upwards of a generation the presidency and vice presidency had been at
the disposal of a working alliance of Virginia and New York,
buttressed by such support as was needed from other controllable
States. Virginia regularly got the presidency, New York (except at the
time of the Clinton defection of 1812) the vice presidency. After the
second election of Monroe, in 1820, however, there were multiplying
signs that this affiliation of interests had reached the end of its
tether. In the first place, the Virginia dynasty had run out; at all
events Virginia had no candidate to offer and was preparing to turn
its support to a Georgian of Virginian birth, William H. Crawford. In
the second place, party lines had totally disappeared, and the
unifying and stabilizing influences of party names and affiliations
could not be counted on to keep down the number of independent
candidacies. Already, indeed, by the end of 1822 there were a
half-dozen avowed candidates, three of whom had seats at Monroe's
Cabinet table. Each was the representative of a section or of a
distinct interest, rather than of a party, and no one was likely to
feel under any compulsion to withdraw from the race at a preliminary
stage.

New England offered John Quincy Adams. She did so with reluctance, for
the old Federalist elements had never forgiven him for his desertion
to the Republican camp in the days of the embargo, while the back
country democracy had always looked upon him as an alien. But he was
the section's only available man--indeed, the only promising candidate
from any Northern State. His frigid manner was against him. But he had
had a long and honorable diplomatic career; he was winning new
distinction as Secretary of State; and he could expect to profit both
by the feeling that the North was entitled to the presidency and by
the fact that he was the only candidate from a non-slave State.