Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System
This is another fine book from the University of Kansas series on presidential election. Mr. Cole identifies the seeds of this struggle in the contentious outcome of the four way struggle for the White House in 1824, which left supporters of the defeated Andrew Jackson decrying a supposed "corrupt bargain" between John Q. Adams, who finished in second place but became the eventual winner when the race was tossed into the House of Representatives when Jackson failed to get a majority in the Electoral College, and Henry Clay, the third place finisher.
Cole argues the 1828 election is not simply significant because it gave birth to the Democratic Party, but because it produced a new political system based on parties -- Whig as well as Democratic. He charts the actions and approaches of all the major players on both sides of this contest in a particularly illuminating fashion and shows how the election played out by examining in details the back-and-forth in some of the critical battleground states in that election.
For fans of the era's history and politics, expect a few shots at the people whose books you've read and enjoyed. Check the footnotes: there's not only a political war going on in this volume. There's also an interesting debate among historians and political scientists raging just below the surface.