he's prescient enough to do so, and somebody like Richard Rush becomes secretary of state, at least for the first year or so.

So where does that leave us? Obviously, the Adams administration is much stronger but also if Clay is still speaker of the house then both Congress and the White House are firmly lined up being the kind of nationalist programme you're envisaging.

TL;DR: Adams wins New Jersey—wins the House election—Clay turns down the secretaryship of state.


Do you think that without the "corrupt bargain" Andrew Jackson accepts a position as Secretary of War and throws some support Adams' way? Say in infrastructure that could count as interstate commerce and that's popular in the West.
 
Do you think that without the "corrupt bargain" Andrew Jackson accepts a position as Secretary of War and throws some support Adams' way? Say in infrastructure that could count as interstate commerce and that's popular in the West.

I think this could potentially go either way. My instinct is that Jackson refuses as in OTL and either retires or else runs again in 1828. To be honest, I'm not sure whether Adams needs any support 'put his way' in the west; he has Clay, after all, that region's leading statesman and a programme that was pretty west-friendly in OTL. John Larson writes that the conjuring trick of the Jackson campaign was to recast projects that had both popular and congressional support as being elitist schemes perpetuated by the northeast on an unwilling and innocent west. In fact, internal improvements were always an Atlantic and western enthusiasm. The National Republicans, assuming they have New England locked up, will need to focus on winning states like Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware; all states that strongly supported improvements.

In your scenario, the National Republicans have a pretty good chance in 1828, either running against Jackson or Calhoun. I'd expect matters in South Carolina to come to a head sooner however and this may be the making or breaking of Adams's second term. In OTL, this conflict brought the southern wing of the Whig Party into being; in your scenario, the loss of the southern National Republicans is obviously of less concern because their power base will be in the north and west.
 
Let's try to have him salvage something out of the "corrupt bargain." I suppose he needs the support of Clay.
 
Always good to see a fellow JQA enthusiast :)

The basic problem with the Adams presidency is that it was hamstrung from the start by the Jacksonian allegation that his election in 1824-1825 was in some way illegitimate. This meant that relations with Congress were pretty poor from the very start, and got even worse after the 1826 elections.

For Adams to have more success with his programme, I think we need to remove the whole 'corrupt bargain' charge. One option is have him win the 1824 election outright, but that seems pretty tough—there were at least seven candidates vying for the presidency in 1824 and even if you take (say) Jackson or Crawford out, I think that would just create room for somebody else. With so many candidates in the race, I'm not sure there's a way of avoiding the contingent election, so we have to make the best we can of it.

Ideally, Adams needs to finish first in the electoral college; this removes the sting from the Jacksonian allegation that their man is somehow the rightful president. The popular vote is, IMHO, less important—too many states didn't use it as a method and anyway, I'm not sure whether anybody was adding it up nationally in the way we do with hindsight.

So, the easiest way is probably for Adams to win New Jersey over Jackson. If everything else stays the same, this leaves us with:

Adams 92
Jackson 91
Crawford 41
Clay 37

The election goes to the House as OTL and as OTL Adams is elected on the first ballot.

Here is the tricky bit. Adams placing first in the EC will remove some of the strength of the 'corrupt bargain' charge but if Clay is appointed as secretary of state, it still has a bit of power, since Adams wins in the House by winning states like Kentucky and Missouri that voted for Clay first and Jackson second.

The trouble is, Clay really wants the secretary of state job—he was cross about being passed over for Adams by Monroe in 1817 and he probably feels with some justification that he's the highest ranking Republican with the necessary experience. If Adams doesn't offer it to him, he might well throw his lot in with the opposition, which definitely dooms the Adams presidency.

So, we need Adams to offer him the job, but ideally for him to be smart enough to decline it. There is some possibility of this; Clay himself remarked later that he should have turned in down in OTL. Let's say he's prescient enough to do so, and somebody like Richard Rush becomes secretary of state, at least for the first year or so.

So where does that leave us? Obviously, the Adams administration is much stronger but also if Clay is still speaker of the house then both Congress and the White House are firmly lined up being the kind of nationalist programme you're envisaging.

TL;DR: Adams wins New Jersey—wins the House election—Clay turns down the secretaryship of state.
This would be a premise for a good TL.
 
Clay and Adams agreed on key parts of the American System, so I don't think he needs a whole lot to sway Clay.

Interestingly, they weren't that close in the 1820s; they hadn't got on well at Ghent, Clay was jealous of Adams getting State in 1817 and they'd engaged in some mutual mudslinging in the 1824 election. You're right in that they're quite ideologically compatible, but I think Speaker Clay would be rather more independent of the White House than OTL's Secretary Clay.

This would be a premise for a good TL.

It'd certainly be one I'd enjoy reading!
 
Well, lets give Adams the narrow EC majority and get Clay as Secretary of State (he WAS a pretty good one - and at this point the SoS was seen as the natural heir to the President), but remove Jackson someway. Possibly, shortly after the congressional vote but before the inauguration, Jackson imbibes a little too much one night and finds himself in a duel with ... someone. Sadly, for the Generation/ex-Senator he's pretty toasted at this point and can't shoot straight. He takes a bullet to the stomach and the other man walks away. He lingers in pain for days as the wound gets infected and despite the best efforts of local doctors, he passes away.

