Presidential Loser #8: John Quincy Adams, 1820
1820, still awash in the Era of Good Feelings (Isn’t that a great name? Wouldn’t you like to live in the Era of Good Feelings instead of the Me Generation or the Decade of Greed?), all Federalist opposition had evaporated and James Monroe ran unopposed. There wasn’t even another candidate running against him. He just said, “I think I’d like being president,” and the country said, “Okey-doke.” The whole country EXCEPT one rogue elector named William Plumer who cast his vote for John Quincy Adams, the son of Presidential loser #3, John Adams. The popular legend is Plumer dissented because he felt only George Washington should deserve the honor of a unanimous election, which is just the sort of rumor you’d expect to go around during the Era of Good Feelings. (Doesn’t that story just make you
feel good?) The truth is, Plumer just didn’t like Monroe: casting one useless vote for Adams was like serving someone a seven-course meal and spitting in the appetizer. Plumer, founder of the New Hampshire Historical Society and author of over a dozen books, including such page-turning classics as
The Substance of an Argument Against the Indiscriminate Incorporation of Churches and Religious Societies, and
Young Children May Be Truly Pious, inveighed against the “wasteful extravagance” of the previous Monroe administration. This probably had to do with the wasteful and extravagant way Monroe kpet admitting states to the Union – he admitted a total of five over two terms as president – diluting the political power of tiny New Hampshire. Get over it, New Hampshire, you still have the Primary. Plumer’s other great achievement was seeing to it that fellow New Englander John Quincy Adams would go down in history as the biggest loser up to that time in a presidential elections.
Result
James Monroe: 230
John Quincy Adams: 1
(In fairness, some people maintain Adams did not really lose by the whopping 229 electoral votes shown here because the votes from the new state of Missouri might not have been valid. In that case, Monroe would have squeaked by with a mere 226-vote margin.)
