Robert’s entry into the political arena in 1826 was a lesson in New Jersey politics. The national political picture was very volatile. Sound familiar?
The 1824 US presidential election was tightly contested. Four candidates split the Electoral College votes. Two men from the same party were frontrunners. The Democratic-Republicans, the winner of the last six presidential elections ran both John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts and Tennesee’s Andrew Jackson. No candidates earned a majority but Andrew Jackson had a slim lead and had won the popular vote. The result would be in the air until the House of Representatives would decide it in February of 1825.
Fourth place Speaker of the house Henry Clay threw his electors behind the second place finisher John Quincy Adams, giving Adams enough delegates to become the 6th President. Clay overruled the Kentucky legislature which mandated its electors vote for Jackson. Clay was rewarded by President Adams with the Secretary of State position.
Jackson’s supporters cried fix and foul and the rematch election campaign for 1828 started immediately on a populist appeal. Voting was expanded from solely landowners, to most white males over 21. The Jacksonians made it a point to try and fracture the Democratic-Republicans.
At Trenton, in the 1826 midterms, the Democratic-Republican convention for congressional nominations was seen as an opportunity to wrest the party from the establishment, who supported Adams interests.
Jackson printed tickets in 1828 indicating the electors people would be selecting to carry their vote for him. Electors were being put on notice.
Robert F. Stockton was a delegate from Somerset County and supported the status quo. The Adams men met before the convention and set a strategy. Stockton was given control by the other Adams backers.
Jackson was closer to Stockton’s reputation than Adams. A war hero of the Revolution and the War of 1812, Jackson had taken a shot to the chest in a duel. Unfased by the bullet lodged in his ribcage, he returned fire and killed his opponent. The southern slaveholder was his own man just like Robert. But perhaps Robert, who was now married and starting a family, longed for a connection to his own family pedigree and history. His grandfather was a contemporary of John Adams. John Quincy was the second president’s son.
When the convention started, Captain Stockton nominated Jackson men for the convention president and secretary positions to the surprise of some of the Adams men. They were elected unanimously. The Jacksonian leadership then tried to steamroll the vote. They tried to change rules to replace long-standing delegates from Cumberland County who were squarely in the Anti-Jasckson camp with a new slate of Jacksonian men.
The Jacksonian leadership violated protocol, as was later admitted by one of their leaders “...who declared that he came to create confusion, and that he was happy that he had been instrumental in producing it. The confusion, however, eventuated on purging the convention of those materials which were only calculated retard the transaction of business and suppress an expression of the true sentiments of the Republican party of New Jersey.” Alexandria Gazette Alexandria, Virginia -Tue, Sep 26, 1826 Page 3
Captain Robert Field Stockton
Stockton called them out claiming; “Arbitrary exercise of power” and “Tyrannical” He called for a motion to cancel the convention, a vacating of the officers and a restart. The traditional party men came to his side. The Jackson men, many of whom were milling outside and in the halls, rushed the room. “Stockton must be put down!” They shouted.
A man charged at Stockton, “What right has that damned rascal here, with a government commission in his pocket? Turn him out!”
As an officer and a gentleman, this was an insult to his honor which justified violence.
Stockton pushed the instigator to the ground but did not take the bait. He would not fight. Then someone offered the captain a dirk (a short dagger). He wisely declined it.
The convention devolved into a shouting match and near riot. Stockton jumped up on a table and delivered a speech that quieted all opponents and supporters. Once again he used his ship’s captain's voice which carried the room. He appealed to their sense of fairness and obligation to the people of their counties. If the Jacksonians wanted to nominate people outside of the party, they could do so, but not at this convention. They would need to establish their own.
Both sides won. Stockton and the Adams contingent would win a majority of seats in the Midterm elections, control their party in New Jersey and also take the state for Adams in 1828.
The Jacksonians would create their party with its own convention. The Jacksonians eventually took on the name “Democratic party” in the early 1830s with the jackass as their mascot (as an insult to Jackson). It was a coalition of populists and newly enfranchised workers in cities and planters in the south and west. Andrew Jackson would win in a landslide in 1828. The Democrat-Republicans would lose badly and eventually give way to the Republican party in the 1850s.
New Jersey would maintain its reputation for bare-knuckle politics. Robert’s next fight would be for a monopoly, and the friends he made in Trenton in 1826 would help him get there.
Drawn from newspaper reports and Samuel Bayard’s Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton