United States presidential election, 1836

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The United States presidential election of 1836 is predominantly remembered for three reasons:

1. It was the last election until 1988 to result in the elevation of an incumbent Vice President to the nation's highest office.
2. It was the only race in which a major political party intentionally ran several presidential candidates. The Whigs ran three different candidates in different regions of the country, hoping that each would be popular enough to defeat Democratic standard-bearer Martin Van Buren in their respective areas. The House of Representatives could then decide between the competing Whig candidates. This strategy failed: Van Buren won a majority of the electoral vote and became President.
3. This election is the first (and to date only) time in which a Vice Presidential election was thrown into the Senate.

Contents 1 Nominations 1.1 Democratic Party nomination 1.2 Whig nomination 2 General election 2.1 Campaign 2.2 Disputes 2.3 Results 2.3.1 Breakdown by ticket 3 Contingent election 4 Electoral college selection 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Navigation

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Incumbent president Andrew Jackson decided to retire after two terms and supported his Vice President, Martin Van Buren. Although Southerners disliked the New Yorker Van Buren as well as his intended running mate, Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, Jackson secured the nomination at a meeting in Baltimore.

[edit] Whig nomination

The National Republicans joined together with dissident Democrats, including those angered by Jackson's opposition to states' rights, to form the Whig Party. Unable to agree on a single candidate, they ran different candidates in each section of the country to deny Van Buren a majority. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster ran in New England, popular former general William Henry Harrison in the West, and Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White, a states' rights supporter, in the South.

[edit] General election

[edit] Campaign

The Whigs attacked Van Buren on all sides, even disrupting the Senate where he presided. Harrison was the most effective of his opponents, but Van Buren's superior party organization carried the day, earning him a majority.

[edit] Disputes

A dispute similar to that of Indiana in 1817 and Missouri in 1821 arose during the counting of the electoral votes. Michigan had only become a state on January 26, 1837 and had cast its electoral votes for president before that date. Anticipating a challenge to the results Congress resolved on February 4, 1837 that during the counting four days later the final tally would be read twice, once with Michigan and once without Michigan. The counting proceeded in accordance with the resolution. The dispute had no bearing on the final result: either way Van Buren was elected and either way no one had a majority for Vice President.^[1]

[edit] Results

Virginia's electors refused to vote for Van Buren's running mate, Richard Mentor Johnson, leaving him one vote short of the 148-vote majority required to elect. Under the Twelfth Amendment, the Senate would decide between the top two vote-getters, Johnson and Francis Granger.

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote(a)		Electoral Vote
			Count	Percentage
Martin Van Buren	Democratic	New York	764,176	50.8%	170
William Henry Harrison	Whig	Ohio	550,816	36.6%	73
Hugh Lawson White	Whig	Tennessee	146,107	9.7%	26
Daniel Webster	Whig	Massachusetts	41,201	2.7%	14
Willie Person Mangum	Whig	North Carolina	—(b)	—	11
Other			1,234	0.1%	0
Total			1,503,534	100.0%	294
Needed to win					148

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1836 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

^(a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.
^(b) Mangum received his electoral votes from South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.

Vice Presidential Candidate	Party	State	Electoral Vote
Richard Mentor Johnson	Democratic	Kentucky	147
Francis P. Granger	Whig	New York	77
John Tyler	Whig	Virginia	47
William Smith	Democratic	South Carolina	23
Total			294
Needed to win			148

Source: Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

[edit] Breakdown by ticket

Presidential Candidate	Running Mate	Electoral Vote
Martin Van Buren	Richard Mentor Johnson	147
William Henry Harrison	Francis P. Granger	63
Hugh Lawson White	John Tyler	26
Martin Van Buren	William Smith	23
Daniel Webster	Francis P. Granger	14
Willie Person Mangum	John Tyler	11
William Henry Harrison	John Tyler	10

[edit] Contingent election

The Senate was required to choose which of Richard Johnson and Francis Granger would be the next Vice President. Johnson was elected easily in a single ballot.

for Richard M. Johnson

for Francis P. Granger

Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri John Black of Mississippi Bedford Brown of North Carolina James Buchanan of Pennsylvania Alfred Cuthbert of Georgia Judah Dana of Maine William Lee Davidson Ewing of Illinois William Savin Fulton of Arkansas Felix Grundy of Tennessee William Hendricks of Indiana Henry Hubbard of New Hampshire William Rufus de Vane King of Alabama John Pendleton King of Georgia Lewis Fields Linn of Missouri Lucius Lyon of Michigan Samuel McKean of Pennsylvania Gabriel Moore of Alabama Thomas Morris of Ohio Alexander Mouton of Louisiana Robert Carter Nicholas of Louisiana John Milton Niles of Connecticut John Norvell of Michigan John Page of New Hampshire Richard Elliott Parker of Virginia William Cabell Rives of Virginia John McCracken Robinson of Illinois John Ruggles of Maine Ambrose Hundley Sevier of Arkansas Robert Strange of North Carolina Nathaniel Pitcher Tallmadge of New York John Tipton of Indiana Robert John Walker of Mississippi Silas Wright, Jr. of New York

Richard Henry Bayard of Delaware Henry Clay of Kentucky Thomas Clayton of Delaware John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky John Davis of Massachusetts Thomas Ewing of Ohio Joseph Kent of Maryland Nehemiah Rice Knight of Rhode Island Samuel Prentiss of Vermont Asher Robbins of Rhode Island Samuel Lewis Southard of New Jersey John Selby Spence of Maryland Benjamin Swift of Vermont Gideon Tomlinson of Connecticut Garret Dorset Wall of New Jersey Daniel Webster of Massachusetts

[edit] Electoral college selection

Method of choosing Electors	State(s)
each Elector appointed by state legislature	South Carolina
each Elector chosen by voters statewide	(all other states)

[edit] See also

• History of the United States (1789-1849)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ United States Congress (1837). Senate Journal, 24th Congress, 2nd Session, February 4, 203–204. Retrieved on August 20, 2006. 

[edit] References

• A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College. The Green Papers. Retrieved on March 20, 2005.

[edit] Navigation

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