The second two-party system developed gradually as Democratic-Republicans began quarreling over several issues. The followers of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, who asserted that the federal government should actively promote economic development, became known as National Republicans. Their opponents, who eventually united behind the presidential candidacy of Andrew Jackson, were first known as Democratic-Republicans, and by 1828 as the Democratic party.

The Democratic-Republicans split in 1824 and the popular vote for presidential electors gave Andrew Jackson, a hero of the War of 1812, a plurality rather than the necessary majority in the electoral college. Under the Constitution, the final choice fell to the House of Representatives, where Speaker Henry Clay spoke in favor of John Quincy Aadams. The outraged and frustrated Jacksonians vowed to correct the betrayal of the popular will at the very next election and began to organize immediately to this end.