United States presidential election, 1852
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The U.S. presidential election of 1852 was in many ways a replay of the election of 1844. Once again, the incumbent President was a Whig who had succeeded to the presidency upon the death of his war hero predecessor; in this case, it was Millard Fillmore who followed General Zachary Taylor. The Whig party passed over the incumbent for nomination — casting aside Fillmore in favor of General Winfield Scott. The Democrats nominated a "dark horse" candidate, this time Franklin Pierce. The Whigs again campaigned on the obscurity of the Democratic candidate, and once again this strategy failed.
Pierce and running mate William King would go on to win what was at the time one of the nation's largest electoral victories, trouncing Scott and his vice presidential nominee, William Graham of North Carolina, 254 electoral votes to 42.
Contents |
[edit] Nominations
[edit] Whig Party nomination
The 1852 Whig National Convention, held in Baltimore, was bitterly divided. Supporters of President Fillmore pointed to the successful Compromise of 1850 and the failure of a nascent secession movement in the Southern states in 1850–1851. The northern Whigs believed that the Compromise of 1850 favored the slaveholding South over the North. Northern Whigs favored heroic Mexican-American War General Winfield Scott of Virginia. Scott had earned the nickname of "Old Fuss and Feathers" due to his insistence on military appearance and discipline, and while respected, was also seen by the people as somewhat foppish. A deadlock occurred because most New England delegates supported Daniel Webster. On the first ballot, Fillmore received all delegate votes from the South save four but only received 18 northern delegate votes. The first ballot was Fillmore - 133, Scott - 131, and Webster - 29. Scott was nominated on the 53rd ballot by a margin of 159-112 (with 21 for Webster), again with a highly sectional vote; Scott won the North by a 142-11 vote (with 21 for Webster) while Fillmore won the South by a margin of 101-17.
William Alexander Graham was chosen as the Vice Presidential nominee.
[edit] Democratic Party nomination
The Democrats anticipated a loss in the general election and had no consensus on who their candidate should be. 1848 nominee Lewis Cass, James Buchanan, William Marcy, and Stephen Douglas all had substantial support. On the 49th ballot the convention finally nominated, as a compromise candidate, the virtually unknown Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Pierce was a former Congressman and Senator. William R. King of Alabama was tapped for Vice President.
[edit] General election
[edit] Campaign
The Whigs' platform was almost indistinguishable from that of the Democrats, reducing the campaign to a contest between the personalities of the two candidates. This helped drive down electoral turnout to its lowest level since 1836. The decline was further exacerbated by Scott's anti-slavery reputation, which decimated the Southern Whig vote at the same time as the pro-slavery Whig platform undermined the Northern Whig vote.
Finally, Scott's status as a war hero was somewhat offset by the fact that Pierce was himself a Mexican-American War brigadier general, leading to an overwhelming defeat for Scott, who won only the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
[edit] Results
| Presidential Candidate | Party | Home State | Popular Vote(a) | Electoral Vote | Running Mate | Running Mate's Home State |
Running Mate's Electoral Vote |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | |||||||
| Franklin Pierce | Democratic | New Hampshire | 1,607,510 | 50.8% | 254 | William Rufus DeVane King | Alabama | 254 |
| Winfield Scott | Whig | New Jersey | 1,386,942 | 43.9% | 42 | William Alexander Graham | North Carolina | 42 |
| John Parker Hale | Free Soil | New Hampshire | 155,210 | 4.9% | 0 | George Washington Julian | Indiana | 0 |
| Daniel Webster(b) | Union (c) | Massachusetts | 6,994 | 0.2% | 0 | Charles Jones Jenkins | Georgia | 0 |
| Other | 5,174 | 0.2% | 0 | Other | 0 | |||
| Total | 3,161,830 | 100.0% | 296 | Total | 296 | |||
| Needed to win | 149 | Needed to win | 149 | |||||
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1852 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) Daniel Webster died on October 25, 1852, one week before the election. However, his name remained on the ballot in Massachusetts and Georgia, and he still managed to poll nearly seven thousand votes.
(c)For a detailed discussion of the Union Party formed by Pro-Union Whigs, see Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), Chapters 19 and 20.
[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] Trivia
- The candidates for Vice President were both born in North Carolina and in fact both attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, albeit two decades apart. While there, they were members of opposing debate societies: the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Both also served in North Carolina politics: King was a representative from North Carolina before he moved to Alabama, and Graham was a governor of North Carolina.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Books
-
- Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, New York, New York: 1999.
- Web sites
-
- A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College. The Green Papers. Retrieved on September 17, 2005.
[edit] External links
- 1852 popular vote by counties
- 1852 state-by-state popular vote
- Democratic National Convention overview
- Whig National Convention overview
- Native American National Convention overview
[edit] Navigation
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