By Nancy Spannaus
(The following article formed the basis of a presentation I gave to a symposium on Lafayette’s 1824-25 visit to the United States, which was held in Frederick, Maryland on November 9, 2024.)
When the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the United States in August 1824, he was thrust into the midst of an election campaign that many feared could tear the nation apart. Four candidates, all professing allegiance to the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, were locked into a vicious campaign for the presidency. Most worrying was the fact that each was primarily based on a certain section of the country: John Quincy Adams on the Northeast; William Crawford on the Deep South; and Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson on the Western states (those up to the Mississippi River).
Underneath the sectional divide were vital policy issues, which would determine the fate of the United States for years to come. At the top of the list was the American System of Economics, a set of Hamiltonian principles for nation-building which was being loudly championed by Henry Clay in the Congress, and vigorously supported by John Quincy Adams. Crawford, who had been officially nominated by a caucus grouping in the Congress and was supported by New York fixer Martin Van Buren, was unequivocally opposed to this program, while Jackson downplayed policy altogether, preferring to rely on his reputation as a military hero.
What was this American System that caused such a strong divide? Abraham Lincoln summarized it as a three-part program: national banking, protective tariffs, and Federal support for internal improvements (what we call infrastructure). States’ rights and slavery advocates hated this platform, instead championing so-called free trade and reliance on state or private financial institutions. Intentionally or not, their outlook put them on the side of the British Empire, which sought to remain the “workshop of the world,” confining other nations to be suppliers of their raw materials and using its trade policy to prevent the rise of a rival to their manufacturing status. For this reason, Henry Clay, for example, denounced the free trade system as simply subservience to British colonialism.
Incumbent President Monroe, who had issued the invitation to his friend Lafayette in February of 1824, sought to maintain neutrality in the contest over his successor. After all, the contenders included two members of his cabinet – John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State and William Crawford as Secretary of the Treasury. But over the course of his second administration (1821-1825), Monroe had gradually moved toward adopting American System policies, alarming the Crawford wing of the party.
Did Monroe believe that Lafayette’s visit would help heal his party’s divide, and even strengthen the motion toward the economic policies of industrialization espoused by the American System? Perhaps. What is undoubtedly the case is that Lafayette’s 13 month-long tour as the “guest of the nation” succeeded in turning the nation’s attention toward the accomplishments of the Revolution for which he had sacrificed his fortune, and risked his life. Lafayette’s secretary Auguste Levasseur, who accompanied the general and wrote a detailed memoir of the tour, reported that the joyous reception of Lafayette actually wiped the acrimonious coverage of the presidential campaign off the front pages for at least a couple months in the fall of 1824.
In the rest of this presentation, I will elaborate further on the political stakes in the 1824 presidential election, the promise of the American System, and the intimations we have of Lafayette’s role in helping the nation weather the political crisis of the day.
Lafayette’s Stature in the United States
It would be hard to exaggerate the esteem with which Lafayette was held in the American population, even more than 40 years after the War of Independence was won. The young nobleman’s willingness to put his life on the line in the American Revolutionary War, spend a huge part of his fortune in support of that war, and champion the American cause in the French court, had won him undying acclaim.
In contrast to many foreign military officers who offered their services to the American Army during the War for Independence, Lafayette asked for nothing in compensation. He outlaid huge sums to come to America in 1777 and continued to do so throughout the war. Realizing that the young republic was utterly bankrupt, Lafayette returned to France in 1779 to lobby the French crown for more support for the war effort. His efforts ultimately led to the deployment of French troops and a fleet, both of which were decisive in America’s victory.
Thus, many Americans, especially those who fought in the War for Independence, were enormously grateful toward Lafayette, whose presence in 1824-25 stirred up their patriotic fervor once again.
By the time of his visit, of course, many of Lafayette’s closest collaborators were no longer alive. His adopted father, George Washington, collaborator Benjamin Franklin, and bosom pal Alexander Hamilton, were dead. He had retained friendships with many other patriots, some of whom had helped him and his family escape persecution, even death, including James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. But Lafayette, like Monroe, made every attempt to appear neutral in the presidential race.
Yet, evidence I have recently come across highlights the critical role which Lafayette played in supporting the American System of Economics, starting as early as 1784. His actions underscore his positive contribution to the success of the American Republic long after the Revolutionary War ended.
