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The 1816 presidential election happened in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Despite mediocre military performance and the burning of the nation's capital, the war was considered a success that solidified American political independence from Europe. Outgoing president James Madison was still quite popular, and from retirement at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson groomed Secretary of State James Monroe to continue the "Virginia Dynasty." The increasingly hopeless Federalists ran Rufus King as their candidate, but they had been discredited by their Anglophile stance and the embarrassing Hartford Declaration where New England threatened to secede from the Union.

The results were never in doubt as Monroe won an overwhelming landside to become the nation's fifth president. King won only three states in the Northeast. New state Indiana cast its three electoral votes for Monroe--this was the source of some dispute as the Hoosier State was only admitted to the union on December 11, after the election was over and the electors had voted, and there was controversy over whether its votes should count. However as Indiana had already elected a set of Congressmen, it was decided that the votes should count despite it still technically being a territory when the electors met to cast their votes on December 3 (the presence or lack thereof of Indiana's votes would have made no difference in the election outcome anyway).

Nine states in this election had their electors selected by the state legislature with the rest using direct popular vote and three using a district-based system.