Race for the White House (2016) s01e05 Episode Script
Jackson vs Adams
If you think the presidency has been stolen from you, and democracy is dead do you retreat? Or do you fight again? What will sustain you through the battles ahead? Truth? Justice? Or vengeance? It's only been 50 years since the revolution and America is about to elect its sixth president.
The country is at a pivotal moment.
Who's gonna lead it now? It was easy when you had the revolutionary generation and their protégés.
You knew the line of succession.
But that generation was dying out.
And the issue was, who could be president? There's a new contender in the race.
He comes all the way to Washington from Tennessee.
He may be an outsider but he has the people's vote.
General Andrew Jackson.
Up until that time, there had never been a candidate really on the public stage in America, like Andrew Jackson.
General Jackson is a national hero, the man who many believe saved his country a decade ago at the Battle of New Orleans.
He was regarded as a dangerous man, who as a general, had more than once exceeded his authority, and broke the rules in order to defend his honour.
In fact, Andrew Jackson was willing to kill to get his way.
The other candidates were kind of astonished when it became apparent that Jackson had a popularity that transcended what they thought were qualifications.
Jackson's rival has a perfect presidential résumé.
His name? John Quincy Adams.
John Quincy Adams was probably the most qualified man to be president that the United States has ever produced.
He was the son of John Adams, the first Vice President, then President of the United States.
He had served as a congressman, as a senator, as a diplomat.
He had then been secretary of state under James Monroe.
As secretary of state, Adams believes he's set for the top job.
The last three men who held the post went on to become the president.
His turn next.
Of course John Quincy Adams has to be the next president, because, well, his father was the president.
He's from Massachusetts and he's secretary of state, and the secretary of state has always been the president.
Who is Jackson to come in here? He's just from Tennessee! The votes are counted, and the man from Tennessee surprises everyone.
Jackson had more popular votes than anyone else, and more electoral votes than anyone else.
But not enough to win an absolute majority.
Instead, Congress will choose America's next President.
Andrew Jackson was enraged.
"I have been chosen by the will of the people.
" "Let me rise or fall on the rule that the majority of the people should decide who their president is.
" But Jackson is shouting in the dark.
In two months' time, the presidency will be decided by just 213 men.
Things really went into higher gear in Washington City to negotiate for the vote that would take place.
Adams needs to turn the vote in his favour.
Fortunately he has a secret weapon Mrs Adams.
Louisa Adams was a very accomplished woman.
She had learned how to entertain in the courts of Europe while Adams was a diplomat.
Hundreds of miles from home, Andrew and Rachel Jackson can't compete with the Adams family.
Rachel Jackson was completely a fish out of water when it came to what was expected of elite women in these cities of the Eastern Seaboard.
The Jacksons were living in a boarding house, and it was very difficult for them to entertain people.
Louisa Adams was often seen having conversation with Henry Clay.
Henry Clay is Speaker of the House of Representatives.
He controls the 213 men tasked with choosing between Adams and Jackson.
The most powerful legislator of his time now had an opportunity to be a kingmaker.
He could swing the vote.
Clay and Adams talk.
Has the kingmaker met his future king? Clay asked for, as Adams put it, assurances on some matters of great public importance.
The two of them had a long conversation.
Clay went away apparently satisfied.
Two months of negotiation and speculation pass.
The House convenes to announce America's new President.
Gentlemen I am humbled and delighted with that which you bestow.
The House of Representatives elected Adams.
John Quincy Adams becomes the sixth president of the United States of America.
His secretary of state? Henry Clay.
From Jackson's point of view, it looks like a corrupt bargain.
It's two guys, in a back room, making a deal to steal the election away from the people of the United States.
For Jackson, this is a betrayal and it's clear from the very beginning, he's never going to forget that betrayal as he sees it.
Jackson turns to the Bible to shame his enemy Henry Clay.
Mr Clay is Judas, taking the 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus.
Andrew Jackson was a passionate man and a killer.
Jackson was certainly capable of physical violence, in defence of democracy.
So the threat that he might do something was very real.
After that election there was a reception at the White House, hosted by the outgoing President Monroe, to congratulate John Quincy Adams on his victory.
And so Jackson walked into that crowded room in front of this collection of notables.
People were watching, what'll happen between these two guys? They thought there might be an explosion of temper.
Andrew Jackson has just lost the election he thought was his.
He now approaches its victor John Quincy Adams.
Adams looked uncomfortable.
He thought there might be an explosion of temper by Jackson.
But he could be very controlled when it fit his motivations.
I hope you are well, sir.
But it was all play-acting.
Jackson even made a kind of disarming remark.
He had his wife with him, and he said, "I give you my left hand.
Because as you see, my right is devoted to the fair.
" You don't wanna seem like a sore loser.
But behind the scenes, his advisors were already thinking about the next election four years away and how to position Andrew Jackson to crush this man.
Humiliated, Jackson heads home.
Jackson's fury over being deprived and the American people being deprived, of the presidency, drove him for the next four years.
Rachel Jackson was hoping that now he would give up that public ambition and simply be her husband.
But Jackson has no plans to retire.
