Jackson launched his campaign on January 8, 1828, with a major speech on the 13th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans from 1815, thus marking the birth of the Democratic Party.

Despite his successes as a member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the Military Governor of Florida, Jackson had been born in relatively modest surroundings in rural Carolina, which appealed to the majority of Americans, who were small farmers who benefited from the introduction of Universal male suffrage from the 1820s to the 1840s.

Charles Hammond, in his Cincinnati Gazette, asked: "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?

)[4] The Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his courts-martial, execution of deserters and massacres of Indian villages, and also his habit of dueling.

[6] Besides Jackson and Crawford, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay were also candidates.

Jackson's defeat burnished his political credentials, however; many voters believed the "man of the people" had been robbed by the "corrupt aristocrats of the East".

A few days after the election, Adams named Clay his Secretary of State, a position which at that time often led to the presidency.

Jackson and his followers immediately accused Clay and Adams of striking a "corrupt bargain," and they continued to lambast the president until the 1828 election.

Though it had narrowly passed in the House, it was unpopular with the Southern states as they imported materials and goods from abroad.

Democratic candidate: Within months after the inauguration of John Quincy Adams in 1825, the Tennessee legislature re-nominated Jackson for president, thus setting the stage for a re-match between these two very different politicians three years hence.

[2] Thomas Jefferson wrote favorably in response to Jackson in December 1823 and extended an invitation to his estate of Monticello: "I recall with pleasure the remembrance of our joint labors while in the Senate together in times of great trial and of hard battling, battles indeed of words, not of blood, as those you have since fought so much for your own glory & that of your country; with the assurance that my attempts continue undiminished, accept that of my great respect & consideration.

"[9] In the next election, Jackson's and Adams' supporters saw value in establishing the opinion of Jefferson in regards to their respective candidates and against their opposition.

"[10] Edward Coles recounted that Jefferson told him in a conversation in August 1825 that he feared the popular enthusiasm for Jackson: "It has caused me to doubt more than anything that has occurred since our Revolution."

[10] Randolph publicly stated that Jefferson became friendly to Jackson's candidacy as early as the summer of 1825, perhaps because of the "corrupt bargain" charge, and thought of Jackson as "an honest, sincere, clear-headed and strong-minded man; of the soundest political principles" and "the only hope left" to reverse the increasing powers assumed by the federal government.

[10] In 1827, Virginia Governor William B. Giles released a letter from Jefferson meant to be kept private to Thomas Ritchie's Richmond Enquirer.

"[10] Jefferson wrote, "take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal bench, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic."

Of the Federalists, he continued, "But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.

Jackson accused the Adams campaign, and Henry Clay even more so, of causing her death, saying, "I can and do forgive all my enemies.

When the results of the election were announced, a mob entered the White House, damaging the furniture and lights.