Friday, February 15, 2008

1852

United States presidential election, 1852
2 November 1852




Nominee Franklin Pierce Winfield Scott
Party Democratic Whig
Home state New Hampshire New Jersey
Running mate William R. King William Alexander Graham
Electoral vote 254 42
States carried 27 4
Popular vote 1,607,510 1,386,942
Percentage 50.8% 43.9%


United States presidential election, 1852

Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Pierce/King, Purple denotes those won by Scott/Graham. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

Incumbent
Millard Fillmore
Whig

Successor
Franklin Pierce
Democratic

The United States 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. After the 1852 election the Whig Party would cease to exist; it was soon replaced as the Democratic Party's primary opposition by the new Republican Party.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Whig Party nomination

Whig candidates

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 New Jersey. 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. 1852 would be the last time the Whig Party would nominate a candidate for President; after the election the party fell apart and ceased to exist.

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates

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

Political cartoon favoring Winfield Scott
Political cartoon favoring Winfield Scott

[edit] The Fall 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. The lack of clear-cut issues between the two parties helped drive voter turnout down 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. As a result of this devastating defeat, and because of the growing tensions within the party between pro-slavery Southerners and anti-slavery Northerners, the Whig Party quickly fell apart after the 1852 election and ceased to exist. Some Southern Whigs would join the Democratic Party, and many Northern Whigs would help to form the new Republican Party in 1854. Some Whigs in both sections would support the so-called "Know-Nothing" party in the 1856 presidential election.

[edit] Results

Presidential Candidate Party Home State Popular Vote(a) Electoral
Vote		 Running Mate Running Mate's
Home State		 RM's Electoral
Vote
Count Pct
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% – Other –
Total 3,161,830 100 % 296
296
Needed to win 149
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

[edit] External links

[edit] Navigation

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