As election year approached, it became clear that the people would at
last have an opportunity to make a direct choice between Adams and
Jackson. Each candidate was formally nominated by sundry legislatures
and other bodies; no one so much as suggested nomination by
congressional caucus. In the early months of 1828 the campaign rapidly
rose to an extraordinary level of vigor and public interest. Each
party group became bitter and personal in its attacks upon the other;
in our entire political history there have been not more than two or
three campaigns so smirched with vituperation and abuse. The Jackson
papers and stump speakers laid great stress on Adams's aristocratic
temperament, denounced his policies as President, and exploited the
"corrupt bargain" charge with all possible ingenuity.
On the other hand, the Adams-Clay forces dragged forth in long array
Jackson's quarrels, duels, and rough-and-tumble encounters to prove
that he was not fit to be President; they distributed handbills
decorated with coffins bearing the names of the candidate's victims;
they cited scores of actions, from the execution of mutinous
militiamen in the Creek War to the quarrel with Callava, to show his
arbitrary disposition; and they strove in a most malicious manner to
undermine his popularity by breaking down his personal reputation, and
even that of his wife and of his mother.
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