The election also proved to be interesting in the sense that it would be the last major election whose result was not decided by the Electoral College. When the final ballots were counted, no one had a clear majority. Jackson led with 99 electoral votes while Adams had 84. Crawford and Clay brought up the rear with 41 and 37 respectively. When situations like this occurred, the vote went to the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation would receive one vote. It was at this point that the election really became a political dogfight. .
Henry Clay had been eliminated from the race for the presidency but he was still quite influential as the speaker of the House. Although Clay disliked Adams, he (Adams) supported Clay's American System while Jackson and Crawford both rejected it. Clay also felt that he had a better chance of following Adams into the White House than he did Jackson. The two men struck a bargain that if Clay supported Adams's bid for the presidency, that in turn Adams would allow him to have any position in the Cabinet that he wished, particularly that of the Secretary of State. Clay began lobbying for Adams, swaying votes to his side and Adams was able to win the presidency by a one-vote margin. Promptly, as promised, Adams made Clay his Secretary of State.
The Jacksonians believed that their large popular and electoral pluralities entitled their candidate to the presidency, and they were enraged when he lost. But they grew angrier still when Adams named Clay his Secretary of State. The State Department was that well-established route to the presidency, and Adams thus appeared to be naming Clay as his own successor. Jackson's supporters began to speak of the "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay. It seemed that both Adams and Clay had made a dreadful political mistake. Adams was doomed to play the role of minority president with the Jacksonians holding a majority vote, vowing to frustrate his presidency.