The Evolution of the American System
To understand the fight over the American System in the 1824 election, it is necessary to go back to the proverbial beginning – the program of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and his sponsor President Washington for the economic development of the United States. That program is elaborated primarily in Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufactures, which focuses on the need for Federal government support to develop a manufacturing base which could provide the necessities of life and give the young nation economic independence.
To create that base, Hamilton had labored to establish a sovereign credit system, which relied heavily on the National Bank of the United States. He called for protective measures for crucial manufactures, support for national infrastructure, regulation of certain industrial standards, and a “liberal” approach to national funding for initiatives serving the “general welfare.” These policies were later dubbed by Clay and others as the “American System.”
During his tenure as Treasury Secretary (1789 to 1795), Hamilton carried out a virtual financial revolution, bringing the new republic out of bankruptcy and initiating policies vectored toward those objectives. His industrialization policy also put the nation on a road toward abolishing slavery, a moral abomination which he also fought as a leading member of the New York Manumission Society.
This is another area where he is linked to Lafayette, who was elected an honorary member of the Society in 1788.
Hamilton’s perspective on industrialization, as elaborated in the Report on Manufactures, called for an emphasis on technological progress (“mechanization”), which would increase the “productive powers of labor,” and even serve to “cherish and stimulate the powers of the human mind.” Hamilton correctly understood human creativity as the true source of a nation’s wealth.
That understanding logically led him to realize that chattel slavery was not only a moral abomination, but an economic disaster for any nation. The prerequisites for progress involved inventing machine labor to replace brute force human strength, providing infrastructure to support commerce and industry, and maintaining a standard of living for the work force that would permit them to be maximally productive. These policies were the very antithesis of those practiced, and fought for, by the slavocracy and its financial backers, who by and large resisted technological progress and investment in infrastructure as threats to their system.
As I outline in my book Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way , there was already a “real life experiment” demonstrating the degrading effects of the slave system in contrast to that of free labor. As early as the 1790s, visitors from Europe could see how Virginia, for example, was bereft of decent roads and thriving towns, and full of dilapidated shacks and barren fields. This contrasted sharply with the landscape (and productivity) of much of the middle Atlantic and Northeastern states, which did not rely so heavily on slave labor.
Admittedly, Hamilton’s progress toward his goal during his tenure and lifetime was limited. He faced determined political resistance and even threats to pull the nation apart. But his ideas caught fire not only with a faction within the Federalist Party of which he was the most prominent member, but within Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans. And it was under the leadership of those “Jeffersonians,” most especially the Irish émigré Mathew Carey, that the fight for his industrialization and anti-slavery perspective was kept alive through the Jefferson and Madison administrations, and finally began to triumph in the early 1820s.
If you don’t know about Mathew Carey, you can’t understand the history of early 19th century American politics. Though largely unknown today, he was the key transmission belt for Hamiltonian economics into later generations.
Mathew Carey’s fight for the American System
Carey’s role as a fighter for freedom began in his homeland of Ireland. As an Irish patriot, fighting against religious discrimination against Catholics and British economic oppression, Carey was constantly under attack by the British authorities. In 1779, he was forced to flee the island to France, where he joined the circle around Benjamin Franklin, and contributed his printing skills to the American Revolution. It was during this visit to France that he met Lafayette, who consulted with him on whether the Irish would join in an American-French invasion of the British Isles.
Carey returned to Ireland to continue his fight, which now centered on demanding a program for sponsoring Irish domestic manufacturing, in order “to complete the emancipation of our country from domestic and external slavery.” In 1784, he was forced to flee in order to escape arrest for high treason. He fled in disguise to the United States, where he located in Philadelphia. There he encountered Lafayette again, who was on a short visit to the United States.
The Marquis lent him $400, which he used to create one of the most influential journals promoting the American System, The American Museum, in 1787.
The American Museum survived for only about six years, but its short duration does not reflect the degree of its influence. Carey published many of the major documents underpinning the foundation of our nation, including the Constitution, and, in its final issue, Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures. It circulated nationally and preserved many valuable documents from those early years.
And for that, we have the Marquis de Lafayette to thank.
But Carey was only getting started. He turned to book publication and built a successful career, all the while continuing to engage politically, including for the development of America’s manufactures. This put him at odds with the leadership of the Democratic Republicans, but he persisted aggressively, lobbying to save Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States as well as to promote manufacturing. Then, after the War of 1812 concluded, the country having survived by the skin of its teeth, Carey went into a full-throttled campaign for Hamilton’s American System.
He began by published a more than 300-page “pamphlet” called The Olive Branch, in which he outlined the faults of both the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans in creating the devastation and near-defeat of the War. The Federalists, a faction of whom had openly opposed the war, took the brunt of it, but Carey also attacked the Jeffersonians for the nation’s state of unpreparedness, most particularly their abandonment of Hamilton’s Bank of the United States and the defunding of the nation’s defense. As the pamphlet rapidly sold out, Carey kept revising and reprinting it, each time providing more guidance as to what measures should be taken to restore the U.S. economy to health and prosperity.
The core of Carey’s policies was unmistakable – the American System of Alexander Hamilton. These he identified as restoring the Bank of the United States, using government support to build and/or modernize the nation’s infrastructure, and enacting protective tariffs sufficient to defend against the British economic warfare against U.S. manufactures. In the 1820 reprint of The Olive Branch, Carey reprinted large sections of Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures, making the intellectual source of his views crystal clear.
In this campaign, waged through his publications and various societies for the promotion of industry, Carey was allied with House Speaker Henry Clay, who conducted the fight inside the Congress. Critical support was also lent by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, in a series of rulings from 1819 to 1824, which confirmed the constitutionality of the National Bank, upheld the sanctity of contracts (essential for a credit system), and underscored Federal supremacy over the nation’s commerce. Another close ally, from the early 1800s, was fellow Pennsylvanian Nicholas Biddle, whom President Monroe appointed as head of the Second Bank of the United States in 1823. This appointment signaled a shift by Monroe toward the Clay-Carey wing of the Democratic-Republicans, and was followed by several critical decisions toward the American System, most notably the approval of the National Survey Act (1824), and the authorization of a study of the plan for the C&O Canal.
Here again, Lafayette comes into the picture, as the sponsor of one of the most significant spokesmen for the American System in both the United States, and internationally, Friedrich List. List was promoting national unity and manufacturing in the German states in the post-1815 period, but was constantly under threat of imprisonment. He first fled to France in 1822 where he met Lafayette, who urged him to travel to America. List declined, and returned to Germany, where he was arrested again. Finally, he set out for America in 1824, where he again met Lafayette, who was then on tour! Lafayette gave him his introductions to influential figures, with whom List collaborated to promote the American System until his death.
The American System was about to be revived, and the opposition was increasingly hysterical. They saw it as a threat to their way of life, including slavery.
The Missouri Compromise
As it happened, the slavery issue had already become a hugely contentious public issue by 1824. The fight over Missouri’s entrance into the Union as a slave state, a violation of the Northwest Ordinance, had raised the spectre of separation, and possible Civil War.
The Missouri crisis began in 1818, when the territory sought to enter the Union as a slave state. Given that the Union then had 11 slave states versus 11 free ones, the decision threatened to disturb the delicate balance, and break with the long-standing assumption of anti-slavery Americans that the evil would be contained to the original states, and put on the road to extinction.
Then, in February of 1819, Rep. James Tallmadge of New York proposed two amendments to the bill granting statehood. The first was that no more slaves be allowed to enter into the state, and the second was that Missouri adopt a plan for gradual emancipation of all the slaves currently in the state. Tallmadge’s extensive passionate argument in favor of these amendments was circulated widely throughout the country, resulting in public meetings throughout the North, many of which passed pro-amendment resolutions. (Substantial excerpts of Tallmadge’s speech are published in the appendix to my book Defeating Slavery.)
The defenders of the slave system went wild, with numerous threats of civil war if the Tallmadge amendments should pass. Circulation of Tallmadge’s speech was banned in areas of the South, lest it get into the hands of the enslaved. Southerners who had previously been aligned with the pro-industrialization section of the Democratic-Republicans, such as South Carolina politician John Calhoun (then Secretary of War), now shifted to rallying to defend the slave system. Indeed, Calhoun told John Quincy Adams (according to Adams’ diary) that if Tallmadge’s amendment went through, he would be compelled to favor separation from the Union. But this would put you in alliance with the British, Quincy Adams said. Yes, said Calhoun.
