Notes

The "Corrupt Bargain" of 1824
There were 4 main "Republican" candidates in the election of 1824: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Nocndidate won the majority of the electoral votes, so, according to the Constitution, the House of Representatives had to choose the winner. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, was thus eliminated although he did have much say in who became president. Clay convinced the House to elect John Quincy Adams as president. Adams agreed to make Clay the Secretary of State for getting him into office. Much of the public felt that a "corrupt bargain" had taken place because Andrew Jackson had received the popular vote.












The Big Bank War of 1832
The Bank War erupted in 1832 when Daniel Webster and Henry Clay presented Congress with a bill to renew the Bank's charter. Clay pushed to renew the charter in 1832 to make it an issue for the election of that year. He felt that if Jackson signed off on it, then Jackson would alienate the people of the West who hated the Bank. If Jackson vetoed it, then he would alienate the wealthy class of the East who supported the Bank. Clay did not account for the fact that the wealthy class was now a minority. Jackson vetoed the bill calling the Bank unconstitutional.

The veto showed that Jackson felt that the Executive Branch had more power than the Judicial Branch in determining the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States.