Do we learn from history?

John Quincy Adams (eerily similar to John McCain?)


I came into this presidential election with excitement for new candidates and a renewed sense of citizenship. Now that it is finally almost time for us Oregonians to have our primary election, I find myself completely frustrated and fatigued with the whole process. I am tired of the same political commentators talking about the same boring things and feeling as if we are getting no where. I have even relegated my previous admiration for Senator Obama to a feeling of exasperation and a willingness to settle for whatever the result is going to be. I would even be fine with the she-devil herself as my President if this whole process could just be over. The thought that there are still months and months to go until the final election is completely overwhelming and our nights spent watching Anderson Cooper are waning. (We have watched more CNN during the past few months than I had previously watched in my entire lifetime)

I wonder if the founding fathers of this great nation ever thought that the presidential election would come to this. But then, I was just teaching about the presidential election of 1824. Back then there weren’t necessarily two main political parties. The Federalist party had disbanded because of the societal outrage at the Alien and Sedition Acts that were championed by John Adams and his followers. The Democratic-Republicans had conflicting interests and we ended up with four main candidates for the presidency: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. All four of these candidates considered themselves a member of the same party and when it came time for the election, no candidate had a majority—in either popular or electoral votes. Andrew Jackson received 43% of the vote and 99 electoral votes and John Quincy Adams received 31% of the popular vote and 84 votes from the electoral college. Therefore, according to the 12th Amendment the House of Representatives would select the President. As you can imagine, there was quite a bit of kissing up, promises made, and back door dealing in the House as they prepared for the vote. In the end, John Quincy Adams would receive the most votes and become the 6th President of the United States.

The four years that followed were fairly tumultuous years in Washington, D.C. as popular opinion against the President was incredibly low (which makes sense since not even one-third of the people actually voted for the guy). He wasn’t able to accomplish much of anything and his four years as President is relegated to one short paragraph in my history textbook. I fear that this might be a similar outcome for the next president. We are so hungry for a change in the executive office, but are now growing rapidly tired of the fighting and bickering that is occurring. I had felt that perhaps as a result of this election, more people would take an active role in their government and we would see a revolution of sorts in the way people feel and interact with their government. Now I am included in the masses of people who want this all to be over so that we can get on with our poor, politically-apathetic lives.