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The One-Party Presidential Contest: Adams, Jackson, and 1824's Five-Horse Race. By Donald Ratcliffe. American Presidential Elections. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015. Pp. xiv, 354. $34.95, ISBN 978-07006-2130-9.)
In a solid contribution to the University Press of Kansas's American Presidential Elections series, The One-Party Presidential Contest: Adams. Jackson, and 1824's Five-Horse Race takes a fresh look at the complicated election of 1824. With his subject boasting five candidates, no strong national political parties, and a variety of different voting procedures, Donald Ratcliffe organizes his research into a readable narrative and recasts the election as being about the issues confronting Americans in the often neglected early 1820s and not about Andrew Jackson and his brand of democracy.
The election of 1824 is often portrayed as a contest among personalities and the story of Andrew Jackson. Certainly, any contest among John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, William Harris Crawford, and Jackson would be lively, but Ratcliffe shifts the focus from personality to the issues. The election,...