http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1824
J.Q. Adams has my vote.
Clay, because of his American System. (Which was very influential on Lincoln, BTW, and part of a venerable tradition in American politics and political economy going back to Alexander Hamilton, see Hamilton’s Republic and Land of Promise, both by Michael Lind.)
1824? It doesn’t really matter who we would have voted for that year. 
John Q had to be the right answer. Great career before being President and possibly the greatest ex-President in American history, but a tainted Presidency due to the way the election shook out. If he wins in an uncontested election, I think he could have done amazing things.
JQ Adams was good on secession but had bought into the cronyist American System. Jackson was good on some things but terrible on others. Henry Clay is probably the most destructive person to never have held the presidency besides Alexander Hamilton. It was in spite of his cronyist conservatism that America became a powerhouse no matter what economic illiterate historians have to say on the matter.
I’ll go with Crawford following his Jefferson endorsement.
Seriously, what on Earth are you talking about?!
Yeah, I’ve rarely seen a post like that. In 5 sentences he makes 6 points I absolutely disagree with.
FWIW I think this is the guy who has that “quaint” view of the Civil War, in that he thinks it was solely fought due to a desire to collect tariffs from the South and his “proof” is a misinterpretation of one of Lincoln’s speeches.
More than disagreeable, puzzling; I’ve never, ever seen “cronyist” in connection with the American System before. And, why call it "cronyist conservatism?"
He’s a Libertarian and a follower of DiLorenzo, who’s called the American System that. For DiLorenzo, the American System, first proposed by Hamilton and then advanced by Clay and Lincoln, was a way to expand federal power, limit individual rights, and transfer both money and political power, through an oppressive tax system and cronyism, from average Americans to the moneyed classes.
Read his books, “Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution” and “The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War”, if you’re interested in DeLorenzo’s viewpoints.
Think I’ve seen Hamilton’s Curse on the stands. Didn’t realize the author was that cranky!
Still, what would “conservatism” mean, used as a snarl-word in this context?
For the perpetuation of the aristocracy. For mercantilism and against liberal capitalism.
JQ Adams was one of the most qualified candidates ever and I would have given him my vote since I would have thought of Jackson as too much of a hothead. Adams had a miserable term but I wouldn’t have known that at the time and would have voted for him.
The Southern landowning/slaveowning aristocracy was not enthusiastic for the American System, quite the reverse (since it included a tariff meant to protect American manufacturers from competition by foreign importers, while doing nothing directly for American agricultural producers); and, it had nothing to do with mercantilism :rolleyes: and everything to do with liberal capitalism. You’ll find that runs through the whole conflict between the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian traditions, actually: Hamiltonians are for liberal capitalism, Jeffersonians are agin’ it whether they realize that or not.
Can’t vote for Calhoun, so Clay it is.
:mad: Compromiser!
[rimshot]
I clicked the wrong poll option anyway. :smack:
So that’s why there’s a vote for Jackson! Whew! Had me worried!
Adams, because he looked like my mother in law. And my sister in law. Fortunately, my wife and our kids look nothing like the Adams side. It’s the nose. Who knew a nose would breed true over all those generations?
You asked what conservative meant in this context. I fought your ignorance. Hamilton’s ideas were that of English mercantilist “thought”, which was never a legitimate economic school of thought, but a conglomeration of paid pamphleteers promoting government support of this business or that. Hamilton read these pamphlets. In doing so he based his policies on what amounts to protectionist propaganda from proto-lobbyists. Whether or not he was aware of how his policies were promoting established interests, I don’t know, but that was their effect. Liberal capitalism arose as a rejection of this mercantilist system.
The southern aristocracy were not liberals because of their slavery. Besides this terrible deviation from the new school of liberalism, they were very much influenced by cutting edge economic thought and political theory coming out of France.
Which was a greater evil in 19th century America – slavery, or non-free-market economic principles and intervention by the government?