While the controversy was temporarily resolved in 1820 with the Missouri Compromise, which brought in Maine as a free state to counter-balance Missouri as a slave state, its effects were long-lasting. The animosities grew on both sides, with the abolition movement strengthening its resolution to stop the spread of slavery, and the pro-slavery spokesmen increasingly determined to defeat any efforts to hinder slavery’s expansion, efforts which included moves to strengthen the American System.
The Presidential Election of 1824
It was in this context that the presidential contest of 1824 began. The four principal candidates vied for the top office mostly by way of their supporters and articles in various press organs devoted to their candidacies.
Andrew Jackson, despite claiming no aspirations for the office, was the first to be nominated; this was done by the Tennessee state legislature in 1822. The second nominee was Treasury Secretary Crawford, who won the support of a caucus of the Democratic Republicans in the House of Representatives in the early summer of 1824. Caucus nomination had been the traditional means of selecting a candidate in previous elections, but this year’s vote only drew about one-third of the caucus members, calling into question its legitimacy. The fact that Crawford was still debilitated by the stroke he had in 1823 undoubtedly affected the low level of support.
In response to Crawford’s nomination, two state legislatures moved quickly to nominate their favorite sons. Massachusetts nominated John Quincy Adams, while Kentucky put forward Henry Clay.
What has been characterized as a vicious press war then began.
Pro-Jackson papers played up his military accomplishments, and claimed that only he could unite the nation. He was presented as representative of the “common man,” despite having voted just the opposite way in Tennessee battles over debt relief in the early 1820s. Unlike the other candidates, he held rallies. Pro-Clay and pro-Adams papers blasted Jackson as a militarist, citing his vicious temper and claiming he sought dictatorial powers. (Privately, as was his wont, Thomas Jefferson himself weighed in against Jackson.) On economic issues, Jackson sought to maintain a centrist position – actually voting for the 1824 tariff. This made him suspect in the Southern states.
Papers in New York State, where Crawford’s supporter Martin Van Buren was located, and in Virginia, waged campaigns for Crawford, depicting him as representative of the “old Republican” party. Crawford was unabashedly hostile to the American System and in favor of states’ rights.
Henry Clay vied with Jackson as the representative of the newer Western states, who were demanding more power in the national government. The Kentucky politician was best known for his role in promoting the War of 1812 and for demanding Federal government action to promote industry and infrastructure. In March of 1824, Clay delivered the first of his two major speeches using the term “American System” to describe his program of protective tariffs, national banking, and Federal support for infrastructure.
Adams attempted to stay above the fray, effectively confirming his reputation as aloof and stubbornly independent. He was slandered as an aristocrat, unconcerned with the common man. While his policies were extremely close to those of Clay, there was no love lost between the two, as they had clashed when serving together as negotiators to end the War of 1812. Southerners were especially wary of Adams due to his anti-slavery views.
The voting process for president was very different from today. There was no one national election day; each state held its election sometime within the October to November period. Six states still chose their electors through their legislatures; the others had instituted popular votes, although some still maintained property qualifications. When the tally was finally reckoned in early December, the results were inconclusive. Here are the electoral vote totals: Jackson – 99; Adams – 84; Crawford – 41; and Clay – 37.[1]
Clearly, the nation was split. The election went to the House of Representatives, where each of the 24 states would have one vote to cast among the top three candidates. A total of 13 states was necessary for victory.
The Congressional vote was set for February 9, 1825, leaving a full two months for pressure, deals, and maneuvering. The big question was obviously which way Crawford and Clay, the candidates with the lower totals, would swing, if at all. Crawford, on the advice of Van Buren, decided to hold on to his 41 votes (Virginia, Delaware, and Georgia), in hopes of coming in as the winner after Jackson and Adams fought it out. Clay’s votes were up for grabs.
As is well known, Clay decided to use his influence to support Adams, not only in the states which he had won (Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri), but in several others as well (Louisiana, Illinois, and Maryland). That left New York, a state where Adams had won the most electors, but which Van Buren was trying to keep in the Crawford camp. Adams and Van Buren lacked the vote of one member of the New York delegation to get the state’s vote.
That one member was Stephen Van Rensselaer, the aging brother-in-law of Alexander Hamilton. Rensselaer was the founder of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1824), a big supporter of the Erie Canal, and a very rich landowner. He was also extremely religious. According to some stories, he was always committed to Adams. But another legend claims that he made his decision to vote for Adams at the last moment, because he saw a discarded Adams ballot on the floor in front of him, and interpreted it as a sign from the divinity. Whatever the truth is, Rensselaer cast the deciding vote for Adams, and the New Englander won – to near universal surprise – on the first ballot, with 13 states.
