the emergence of Jacksonian democracy

in the first half of the 19th century in the United States

and we've been talking about how in this time period,

the vote was slowly extended to all white male citizens

so that by the end of this period there were

no more property requirements in the United States

and any white male citizen could vote.

Now those property requirements had allowed

free people of color and women to vote in some states

and when voting became associated with white male citizens,

those little loopholes ended up getting closed,

but this expansion of voting rights

to all white male citizens really represents

a shift in how the average American

thought about who deserved to have a voice

in the political process of the United States.

They stopped placing so much value

on this sort of aristocratic republican citizenship

of the early days of the United States

where someone like George Washington

would never run for office.

He would stand for office.

You wouldn't promote yourself, that would be vulgar.

Instead, you would have men

of well-known character promote you.

But by the 1820s, very few Americans believed in the idea

that there could be such a thing as too much democracy

that you would have to avoid the mob rule.

Instead, they wanted the mob rule.

They wanted a great expansion of democracy and that was

to them the real character of the United States.

Now I should also mention that this expansion of democracy

was part of a larger international expansion of democracy.

Similar laws that eliminated property restrictions

on voting were also being passed

in England and France at this time period.

So there's kind of an international wave

to broaden the franchise,

but the extension of voting in Europe is nothing like

the extension of voting in the United States.

There are nearly twice as many eligible voters

in the United States in the 1830s as there are in Britain

with a population that's half the size.

So while European nations are taking small steps

toward expanding the franchise,

the United States is taking huge steps in this time period.

So the first election where we start to see the influence

of this new wave of voters is in the election of 1824

and let me give us a little bit more space

to talk about this.

So the election of 1824 was a contest

between John Quincy Adams,

son of American founder John Adams,

Andrew Jackson, famous war hero from the War of 1812,

the victor of the Battle of New Orleans,

and Henry Clay,

who will become known as the great compromiser

for having pretty much spent his entire political career

either running for president

or putting together some kind of compromise.

Now, John Quincy Adams I think kind of epitomized

the older school of American democracy.

He was reticent to campaign on his own behalf.

He was very interested in academics

and internal improvements.

He didn't really see himself as being

part of a particular political party.

In fact, all three of these men

were actually running as republicans

'cause in the era of good feelings

there's only the Republican Party.

So you can see how confusing this might as been as a voter

to have three different candidates from the same party

and they're supposed to be different than each other.

So in this election, Andrew Jackson wins the popular vote

and John Quincy Adams wins the electoral vote

and Henry Clay wins neither.

Now in a situation like this, who got to be president

was decided by the House of Representatives.

Well guess who was speaker of the house.

Henry Clay.

So he's out of the running himself,

but he is in a position to make quite an impact

on who wins the presidency.

Well John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay

didn't have a whole lot of common,

but they sure both hated Andrew Jackson.

So Clay and Adams meet and Henry Clay says, "Yeah John Q.,

"I'll see if I can get the House to vote for you,"

and that's what happens.

So the House elects John Quincy Adams president

and then just a couple days later,

John Quincy Adams says that Henry Clay

will get to be his Secretary of State,

which was quite a plum of a political position

and Andrew Jackson and his supporters go ballistic.

They say that this was a corrupt bargain

behind closed doors

in which John Quincy Adams bribed Henry Clay

to give him the presidency

in exchange for this political position.

Now, there's no evidence that

this actual corrupt bargain really happened,

but even if it did, it was totally in line

with the earlier playbook of American democracy,

a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours kind of situation

where the better sort of men, the higher men of character

made a deal between themselves of who would lead this nation

and the outrage over this possible collusion

between Adams and Clay really signaled that

the old days of a couple of people making decisions

about American politics were over,

that this kind of deal between statesmen

was now seen as undemocratic or crooked

or something that was done behind closed doors

and that was against the American character

and Andrew Jackson is really going to

ride his wave of popular discontent

over someone winning the popular vote,

but losing the electoral vote

due to in his mind a corrupt bargain

right into the presidency in the election of 1828

and we'll get to that in the next video.