He believes that a dangerously divided America needs him.
Jackson represented people who are dispossessed.
All those people who had gone west to make a better life for themselves, and found they couldn't have a better life, because all the resources were strangled by this wealthy class emerging in the eastern establishment.
Once again Andrew Jackson plans to try for the presidency.
He has just four years to turn America against John Quincy Adams.
But he can't do it alone.
In these campaigns of outsiders and populists, you need a fixer, you need an insider.
New York senator Martin Van Buren is as popular as he is smart.
And he's very smart.
Van Buren had the interesting nickname, "the Little Magician".
It perfectly represented what he was famous for, and that is procuring political marvels.
Van Buren agrees with Jackson - John Quincy Adams stole the election of 1824.
Van Buren believed deeply in democracy, the rule of the majority, the rule of the people.
Van Buren wants to bring down the stale old elite, by creating a new political party.
And who better to run a national party than Andrew Jackson? A war hero, a man who ached for the presidency and was fuelled by resentment at the outcome of the 1824 election.
Martin Van Buren said, "That's how we're going to beat John Quincy Adams, and the man we'll beat him with is Jackson.
" It would take several more years before that organisation became known as the Democratic Party.
But this was the heart of it.
Once more Jackson will face Adams for the presidency.
But this time Van Buren is on board, and he has a powerful new weapon.
You had an increasing number of newspapers, which were being carried across the country by an expanding transportation network to an expanding population.
Wherever he goes, Martin Van Buren tells the same story - democracy is in danger.
And the only man who can save it is Andrew Jackson.
The editorial boards would be flattered, of course, to have someone like Van Buren going to meet with them, would write something positive, and suddenly there would be this boom - "Oh, my God, Jackson could win.
" Martin Van Buren is the first politico to understand that American presidential candidates, to be successful, have to be part celebrity.
Jackson is already famous, but now he has to become legendary.
Nesting in the White House, President Adams has no time for the modern world.
Adams doesn't take advantage of being in the White House to use the White House as a way of gaining popular support.
He remains aloof and he thinks that's OK.
His vision, his understanding of politics, was the old politics.
He would not stoop to do things to get re-elected, even if they were perhaps absolutely necessary.
Meanwhile, for secretary of state Henry Clay, the political just got personal.
Clay was mad at Jackson for spreading the idea of the corrupt bargain.
These men hated each other.
Clay realises that Jackson mania will hamper his plans.
Something must be done.
In politics, it's no holds barred.
Whatever is found as a weakness can be, and will be, exploited.
Clay goes for Jackson's Achilles heel, and in doing so, changes presidential campaigning forever.
This has been described as one of the really great smear campaigns of its time.
In the spring of 1826, an Englishman with a grudge arrives in Harrodsburg Kentucky.
He's still fuming at Andrew Jackson for defeating his countrymen at the Battle of New Orleans.
His name is Edward Day, and his purpose is to dig up dirt on Jackson's wife Rachel.
This fellow Day was travelling around in Kentucky, had gone to Harrodsburg and other places Rachel had lived.
The results of Day's snooping are delivered to the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette.
Loyal to President Adams, the Gazette runs Day's story on its front page.
The newspaper reports that Rachel had knowingly run away from her husband Louis Roberts, with Andrew Jackson.
And that Andrew Jackson had lived with her in bigamy.
It is our way, as Americans, to assume every presidential campaign is the very worst, that somehow we have lost the decorum, the etiquette of the past.
1828 is a reminder that we've had bitter presidential campaigns for centuries.
The story gets picked up by newspapers all over the States.
They were outraged someone had so overturned society's laws.
Henry Clay's supporters have turned Rachel Jackson into the scarlet woman of the hour.
Rachel is despondent.
She writes a letter to a friend of hers.
"The General's enemies have dipped their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me.
" But Clay's real target isn't Rachel Jackson it's her husband.
Jackson and Rachel were deeply in love with each other.
He thought the people who made the attacks should be thrashed.
Their hope was that Jackson would react so violently that it would put him beyond the pale as far as the American electorate was concerned.
Andrew Jackson was a man with a ferocious temper who was willing to challenge people to duels and actually fight duels in order to win.
20 years before, a local horse breeder had made a fatal mistake of insulting Jackson's wife.
The fatal mistake.
Jackson went to the duelling ground with Charles Dickinson.
Dickinson fired first and hit Jackson in the chest.
Jackson stood and took it.
It was a kind of discipline that Andrew Jackson had, a sort of iron control.
And then took his time and calmly killed the man who had fired.
The message was clear: Insult Rachel Jackson, Andrew Jackson will shoot you dead.
Jackson carried the bullet with him all his life, as a reminder to himself and everyone else of what he would do for love.
Jackson found himself having to defend Rachel's honour or at least her virtue.
There is just one tiny flaw in Jackson's rage.
The accusation that Jackson was a bigamist, a wife stealer was actually true.
30 years before, Rachel had fled an abusive husband and eloped with Jackson before getting a divorce.
It became clear that his was going to become an issue in the campaign.
