A murderer. A drunk. A corrupt politician. A stuffed-shirt daddy’s boy.
That’s how the cast of presidential characters was negatively portrayed in 1824.
It was an election that split the country, pitting North against South and East against West. West, at the time, was the Mississippi River. The Louisiana Territory was mostly stateless.
Since all the candidates came from the same political party, the election focused on personalities rather than issues.
Andrew Jackson of Tennessee was the alleged murderer. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House from Kentucky, was called a drunk and a gambler. William Crawford, the secretary of treasury from Georgia, was called corrupt. John Quincy Adams’s temperament and outlook mirrored that of his father, John Adams, the second president.
Enter the Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette. The man who helped secure America’s liberty would play a pivotal role in a young country finding its national conscious.
“He affirmed something about America, the belief that it’s better here than anywhere else,” said Lloyd Kramer, chairman of the history department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Lafayette scholar.
Kramer will speak about Lafayette at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Pate Room in the Headquarters Library, 300 Maiden Lane. He wrote “Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Cultures and Personal Identities in an Age of Revolution.”
In an interview last week, Kramer talked about some of the inside politics of the 1824 election and Lafayette’s visit.
Jackson won the most electoral votes during the election, with 99, including 15 from North Carolina.
Adams got 84, Crawford 41 and Clay 37. None had the 131 votes needed to become president.
The election, for the second straight time, was thrown into the House of Representatives.
Adams won. North Carolina cast its votes for Crawford. Jackson supporters charged Adams and Clay struck a deal.
Enter Lafayette.
“We were still a young country, insecure of our world status,” Kramer said.
Lafayette was warmly embraced on his two-year national tour, which included a visit to Fayetteville.
For many, Kramer said, Lafayette was a connection to the founding fathers who had died. Lafayette was like a second son to George Washington, an intellectual equal of Benjamin Franklin, and a farmer and freedom lover like Thomas Jefferson.
He was a firm believer in liberty, fighting for it in America and in France and helping others to do so in South America, Greece and Poland.
He also brought an outsider’s opinion, Kramer said.
Lafayette helped people understand that America’s revolution and democracy were a great achievement.
“He was a European who affirmed the deepest belief Americans had about themselves,” Kramer said. “Lafayette was a symbol of unity at a decisive time.”
Thirty-six years after his visit, the unity Lafayette helped forge was fractured and the Civil War ensued. Slavery, a practice Lafayette abhorred, was one of the divisive issues.
The spat in Congress over commending resolutions on Lafayette is nothing new — at least for the North Carolina delegation.
Led by Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole, Congress passed a resolution commending Fayetteville for its 250th birthday celebration for Lafayette.
Residents of Lafayette, La., — which is also celebrating the marquis’ birthday — cried foul. The Louisiana delegation plans to submit its commending resolution on Tuesday, when Congress is called back into session.
The tiff is reminiscent of the competing resolutions to honor the Wright brothers on their centennial of flight.
Congress honored festivals in Dayton, Ohio, and Fayetteville. U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord voted against the Dayton resolution.
Hayes and Ohio Rep. John Boehner traded barbs.
“To say that the Wright brothers learned to fly in North Carolina is like saying that a teenager learns to drive by moving his parents’ car 15 feet in the driveway,” Boehner said. “The dream and the advancement of flight was born in Ohio. Case closed.”
Hayes said it was important to keep history straight. “Where did they land? What state is that in?”
In a statement, Hayes said, the “Wright brothers ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, and I don’t see anyone claiming that Dayton is the birthplace of the wheel.”
For the record, Lafayette did sleep in Fayetteville. The Wright brothers didn’t.
When it comes to naming places in America, George Washington is our favorite. Then comes Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette.
But not every place named Lafayette or a derivation is named directly for the Frenchman.
There is a Fayetteville in Arkansas and one in Tennessee. The Tennessee town was settled by people from Fayetteville, N.C., and the Arkansas town was settled by people from Tennessee. The Arkansas town wanted to be named for Washington. There was already a Washington, Ark. Because two town commissioners were from Fayetteville, Tenn., the town was named after their former home.
Fayette, Mich., a mill town that is a forgotten crossroads on the map, was named for Fayette Brown, the Jackson Iron Co. agent who chose the site. Fayette was once the site of prosperous iron-smelting operations.
Fayette, Colo., is named after Lafayette Miller, one of the original settlers.
source: http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=271333
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