MISSOURI'S FIRST PRESIDENTIAL VOTES STIRRED THE NATION

With three candidates to choose from, voters in Tuesday's presidential election will be faced with a dilemma similar to that of voters in the presidential election of 1824, when four candidates ran for the office.

Since Missourians relish political campaigns, there was a frenzy over the 1824 election that resembles the upcoming election in many ways. Every voter was certain the candidate of his choosing was the best qualified.

The slate listed Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, W.H. Crawford and Henry Clay, all prominent politicians wanting to win.

The election was the first in which Missouri was to have an opportunity to cast her electoral vote. In the election of 1820 Missouri's presidential electors had been chosen and sent to Washington, but Missouri had not been formally admitted as a state. There was a compromise that had to be reckoned with. The president of the Senate would announce the country's vote after it was counted. It was agreed the count would be given two ways: with Missouri's vote and without Missouri's vote.

Someone in the Senate shouted an objection, and a turmoil developed. The Senate walked out. After a while they were called back in and quiet prevailed. The electoral vote was announced, both with Missouri's vote and without.

James Monroe won the presidency; David D. Tompkins was vice-president. If Missouri's electoral vote was counted, Monroe would have won 231 votes; if not counted, Monroe would have 228.

Monroe and Tompkins served two terms ... 1817-1820 and 1821-1825.

Missouri's opportunity to elect a president came in 1824 when the ballot had Jackson, Adams, Crawford and Clay. The vote ended with the electorate giving Jackson 99; Adams 84; Crawford 41; and Clay, 34.

Adams received only about one-third of the popular vote. The election for president went to the House of Representatives where each state had one vote. The man in the House who would cast Missouri's vote was John Scott from Ste. Genevieve. He owned a large farm and had been in the House 11 years. He was a close friend of Henry Clay and Sens. Benton and Barton. The three were known as the Missouri triumvirate.

The people of Ste. Genevieve idolized John Scott, and he was very generous to them. When it was known he would cast Missouri's vote, Missourians impressed upon Scott they wanted him to vote for Jackson because Jackson was extremely popular with Missourians. Scott's answer was that he did not think a soldier belonged in the White House. His reasoning was unfounded since previous presidents from Washington's day had been in the service. But that was how he felt, and how he voted. He voted for Adams and never held an office in Missouri after that.

Scott was different in appearance. He wore pantaloons four or five sizes too large, a little black cap that he pulled down over his ears, and carried a large green bag wherever he went in which he had his books and papers relating to the business of the moment. Near the end of his life he always carried a pistol and knives to defend himself. According to a sketch describing him, it was written some of his last words were, "Show me the traitor that wants to destroy this great government." He was asked to seek religion before he died, and his answer was, "I have served the devil all my life and it wouldn't be right to desert him now."

Scott died at age 80 in June, 1861, hating anyone who was a traitor or ever had been a traitor to the Unites States of America.

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This sketch of the 1820 and 1824 presidential elections, in which Missourians first participated, will conclude the introduction to the city of Cape Girardeau's Bicentennial sketches that began November 1991. The stories recall incidents relating events that occurred after Louis Lorimier founded the river settlement in 1792.

This sketch will also end my writing of this column. I have some other important writing to do.

I began these historical sketches 28 years ago. They appeared first in the introduction edition of the Jackson Journal in November 1964, and continued in the Cape Girardeau Bulletin Journal and the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian. They interested me because part of my family was living in Cape Girardeau in 1810 when Louis Lorimier was here. My records go back a long way in the city's history.

It has been a pleasure getting to know so many of you who have shared your family histories with me, and I thank you. This is an exceptionally fascinating section of Missouri in which to live, and rich in history that newcomers to this area will want to know.