Many people commented, "Are an adulterer and her husband really the proper leaders of a Christian nation?" In Washington, President Adams has no time for gossip.
Adams himself was a very self-disciplined man.
He got up before dawn every morning, took a little swim in the Potomac.
Privately he conceded that probably two-thirds of Americans did not want him to be president.
Adams needs to prove himself, if he's going to modernise America.
The Adams administration was in favour of broadly popular programmes called internal improvements, such as new roads, new bridges, lighthouses and so forth.
Aids to the economy.
He said, "We should lead the world in economic development, not only to make us richer, but to enable us to accomplish all the great things that man is put on earth to accomplish.
" While President Adams gets to work building the new republic, Andrew Jackson is offered a lifeline hat could resurrect his election campaign.
Andrew Jackson is now seen as America's most famous wife stealer.
He needs a new image and he needs it now.
On January 8th, 1828, there was a huge commemoration of the Battle of New Orleans planned.
And Jackson was invited to it.
Jackson was the personal victor in that battlefield.
So obviously when it comes time to celebrate the Battle of New Orleans, it's about Andrew Jackson.
The Jackson people thought there was a sense of opportunity here.
"Let's make it a big campaign event.
" In the War of 1812, America had been in danger of becoming a British Colony again.
Vastly outnumbered, Andrew Jackson was ordered to halt the Redcoat menace.
Jackson's army, they weren't trained to stand in a European battlefield and duke it out at 100 metres with muskets.
So Jackson put them behind barricades.
The British lost about 2,000 casualties.
And Jackson lost not many more men than you could count on the fingers of both hands.
What a personality, what a strength of character and what generalship he showed.
Jackson's team have a year to prepare for the anniversary.
The battle commemoration at New Orleans was extensively planned.
And it was very carefully choreographed and stage managed.
Rachel Jackson, she has to go and support her husband, it's important for her to be seen by his side.
And she loves Andrew Jackson, but she comforts herself throughout it, thinking of how empty these honours are in this world.
The Jacksons travel 1100 miles by steamboat downriver from Nashville to New Orleans.
There were advantages to doing that.
One of them was that you could meet crowds along the way.
It's a fundamentally different approach to politics and lays the foundation for what we consider modern politics.
Driven by personalities, driven by spectacle.
A sense of adventure and theatre.
It could then be extensively reported in the newspapers and that was really the point of it.
It was not just to have this celebration but to have news of it spread around the country.
Andrew Jackson learns a lesson that politicos around the world would learn.
A lot of people vote based on their gut, on a sense of, "I like this person, I trust this person.
" Shaking the hand, looking in the eye, having somebody be able to touch you, joke with you.
If they like you, you've got them forever.
The New Orleans event was all over the pages of newspapers, reminding everybody that this was the hero of New Orleans.
Looking at it now, you would say this was the first mass campaign rally in American history.
Jackson fever grips the nation, as the fearless warrior who saved America now invades its hearts and minds.
Jackson represents the new politics.
"I believe in America.
The way things are being run in Washington are wrong.
Vote for me because we can bring change.
" John Quincy Adams didn't believe in meeting with people.
He wouldn't do it.
He felt that was pandering for votes.
The Adams people realised that they had to make their candidate into a popular guy, which with John Quincy Adams was not easy because he did not have a popular touch.
It was observed that the first step Adams is persuaded to travel to Maryland where he will break ground on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, a waterway that will link east and west.
He took the shovel and stuck it into the ground and hit a root.
Then according to the Adams newspapers, he threw off his coat and attacked that root again.
The Jackson newspapers predictably ridiculed this.
Adams might well have dug his own grave.
It's time for secretary of state Henry Clay to step in.
Clay, in so many words, saying, "You wanna win or not?" And Adams saying, in so many words, "I'm not going to disgrace and degrade myself to win".
They had to throw everything that they could think of at Andrew Jackson if they had any hope of Adams retaining the presidency.
The way politics works is, is you attack your opponent's strength.
You may find a weakness - good.
But you must attack his strength.
So it was very logical to attack his military record.
Henry Clay's researchers are digging into Andrew Jackson's military record.
You do see in the 1828 campaign the beginnings of what today we would call "oppo research" or opposition research.
That is employing people or delegating people to go sniff out dirt about the opponent.
And amongst the yellowing documents, they hit pay dirt.
16 years ago, as Jackson's depleted army were gearing up to fight the British, one recruit, Private John Wood, got into a fight with his comrades in arms.
Private Wood ended up seizing a weapon at one point and brandishing it around.
He was given a hasty court martial and put to death.
They found story after story after story, alleging that he had been impetuous, that he was brutal, that he had his own men executed.
Henry Clay sanctions a handbill to be printed in Philadelphia.
The pamphlet describes the execution of six militiamen, an execution ordered by Andrew Jackson.
Across the front of it were the silhouettes of six coffins, representing six militiamen who Jackson had shot.
This morbid document becomes known as the Coffin Handbill.
Andrew Jackson was known to be a killer of his enemies, nobody particularly had a problem with that.
But now he was questioned in campaign literature, for killing his own men, or having them put to death.
