In 1829, the Craziest Presidential Inauguration in History (The President Escaped from a Window) Went Down

Jarrett Stepman

History,

A little history to keep today in perspective. 

The Washington establishment was stunned.

A political outsider with few connections in the nation’s capital, but wide national celebrity among the American people, was going to be the next president of the United States.

Washington, D.C., residents were unprepared for the wild scene that was about to unfold when the new president’s advocates—and a few detractors—poured into the city. Some compared this enormous mass of people to an invading barbarian horde pillaging Rome.

This scene may sound familiar in 2017, but it describes Andrew Jackson’s inaugural celebration in 1829. At the time, such large-scale fanfare at an inauguration was unprecedented.

Yet despite the circus atmosphere that Jackson’s inaugural became famous for, he delivered a powerful performance that set a course for his transformative agenda over the course of his administration.

More importantly, the event marked an occasion in which Americans from every station and status in life could feel a connection to the presidency. This has been an inaugural tradition ever since.

‘People Over Corruption’:

What became the wildest and most eventful presidential inauguration in American history began in tragedy for the election’s winner.

Four years earlier, Jackson had been defeated in the 1824 presidential election by John Quincy Adams, the son of president and Founding Father John Adams. No candidate pulled in a majority of Electoral College votes, so the election was bumped to the House of Representatives.

Adams took the House vote, but the election left a great deal of acrimony in its wake. Adams was accused of making a “corrupt bargain” with Speaker of the House Henry Clay, who was immediately nominated as Adams’ secretary of state following the election.

The 1828 rematch between Adams and Jackson became a hyperpartisan slug match. With the loosening of voting restrictions and the rapid move to make Electoral College votes based on popular elections in the states rather than on state legislatures, it was the most “democratic” presidential election in American history up until that time.