Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/406

374 Presidential election of 1824. [1824-5 made the appointment, and the people had no part. During the five- and-thirty years that had since elapsed, political ideas had greatly changed. The property qualifications required of the voter in 1789, and the religious and property qualifications required of office-holders, had been swept away in whole or in part. TTbe franchise had been extended ; the number of nominative offices had decreased and that of elective offices had increased. Government had passed to the people; and, now that they chose their State officers, it was but natural that they should insist on electing the President. So great had been the change that, of the twenty-four States composing the Union in 1824, there were but six in which the legislatures appointed presidential electors, while in eighteen the people voted directly. The election of 1824, in short, marks the transition between the old way and the new. Henceforth " the will of the people," not that of the * caucus," was to decide who should be President. The contest of 1824 resulted in another failure to elect. All factions agreed on Calhoun as the fit man for the Vice-Presidency ; and he was chosen by the electoral colleges. But neither Jackson, Adams, Crawford, nor Clay received a majority of the electoral votes; and the choice passed to the House of Representatives, which, according to the Consti- tution, was obliged to elect either Jackson, Adams, or Crawford ; for, in such cases, only three names, and those the highest on the list, may come before the House. In those States where the people chose the electors, Jackson had received 45,000 more votes than Adams, and 106,000 more than Crawford. In the electoral colleges, the votes for Jackson exceeded by fifteen those given for Adams, and by fifty-eight those given for Crawford. Jackson was therefore clearly the people's choice ; and, in the opinion of his followers, the House was in duty bound to elect him. This claim was the assertion of the new democratic idea, that the people had a right to choose their rulers ; but it was not regarded by the House, which elected Adams President. The country over which Adams was thus called to rule in 1825 was now more than ever before divided into the North and the South. Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin made cotton-planting profitable. The inventions of Hargreaves, Crompton, and Arkwright had stimulated the demand for cotton ; and these two conditions combined the existence of a market and the possibility of supplying it with ease and profit made cotton-planting the chief industry of the South, absorbed the energy, enterprise, and capital of her citizens, and determined every economic condition. In the South the arts and sciences were little practised; great national resources were allowed to lie undeveloped; manufactures were neglected ; and trade and commerce were suffered to pass into the hands of foreigners, in order that one sort of agriculture might flourish. The firm belief that none but black men could cultivate cotton fastened negro slavery on the South, shut out free labour, and