If you could assault a man's character, that's the unanswerable attack.
If you can get his character that's where it hurts.
The message of this is simple.
"Do you want this violent, unbridled, perhaps crazy man Do you really want him as President of the United States?" "The lifeblood of his countrymen flowed plentifully by his order.
Mark the perfect indifference with which General Jackson shoots, hangs or stabs his fellow beings.
" Jackson is convinced the story comes directly from his mortal enemy, Henry Clay.
For Rachel Jackson, seeing these people attacking him was the most distressing thing of all.
She's also despondent at this idea that they would win the White House.
She does make the statement: "I'd rather be a door keeper in the palace of the Lord than in that palace in Washington.
" With three months to go until the next presidential election, Andrew Jackson is in no mood to turn the other cheek.
He managed to calm himself enough to counter-attack.
You see Jackson in his correspondence sending clippings to political friends and allies saying, "Here's some information you can use against someone.
" He is somebody who really understands early-19th-century news media and was surrounded by supporters who knew how to help him use it.
Attack is now the only form of defence.
And the more vicious the better.
The Jacksonians main line of attack was Adams was a fop an aristocrat, a snob.
A New Hampshire Jacksonian newspaper charged that Adams, back when Adams had been Minister to Russia, had set up an American girl for the Tsar.
They were calling the President of the United States a pimp.
To him, it showed how unfit Jackson was to be President, that he would have these mongrels around him, doing this kind of thing.
Adams' boys hit Jackson in a most unexpected way with a spelling bee.
Some Adams newspapers uncovered Jackson letters, pointing out that Jackson had misspelled a number of fairly elementary words.
Misspelled words like "government", "congress" with a K.
It was, of all the accusations, perhaps the one that John Quincy Adams held most closely to privately.
Clay and Adams believed that you ought to be something of an intellectual to lead the people.
Jackson's people said, "You know, George Washington misspelled a lot of words.
What difference does it make?" Adams showed himself to be a man disconnected from the people.
Well, it was incredibly stupid, and the average person goes, "That's right! I got some imperfections and I know it.
So does he.
I'm voting for the guy just like me.
" Time for the voters to decide, between the patriotic hero and the born leader.
The 1828 Presidential Election.
Voting is underway.
John Quincy Adams takes his morning dip in the Potomac.
He's not feeling confident.
Adams himself became increasingly convinced that he was going to lose.
He was appalled at the idea that this boob, this hick could become president.
But Adams, like the rest of America, will have to wait a month for the results to come in.
Meanwhile, Rachel Jackson is finding life in the public gaze increasingly unpleasant.
She was in Nashville, in a shop, and overhead women talking about her.
She said, "From what I've heard these people say, I realise what a pitiful old woman they think I am.
I'm not sure if I can go to Washington.
" Rachel Jackson isn't alone in her anxiety.
The ambitious Henry Clay is all too aware what an Adams victory will mean for him.
A pattern had developed in the early years of the country in which each succeeding secretary of state rose to the presidency.
Following John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay felt like he would be the next president.
But Clay's job prospects are now in the hands of the voters.
And by early December, the results are in.
Jackson took the entire South and he also carried Pennsylvania, and most of the electoral vote of New York.
Four years after his first bitter loss, Andrew Jackson is now elected as America's seventh president.
He believed entirely that the country had been rescued, that democracy had been, as Martin Van Buren would have said, "set back on course".
Jackson appoints Van Buren as his secretary of state.
Eight years later, he would succeed Jackson as president.
Andrew Jackson is representative of a new era in American politics.
They wanted a president they could identify with, that they could understand.
What you have here is the beginning of Americans wanting a president that they could have beer with.
Rachel was happy for the country, but she felt it was her loss.
With a heavy heart, I'm sure, she is preparing herself to go on to Washington and take her place by his side because the people have demanded it.
The date has been set for when the Jacksons are going to leave for Washington City.
But instead, Rachel suffers a heart attack.
For four days, Jackson does not leave Rachel's bedside.
On December 22nd, she dies.
Jackson is crushed, he's beside himself.
He just cannot believe that this woman that he's loved and defended all these years has left him.
Jackson held the Adams and Clay people responsible for killing her with their slanders.
On February 11th, Jackson begins his three-week journey to Washington DC to be inaugurated.
He did not pay a call on the departing president as protocol would have required - didn't do it.
The harsh and bitter campaign has deeply wounded both candidates.
Adams refused to attend Jackson's inauguration.
He left that morning, going back to Boston.
Jackson supporters flood into Washington, a human tide keen to see the people's general sworn in as president.
Jackson encouraged it because Jackson and his supporters had encouraged members of the non-political elite to feel a direct connection to the presidency.
Hundreds of people descended on the White House.
There was free food and there was free booze and it turned into quite a mob scene.
You can date many of the characteristics of the modern presidential election system to 1828.
The sense that Americans want a president they are comfortable with, that they can identify with.
Jackson has lost the love of his life and won the biggest battle of his career.
And along the way, he has changed American politics forever.
For 40 years, American presidents were largely selected by the American political elite.
The shift that occurs between 1824 and 1828 is the American people don't want their representatives to choose presidents any more.
