ABSTRACT
The presidential election of 1824 remains the only election in American history in which the House of Representatives exercised its power to choose the president from the three top receivers of electoral votes, as provided for in the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution. It also remains as the only contested election in American political history in which there were no organized political parties. The “first” party system that once pitted Federalists against Democratic-Republicans had disintegrated, and the “second” party system that would array Whigs against Democrats had yet to be born. But the lack of national political parties did not mean there was a lack of politics. Indeed, their absence may have accelerated and intensified partisanship, rather than hindered it.