As he came closer to death, Jackson had grown less and less lucid and had been making incoherent statements about how the election was stole from him, how the government was being controlled by a group of secret lizard men in alliance with the Native Americans and Slaves to drive good white men from the continent, and something about a secret colony of slaves on the Moon. Reports of these ramblings are leaked to the anti-Jackson press and the late General's reputation implodes with him being viewed as a lunatic by the majority of Americans (a few diehards hold on, and the Lizard Men Conspiracy becomes one of those 'things' that keeps popping up throughout the 19th century).

This should be enough to keep JQA from having his legitimacy questioned too badly. On an interesting side note, I wonder who the opposition to Adams and Clay's program rallies behind and how their ideology ends up developing.
 
Well, lets give Adams the narrow EC majority and get Clay as Secretary of State (he WAS a pretty good one - and at this point the SoS was seen as the natural heir to the President), but remove Jackson someway. Possibly, shortly after the congressional vote but before the inauguration, Jackson imbibes a little too much one night and finds himself in a duel with ... someone. Sadly, for the Generation/ex-Senator he's pretty toasted at this point and can't shoot straight. He takes a bullet to the stomach and the other man walks away. He lingers in pain for days as the wound gets infected and despite the best efforts of local doctors, he passes away.

As he came closer to death, Jackson had grown less and less lucid and had been making incoherent statements about how the election was stole from him, how the government was being controlled by a group of secret lizard men in alliance with the Native Americans and Slaves to drive good white men from the continent, and something about a secret colony of slaves on the Moon. Reports of these ramblings are leaked to the anti-Jackson press and the late General's reputation implodes with him being viewed as a lunatic by the majority of Americans (a few diehards hold on, and the Lizard Men Conspiracy becomes one of those 'things' that keeps popping up throughout the 19th century).

Gosh! That's certainly a creative solution to the legitimacy question! There's certainly a few characters that might plausibly get into a duel with Jackson at about that point in history; Jackson and Crawford disliked each other, Clay had offended him by his comments about Jackson's invasion of Florida, John Randolph could get into an argument with anyone, whilst if Jackson knew that Calhoun had called for his censure as secretary of war they might plausibly come to blows as well!

My humble suggestion however is Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. He'd shot Jackson in a frontier brawl in 1815 and the bullet was lodged in Jackson's chest until the 1830s. They'd partially reconciled when they'd both been in the senate in the early '20s but they were both touchy men of honour and could easily have had a falling out.

This should be enough to keep JQA from having his legitimacy questioned too badly. On an interesting side note, I wonder who the opposition to Adams and Clay's program rallies behind and how their ideology ends up developing.

Well the OTL 1820s Democratic Party was an alliance of small-government radicals like John Taylor of Caroline, western populists like Benton and Richard Johnson and the Van Burenite wing of the New York Republican Party, welded together by the Jackson appeal. In this scenario, the west will likely remain behind the National Republicans, but the other two factions will definitely go into opposition. Without Jackson to unite them, a Calhoun-Van Buren small-government party looks like the natural opposition.
 
Well the OTL 1820s Democratic Party was an alliance of small-government radicals like John Taylor of Caroline, western populists like Benton and Richard Johnson and the Van Burenite wing of the New York Republican Party, welded together by the Jackson appeal. In this scenario, the west will likely remain behind the National Republicans, but the other two factions will definitely go into opposition. Without Jackson to unite them, a Calhoun-Van Buren small-government party looks like the natural opposition.

So, assuming that JQA has a successful presidency and is followed by Henry Claw, it would seem likely that the *Democratic Party would be cast in the role of the OTL Whigs, while the National Republicans would likely become the dominant party in the nation. Do you think that the Dems would be a chiefly regional party, or would they have a national following (though probably not as successful in these regards as the National Republicans). I wonder how this would impact the development of the United States in the antebellum era.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
I have the perfect PoD:

Jackson eats a cannonball at New Orleans!

Come on! I even have the trans dimensional portal all ready to go!
 
Ideally, Adams needs to finish first in the electoral college; this removes the sting from the Jacksonian allegation that their man is somehow the rightful president. The popular vote is, IMHO, less important—too many states didn't use it as a method and anyway, I'm not sure whether anybody was adding it up nationally in the way we do with hindsight.

See https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...pular-vote-election-for-potus-in-1824.381333/ for an argument that when the states that chose the president by legislature are counted, Adams was at least as popular as Jackson in 1824.
 
So, assuming that JQA has a successful presidency and is followed by Henry Claw, it would seem likely that the *Democratic Party would be cast in the role of the OTL Whigs, while the National Republicans would likely become the dominant party in the nation. Do you think that the Dems would be a chiefly regional party, or would they have a national following (though probably not as successful in these regards as the National Republicans). I wonder how this would impact the development of the United States in the antebellum era.

I think that Adams has a good chance of re-election (especially if Jackson retires or accepts the secretary of war position) in 1828, but the South Carolina crisis will likely occur sooner than OTL and may be the event that causes the opposition to coalesce. They may well style themselves as the Union party and stand Thomas Hart Benton against Clay in 1832 on something like the OTL Democratic platform.

See https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...pular-vote-election-for-potus-in-1824.381333/ for an argument that when the states that chose the president by legislature are counted, Adams was at least as popular as Jackson in 1824.

Interesting bit of analysis. I don't have my copy of Ratcliffe to hand so I can't chase up the reference but it's very believable. I'm curious to now whether the concept of a national popular vote had any contemporary meaning in 1824 or whether it's just something historians discuss in hindsight.
 
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