Among our several nail biter elections, which Biden's victory was not, the closest happened in 1824 when Andrew Jackson won both the popular vote and a plurality of the electoral college but other candidates, including John Quincy Adams, denied him a majority of the EC. The House of Representatives then gave the Presidency to Adams on a party line vote. That January, before the inauguration, a Washington birthday party was held for the aging Lafayette, who crossed the Atlantic to attend. Both Adams and Jackson were there, their first time in the same room since the election. Jackson walked up to Adams and shook his hand, congratulating him on his victory.
The handshake was witnessed by a guest at the party, the artist Samuel Morse, one day to be inventor of the telegraph, who recounted it in a letter to his wife. Concluded Morse:
"The General takes his defeat like a man."
(I read about this not long ago in David McCullough's 2011 book, "The Greater Journey". Posted it as a comment buried on a back page in a Current Events thread but it seems to me worth a thread of its own.)
The handshake was witnessed by a guest at the party, the artist Samuel Morse, one day to be inventor of the telegraph, who recounted it in a letter to his wife. Concluded Morse:
"The General takes his defeat like a man."
(I read about this not long ago in David McCullough's 2011 book, "The Greater Journey". Posted it as a comment buried on a back page in a Current Events thread but it seems to me worth a thread of its own.)
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