As I am sure you are aware, Andrew Jackson came out with the most electoral college votes and popular vote (though popular elections were not universally held across the states in that election), but not enough for a majority. The election was decided by Congress upon their next session, early in 1825, and it was won by John Quincy Adams.

John Adams responded to a letter on the subject from his grandson, John Adams II (John Quincy Adams' son) on November 28, 1824, after the election had been held, but before a winner had been decided. John Adams II's original letter, unfortunately, appears to be lost, but nevertheless, you can glean the senior John Adams' thoughts on the election from his response:

"I participate in all your apprehensions concerning the election. The odium, which has been conjured up against the [our] family, is indeed a formidable motive of national action. Not a reason, not an argument even original; it is a prejudice! and it is a consolation to see that it does not prevail in New–England & New–York as we might have expected. However, my dear Grandson, what is our family to this great and wide world? If we were split like Salmon or Mackerel and broiled upon a gridiron and made food for Canniballs, what then! this world would go on afterwards much as it has done heretofore. The Lord deliver us all from family pride. No pride, John, no pride...If Providence frown, submit with perfect resignation. I expect we shall be kept in hot water all the Winter and up to the 4th of March, and God save the Nation and its President, whoever he may be. If General Jackson should be chosen, I hope your Father will remain in office under him untill he has time to look about him and choose a successor, and for what I care, throughout his whole administration."

John Quincy Adams was the outgoing Secretary of State, so his father's reference to his "office" is the hope that, if Andrew Jackson is chosen president, Jackson gives John Quincy Adams the opportunity to choose the next Secretary of State, or even stay on. The senior Adams goes on to lament the position his three grandsons are now in: "Poor George, and poor John and poor Charles!" But, the rest of the letter is rather mollifying. Adams tells his grandson the family needs to accept the outcome, whatever it may be, and not let pride or envy get the best of them.

On February 19, 1825, after the election had been decided in John Quincy Adams' favor, the senior John Adams wrote another letter to his grandson John Adams II, basically reiterating the same sentiments:

"Your account of all things is satisfactory—but on this great occasion, my dear Grandson, let us all reflect on the obligations this event imposes on us. Our joys ought to be no greater than the joys of the public. We ought all of us to collect ourselves and not suffer a single unbecoming word or action to escape us. A friend writes me that light joys are talkative but deep joys are dumb. Amidst all our rejoicings public and private in this neighbourhood we have great reason to consider.—I never knew a more melancholy time, on account of sickness...

"Command down every petty passion John, and every selfish feeling—this is not an event to excite vanity. John, it ought to excite grave and solemn reflections.—Your Father’s address when he accepted the office was one of those masterly pieces which he produces upon all critical occasions. The sentiments are perfectly just and the honour he does his two competitors in the House, does him great honour and them too, and I believe it has been universally acceptable to the public. I have never heard it mentioned but with praise."

Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Richard Rush on June 5, 1824, in which Jefferson appeared to prefer William H. Crawford as a candidate. He certainly thought he had the best chance of winning. In the same letter, he expressed suspicions of Andrew Jackson's political adherence to Democratic-Republican orthodoxy (modern capitalization and spelling mine):

"Among the candidates for the Presidency, you will have seen by the newspapers, that Genl Jackson’s prospect was not without promise. A threatening cloud has very suddenly darkened his horizon. A letter has become public, written by him when Col. [i.e., President James] Monroe first came into office, advising him to make up his administration, without regard to party. The solid republicanism of Pennsylvania, his principal support, is thrown into great fermentation by this apparent indifference to political principle. The thing is as yet too new to see in what it will result. A baseless and malicious attack on Mr. Crawford has produced from him so clear, so incontrovertible, and so temperate a justification of himself, as to have added much to the strength of his interest. The question will ultimately be, as I suggested in a former letter to you, between Crawford and Adams; with this in favor of Crawford, that, although many states have a different first favorite, he is the 2nd with nearly all; and that if it goes into the legislature, he will surely be elected."

The "former letter" that Jefferson refers to doesn't seem to have been preserved.

Jefferson made the same prediction in an October 12, 1824, letter to Francis Walker Gilmer:

"That question [the presidential question] will surely lie between Crawford and Adams; and whether it will go into Congress is still uncertain."

And the next day, he again made the same predicton in another letter to Richard Rush:

"[The presidential] question will lie ultimately between Crawford and Adams. But the vote of the people, at the same time, is so distracted by subordinate candidates that possibly they may make no election, and let it go to the House of Representatives. There it is thought Crawford’s chance will be best."

Jefferson actually exchanged a few letters with Crawford himself during the campaign, though he did not reveal any preference of candidate to him, or even let the subject of the presidential election really come up. About as close as he got was to say: "No one rejoices more sincerely than I do at the fav[ora]ble acc[oun]t of your health announced in the papers."

Interestingly, on January 8, 1825, Jefferson wrote a letter to William Short where he offhandedly accused both John Adams and John Quincy Adams of being monarchists (an accuation that Jefferson quite freely threw around against any and all Federalists). Yet, of course, by this time, he was quite friendly with the senior Adams, and on the very same day, he wrote to John Adams soliciting his anxieties over the pending election:

"This presidential election has given me few anxieties. With you this must have been impossible, independently of the question whether we are at last to end our days under a civil or a military government?"

Adams replied on January 22, saying he found himself to be surprisingly at ease:

"The presidential election has given me less anxiety than I, myself could have imagined. The next administration will be a troublesome one to whomsoever it falls. And our John has been too much worn to contend much longer with conflicting factions. I call him our John, because when you was at Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine, I have often speculated upon the consequences that would have ensued from my takeing your advice, to send him to William and Mary College in Virginia for an Education."

Jefferson wrote back on February 15, congratulating Adams' for his son's victory, and setting his mind at ease about the prospect of any sort of violent discord in the country as a result that Adams had feared in his last letter:

"I sincerely congratulate you on the high gratific[atio]n which the issue of the late election must have afforded you. It must excite ineffable feelings in the breast of a father to have lived to see a son to whose educ[atio]n & happiness his life has been devoted so eminently distinguished by the voice of his country. Nor do I see any reason to suppose the next adm[inistratio]n will be so difficult as in your favor of Jan. 22. you seemed to expect. So deeply are the principles of order, and of obedience to law impressed on the minds of our citizens generally that I am persuaded there will be as immediate an acquiescence in the will of the majority as if Mr. Adams had been the choice of every man. The scrib[b]lers in newspapers may for a while express their disapp[oint]m[en]t in angry squibs; but these will evaporate without influencing the public functionaries nor will they prevent their harmonising with their associates in the transaction of public affairs."

Adams responded on February 25 thanking Jefferson for the words:

"Every line from you exhilarates my spirits and gives me a glow of pleasure—but your kind congratulations are a solid comfort to my heart. The good-natured and good-humoured acquiescence of the friends of all the candidates gives me a comfortable hope that your prediction may be fulfilled, that the ensuing administration will not be so difficult as in a former letter I had apprehended."

cont'd...