They wanna choose presidents themselves.
Andrew Jackson is the beneficiary of that huge change in the American presidential political system.
The country is at a pivotal moment.
Who's gonna lead it now? It was easy when you had the revolutionary generation and their protégés.
You knew the line of succession.
But that generation was dying out.
And the issue was, who could be president? There's a new contender in the race.
He comes all the way to Washington from Tennessee.
He may be an outsider but he has the people's vote.
General Andrew Jackson.
Up until that time, there had never been a candidate really on the public stage in America, like Andrew Jackson.
General Jackson is a national hero, the man who many believe saved his country a decade ago at the Battle of New Orleans.
He was regarded as a dangerous man, who as a general, had more than once exceeded his authority, and broke the rules in order to defend his honour.
In fact, Andrew Jackson was willing to kill to get his way.
The other candidates were kind of astonished when it became apparent that Jackson had a popularity that transcended what they thought were qualifications.
Jackson's rival has a perfect presidential résumé.
His name? John Quincy Adams.
John Quincy Adams was probably the most qualified man to be president that the United States has ever produced.
He was the son of John Adams, the first Vice President, then President of the United States.
He had served as a congressman, as a senator, as a diplomat.
He had then been secretary of state under James Monroe.
As secretary of state, Adams believes he's set for the top job.
The last three men who held the post went on to become the president.
His turn next.
Of course John Quincy Adams has to be the next president, because, well, his father was the president.
He's from Massachusetts and he's secretary of state, and the secretary of state has always been the president.
Who is Jackson to come in here? He's just from Tennessee! The votes are counted, and the man from Tennessee surprises everyone.
Jackson had more popular votes than anyone else, and more electoral votes than anyone else.
But not enough to win an absolute majority.
Instead, Congress will choose America's next President.
Andrew Jackson was enraged.
"I have been chosen by the will of the people.
" "Let me rise or fall on the rule that the majority of the people should decide who their president is.
" But Jackson is shouting in the dark.
In two months' time, the presidency will be decided by just 213 men.
Things really went into higher gear in Washington City to negotiate for the vote that would take place.
Adams needs to turn the vote in his favour.
Fortunately he has a secret weapon Mrs Adams.
Louisa Adams was a very accomplished woman.
She had learned how to entertain in the courts of Europe while Adams was a diplomat.
Hundreds of miles from home, Andrew and Rachel Jackson can't compete with the Adams family.
Rachel Jackson was completely a fish out of water when it came to what was expected of elite women in these cities of the Eastern Seaboard.
The Jacksons were living in a boarding house, and it was very difficult for them to entertain people.
Louisa Adams was often seen having conversation with Henry Clay.
Henry Clay is Speaker of the House of Representatives.
He controls the 213 men tasked with choosing between Adams and Jackson.
The most powerful legislator of his time now had an opportunity to be a kingmaker.
He could swing the vote.
Clay and Adams talk.
Has the kingmaker met his future king? Clay asked for, as Adams put it, assurances on some matters of great public importance.
The two of them had a long conversation.
Clay went away apparently satisfied.
Two months of negotiation and speculation pass.
The House convenes to announce America's new President.
Gentlemen I am humbled and delighted with that which you bestow.
The House of Representatives elected Adams.
John Quincy Adams becomes the sixth president of the United States of America.
His secretary of state? Henry Clay.
From Jackson's point of view, it looks like a corrupt bargain.
It's two guys, in a back room, making a deal to steal the election away from the people of the United States.
For Jackson, this is a betrayal and it's clear from the very beginning, he's never going to forget that betrayal as he sees it.
Jackson turns to the Bible to shame his enemy Henry Clay.
Mr Clay is Judas, taking the 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus.
Andrew Jackson was a passionate man and a killer.
Jackson was certainly capable of physical violence, in defence of democracy.
So the threat that he might do something was very real.
After that election there was a reception at the White House, hosted by the outgoing President Monroe, to congratulate John Quincy Adams on his victory.
And so Jackson walked into that crowded room in front of this collection of notables.
People were watching, what'll happen between these two guys? They thought there might be an explosion of temper.
Andrew Jackson has just lost the election he thought was his.
He now approaches its victor John Quincy Adams.
Adams looked uncomfortable.
He thought there might be an explosion of temper by Jackson.
But he could be very controlled when it fit his motivations.
I hope you are well, sir.
But it was all play-acting.
Jackson even made a kind of disarming remark.
He had his wife with him, and he said, "I give you my left hand.
Because as you see, my right is devoted to the fair.
" You don't wanna seem like a sore loser.
But behind the scenes, his advisors were already thinking about the next election four years away and how to position Andrew Jackson to crush this man.
Humiliated, Jackson heads home.
Jackson's fury over being deprived and the American people being deprived, of the presidency, drove him for the next four years.
Rachel Jackson was hoping that now he would give up that public ambition and simply be her husband.
But Jackson has no plans to retire.
He believes that a dangerously divided America needs him.
Jackson represented people who are dispossessed.