Adams went on to preside over an extremely consequential presidency, initiating a huge wave of transportation infrastructure projects, supporting protective tariffs, advancing the cause of science, and deploying his Attorney General on the side of the enslaved. Yet most historians have dubbed his presidency a failure, due to the constant animosity he faced from the Jackson-Van Buren crowd. Adams was unable to unify the nation around his far-sighted and uplifting American System program, and the results of that failure were devastating indeed.
Lafayette’s Role
The question remains: What role did Lafayette and his extremely popular tour play in these developments?
From my review of Levasseur’s record and John Quincy Adams’ diaries, it seems clear that the General spent more time with Adams than any other candidate. Adams was with Lafayette when he visited Philadelphia shortly after his arrival in New York in August, and gave speeches in his honor. Levasseur reports that Lafayette invited the Secretary of State to join him on October 8 to travel by ship down to Fort McHenry. What particularly impressed Lafayette and his party was that the 57-year-old Adams decided to sleep on the ship’s deck with the crew, while the French party was given a cabin. When Lafayette and his party vigorously objected, Adams finally agreed to sleep on an additional cot put in the cabin.
Adams stayed with the Lafayette group all the way down to Alexandria.
The other period of frequent contact between the two men came in the crucial period from the announcement of the electoral college stalemate to the Congressional vote (early December to February 9). Lafayette was invited to address the Congress on December 10; he was introduced by Speaker Clay. Adams’ diaries indicate numerous dinners with Lafayette during this late December period. The socializing continued into January, with a dinner for Lafayette on January 1 (the day after he left Frederick) attended by both Clay and Adams – and many more.
Adams had the benefit of press coverage from many events associating him closely with the popular Frenchmen, but it is unclear how many votes this swung his way during the actual election. Lafayette spent his first months in the Northeast and MidAtlantic, where John Quincy’s support was already centered. Perhaps he aided Adams in Maryland, where the vote split almost 50/50 between Adams and Jackson, but not in Pennsylvania, where Jackson swept the field.
The general also enjoyed cordial relations with Andrew Jackson, according to contemporary sources, based on their shared military background. But the following discussion between the General and candidate Crawford immediately after the Congressional vote, reported in the Frederick-Town Herald on Feb. 19, 1825, gives us insight into Lafayette’s approach to the election:
Mr. C[rawford] mentioned that [Lafayette] had said, had Jackson been chosen, Mr. [Washington] Irving (former Minister in Spain and a warm friend of Mr C’s then in Paris) would never have forgiven [Lafayette], but would have attributed his election to him, at least to the éclat, which his arrival in the U.S. had given to the military. “In order to avoid any such influence,” continued the General, “and to show that I respected the civil, more than the military power, I have invariably avoided wearing my uniform, and on every occasion since I have been here, have reviewed the troops in my plain blue coat and road hat.” Mr. Crawford expressed his appreciation of the delicacy and discretion Genl. Lafayette had shown, not only in this but in every other circumstance relative to the Presidential contests.
Yet it is clear that Lafayette’s tour served not only to remind Americans of the sacrifices of the war for independence, but also to highlight the enormous physical progress which had been achieved, including the recent gains from the American System. Note, for example, the following toasts, given during the public dinner for Lafayette’s arrival in Frederick. Maryland:
- Internal Improvements – The nurture and cultivation of our own resources will alone insure our independence of foreign policy and influence.
- The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal – the first great council of the waters will be the healing of all sectional complaints in the body politic.
The same spirit was reflected by Henry Clay in his introduction of Lafayette before the Congress on December 10, 1824:
The vain wish has sometimes indulged, that Providence would allow the Patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place – to view the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase of population. General, your present visit is the realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity.
When, nine months later, Lafayette disembarked America’s shores, that vision of progress had a champion in the White House, and four years of hard-fought progress had begun. The General had both observed and contributed to building an even more prosperous United States.
[1] It is interesting to note that, if the 3/5 rule had not been in effect, Adams would have won more electoral college votes than Jackson: 83 to 77.
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Tags: Alexander Hamilton, American System, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Lafayette’s tour, Marquis de Lafayette, Nancy Spannaus, presidential election, William Crawford