All those people who had gone west to make a better life for themselves, and found they couldn't have a better life, because all the resources were strangled by this wealthy class emerging in the eastern establishment.
Once again Andrew Jackson plans to try for the presidency.
He has just four years to turn America against John Quincy Adams.
But he can't do it alone.
In these campaigns of outsiders and populists, you need a fixer, you need an insider.
New York senator Martin Van Buren is as popular as he is smart.
And he's very smart.
Van Buren had the interesting nickname, "the Little Magician".
It perfectly represented what he was famous for, and that is procuring political marvels.
Van Buren agrees with Jackson - John Quincy Adams stole the election of 1824.
Van Buren believed deeply in democracy, the rule of the majority, the rule of the people.
Van Buren wants to bring down the stale old elite, by creating a new political party.
And who better to run a national party than Andrew Jackson? A war hero, a man who ached for the presidency and was fuelled by resentment at the outcome of the 1824 election.
Martin Van Buren said, "That's how we're going to beat John Quincy Adams, and the man we'll beat him with is Jackson.
" It would take several more years before that organisation became known as the Democratic Party.
But this was the heart of it.
Once more Jackson will face Adams for the presidency.
But this time Van Buren is on board, and he has a powerful new weapon.
You had an increasing number of newspapers, which were being carried across the country by an expanding transportation network to an expanding population.
Wherever he goes, Martin Van Buren tells the same story - democracy is in danger.
And the only man who can save it is Andrew Jackson.
The editorial boards would be flattered, of course, to have someone like Van Buren going to meet with them, would write something positive, and suddenly there would be this boom - "Oh, my God, Jackson could win.
" Martin Van Buren is the first politico to understand that American presidential candidates, to be successful, have to be part celebrity.
Jackson is already famous, but now he has to become legendary.
Nesting in the White House, President Adams has no time for the modern world.
Adams doesn't take advantage of being in the White House to use the White House as a way of gaining popular support.
He remains aloof and he thinks that's OK.
His vision, his understanding of politics, was the old politics.
He would not stoop to do things to get re-elected, even if they were perhaps absolutely necessary.
Meanwhile, for secretary of state Henry Clay, the political just got personal.
Clay was mad at Jackson for spreading the idea of the corrupt bargain.
These men hated each other.
Clay realises that Jackson mania will hamper his plans.
Something must be done.
In politics, it's no holds barred.
Whatever is found as a weakness can be, and will be, exploited.
Clay goes for Jackson's Achilles heel, and in doing so, changes presidential campaigning forever.
This has been described as one of the really great smear campaigns of its time.
In the spring of 1826, an Englishman with a grudge arrives in Harrodsburg Kentucky.
He's still fuming at Andrew Jackson for defeating his countrymen at the Battle of New Orleans.
His name is Edward Day, and his purpose is to dig up dirt on Jackson's wife Rachel.
This fellow Day was travelling around in Kentucky, had gone to Harrodsburg and other places Rachel had lived.
The results of Day's snooping are delivered to the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette.
Loyal to President Adams, the Gazette runs Day's story on its front page.
The newspaper reports that Rachel had knowingly run away from her husband Louis Roberts, with Andrew Jackson.
And that Andrew Jackson had lived with her in bigamy.
It is our way, as Americans, to assume every presidential campaign is the very worst, that somehow we have lost the decorum, the etiquette of the past.
1828 is a reminder that we've had bitter presidential campaigns for centuries.
The story gets picked up by newspapers all over the States.
They were outraged someone had so overturned society's laws.
Henry Clay's supporters have turned Rachel Jackson into the scarlet woman of the hour.
Rachel is despondent.
She writes a letter to a friend of hers.
"The General's enemies have dipped their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me.
" But Clay's real target isn't Rachel Jackson it's her husband.
Jackson and Rachel were deeply in love with each other.
He thought the people who made the attacks should be thrashed.
Their hope was that Jackson would react so violently that it would put him beyond the pale as far as the American electorate was concerned.
Andrew Jackson was a man with a ferocious temper who was willing to challenge people to duels and actually fight duels in order to win.
20 years before, a local horse breeder had made a fatal mistake of insulting Jackson's wife.
The fatal mistake.
Jackson went to the duelling ground with Charles Dickinson.
Dickinson fired first and hit Jackson in the chest.
Jackson stood and took it.
It was a kind of discipline that Andrew Jackson had, a sort of iron control.
And then took his time and calmly killed the man who had fired.
The message was clear: Insult Rachel Jackson, Andrew Jackson will shoot you dead.
Jackson carried the bullet with him all his life, as a reminder to himself and everyone else of what he would do for love.
Jackson found himself having to defend Rachel's honour or at least her virtue.
There is just one tiny flaw in Jackson's rage.
The accusation that Jackson was a bigamist, a wife stealer was actually true.
30 years before, Rachel had fled an abusive husband and eloped with Jackson before getting a divorce.
It became clear that his was going to become an issue in the campaign.
Many people commented, "Are an adulterer and her husband really the proper leaders of a Christian nation?" In Washington, President Adams has no time for gossip.
Adams himself was a very self-disciplined man.
He got up before dawn every morning, took a little swim in the Potomac.
Privately he conceded that probably two-thirds of Americans did not want him to be president.
Adams needs to prove himself, if he's going to modernise America.
The Adams administration was in favour of broadly popular programmes called internal improvements, such as new roads, new bridges, lighthouses and so forth.
Aids to the economy.
He said, "We should lead the world in economic development, not only to make us richer, but to enable us to accomplish all the great things that man is put on earth to accomplish.
" While President Adams gets to work building the new republic, Andrew Jackson is offered a lifeline hat could resurrect his election campaign.
Andrew Jackson is now seen as America's most famous wife stealer.
He needs a new image and he needs it now.
On January 8th, 1828, there was a huge commemoration of the Battle of New Orleans planned.
And Jackson was invited to it.
Jackson was the personal victor in that battlefield.
So obviously when it comes time to celebrate the Battle of New Orleans, it's about Andrew Jackson.
The Jackson people thought there was a sense of opportunity here.
"Let's make it a big campaign event.
" In the War of 1812, America had been in danger of becoming a British Colony again.
Vastly outnumbered, Andrew Jackson was ordered to halt the Redcoat menace.
Jackson's army, they weren't trained to stand in a European battlefield and duke it out at 100 metres with muskets.
So Jackson put them behind barricades.
The British lost about 2,000 casualties.
And Jackson lost not many more men than you could count on the fingers of both hands.
What a personality, what a strength of character and what generalship he showed.
Jackson's team have a year to prepare for the anniversary.
The battle commemoration at New Orleans was extensively planned.
And it was very carefully choreographed and stage managed.
Rachel Jackson, she has to go and support her husband, it's important for her to be seen by his side.
And she loves Andrew Jackson, but she comforts herself throughout it, thinking of how empty these honours are in this world.
The Jacksons travel 1100 miles by steamboat downriver from Nashville to New Orleans.
There were advantages to doing that.
One of them was that you could meet crowds along the way.
It's a fundamentally different approach to politics and lays the foundation for what we consider modern politics.
Driven by personalities, driven by spectacle.
A sense of adventure and theatre.
It could then be extensively reported in the newspapers and that was really the point of it.
It was not just to have this celebration but to have news of it spread around the country.
Andrew Jackson learns a lesson that politicos around the world would learn.
A lot of people vote based on their gut, on a sense of, "I like this person, I trust this person.
" Shaking the hand, looking in the eye, having somebody be able to touch you, joke with you.
If they like you, you've got them forever.
The New Orleans event was all over the pages of newspapers, reminding everybody that this was the hero of New Orleans.
Looking at it now, you would say this was the first mass campaign rally in American history.
Jackson fever grips the nation, as the fearless warrior who saved America now invades its hearts and minds.
Jackson represents the new politics.
"I believe in America.
The way things are being run in Washington are wrong.
Vote for me because we can bring change.
" John Quincy Adams didn't believe in meeting with people.
He wouldn't do it.
He felt that was pandering for votes.
The Adams people realised that they had to make their candidate into a popular guy, which with John Quincy Adams was not easy because he did not have a popular touch.
It was observed that the first step Adams is persuaded to travel to Maryland where he will break ground on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, a waterway that will link east and west.
He took the shovel and stuck it into the ground and hit a root.
Then according to the Adams newspapers, he threw off his coat and attacked that root again.
The Jackson newspapers predictably ridiculed this.
Adams might well have dug his own grave.
It's time for secretary of state Henry Clay to step in.
Clay, in so many words, saying, "You wanna win or not?" And Adams saying, in so many words, "I'm not going to disgrace and degrade myself to win".
They had to throw everything that they could think of at Andrew Jackson if they had any hope of Adams retaining the presidency.
The way politics works is, is you attack your opponent's strength.
You may find a weakness - good.
But you must attack his strength.
So it was very logical to attack his military record.
Henry Clay's researchers are digging into Andrew Jackson's military record.
You do see in the 1828 campaign the beginnings of what today we would call "oppo research" or opposition research.
That is employing people or delegating people to go sniff out dirt about the opponent.
And amongst the yellowing documents, they hit pay dirt.
16 years ago, as Jackson's depleted army were gearing up to fight the British, one recruit, Private John Wood, got into a fight with his comrades in arms.
Private Wood ended up seizing a weapon at one point and brandishing it around.
He was given a hasty court martial and put to death.
They found story after story after story, alleging that he had been impetuous, that he was brutal, that he had his own men executed.
Henry Clay sanctions a handbill to be printed in Philadelphia.
The pamphlet describes the execution of six militiamen, an execution ordered by Andrew Jackson.
Across the front of it were the silhouettes of six coffins, representing six militiamen who Jackson had shot.
This morbid document becomes known as the Coffin Handbill.
Andrew Jackson was known to be a killer of his enemies, nobody particularly had a problem with that.
But now he was questioned in campaign literature, for killing his own men, or having them put to death.
If you could assault a man's character, that's the unanswerable attack.
If you can get his character that's where it hurts.
The message of this is simple.
"Do you want this violent, unbridled, perhaps crazy man Do you really want him as President of the United States?" "The lifeblood of his countrymen flowed plentifully by his order.
Mark the perfect indifference with which General Jackson shoots, hangs or stabs his fellow beings.
" Jackson is convinced the story comes directly from his mortal enemy, Henry Clay.
For Rachel Jackson, seeing these people attacking him was the most distressing thing of all.
She's also despondent at this idea that they would win the White House.
She does make the statement: "I'd rather be a door keeper in the palace of the Lord than in that palace in Washington.
" With three months to go until the next presidential election, Andrew Jackson is in no mood to turn the other cheek.
He managed to calm himself enough to counter-attack.
You see Jackson in his correspondence sending clippings to political friends and allies saying, "Here's some information you can use against someone.
" He is somebody who really understands early-19th-century news media and was surrounded by supporters who knew how to help him use it.
Attack is now the only form of defence.
And the more vicious the better.
The Jacksonians main line of attack was Adams was a fop an aristocrat, a snob.
A New Hampshire Jacksonian newspaper charged that Adams, back when Adams had been Minister to Russia, had set up an American girl for the Tsar.
They were calling the President of the United States a pimp.
To him, it showed how unfit Jackson was to be President, that he would have these mongrels around him, doing this kind of thing.
Adams' boys hit Jackson in a most unexpected way with a spelling bee.
Some Adams newspapers uncovered Jackson letters, pointing out that Jackson had misspelled a number of fairly elementary words.
Misspelled words like "government", "congress" with a K.
It was, of all the accusations, perhaps the one that John Quincy Adams held most closely to privately.
Clay and Adams believed that you ought to be something of an intellectual to lead the people.
Jackson's people said, "You know, George Washington misspelled a lot of words.
What difference does it make?" Adams showed himself to be a man disconnected from the people.
Well, it was incredibly stupid, and the average person goes, "That's right! I got some imperfections and I know it.
So does he.
I'm voting for the guy just like me.
" Time for the voters to decide, between the patriotic hero and the born leader.
The 1828 Presidential Election.
Voting is underway.
John Quincy Adams takes his morning dip in the Potomac.
He's not feeling confident.
Adams himself became increasingly convinced that he was going to lose.
He was appalled at the idea that this boob, this hick could become president.
But Adams, like the rest of America, will have to wait a month for the results to come in.
Meanwhile, Rachel Jackson is finding life in the public gaze increasingly unpleasant.
She was in Nashville, in a shop, and overhead women talking about her.
She said, "From what I've heard these people say, I realise what a pitiful old woman they think I am.
I'm not sure if I can go to Washington.
" Rachel Jackson isn't alone in her anxiety.
The ambitious Henry Clay is all too aware what an Adams victory will mean for him.
A pattern had developed in the early years of the country in which each succeeding secretary of state rose to the presidency.
Following John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay felt like he would be the next president.
But Clay's job prospects are now in the hands of the voters.
And by early December, the results are in.
Jackson took the entire South and he also carried Pennsylvania, and most of the electoral vote of New York.
Four years after his first bitter loss, Andrew Jackson is now elected as America's seventh president.
He believed entirely that the country had been rescued, that democracy had been, as Martin Van Buren would have said, "set back on course".
Jackson appoints Van Buren as his secretary of state.
Eight years later, he would succeed Jackson as president.
Andrew Jackson is representative of a new era in American politics.
They wanted a president they could identify with, that they could understand.
What you have here is the beginning of Americans wanting a president that they could have beer with.
Rachel was happy for the country, but she felt it was her loss.
With a heavy heart, I'm sure, she is preparing herself to go on to Washington and take her place by his side because the people have demanded it.
The date has been set for when the Jacksons are going to leave for Washington City.
But instead, Rachel suffers a heart attack.
For four days, Jackson does not leave Rachel's bedside.
On December 22nd, she dies.
Jackson is crushed, he's beside himself.
He just cannot believe that this woman that he's loved and defended all these years has left him.
Jackson held the Adams and Clay people responsible for killing her with their slanders.
On February 11th, Jackson begins his three-week journey to Washington DC to be inaugurated.
He did not pay a call on the departing president as protocol would have required - didn't do it.
The harsh and bitter campaign has deeply wounded both candidates.
Adams refused to attend Jackson's inauguration.
He left that morning, going back to Boston.
Jackson supporters flood into Washington, a human tide keen to see the people's general sworn in as president.
Jackson encouraged it because Jackson and his supporters had encouraged members of the non-political elite to feel a direct connection to the presidency.
Hundreds of people descended on the White House.
There was free food and there was free booze and it turned into quite a mob scene.
You can date many of the characteristics of the modern presidential election system to 1828.
The sense that Americans want a president they are comfortable with, that they can identify with.
Jackson has lost the love of his life and won the biggest battle of his career.
And along the way, he has changed American politics forever.
For 40 years, American presidents were largely selected by the American political elite.
The shift that occurs between 1824 and 1828 is the American people don't want their representatives to choose presidents any more.
They wanna choose presidents themselves.
Andrew Jackson is the beneficiary of that huge change in the American presidential political system.