United States presidential election, 1852
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‹ 1848  1856 › |
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| United States presidential election, 1852 |
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| November 2, 1852 | ||||
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| 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% | ||
 Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Pierce/King, gold denotes those won by Scott/Graham. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. |
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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 |
[edit] Nominations
[edit] Whig Party nomination
Whig candidates
- Millard Fillmore, President of the United States from New York
- Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the U.S. Army from Virginia
- Daniel Webster, U.S. senator and candidate for the 1848 nomination from Massachusetts
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
- Linn Boyd, Speaker of the House from Kentucky
- James Buchanan, former Secretary of State and Senator from Pennsylvania
- William Orlando Butler, former U.S. representative from Kentucky and 1848 vice presidential nominee
- Lewis Cass, former Secretary of War, Senator from Michigan, and 1848 presidential nominee
- Daniel S. Dickinson, U.S. senator from New York
- Henry Dodge, U.S. senator from Wisconsin
- Stephen A. Douglas, U.S. senator from Illinois
- Sam Houston, U.S. senator from Texas
- Robert M.T. Hunter, U.S. senator from Virginia
- Joseph Lane, U.S. delegate from Oregon
- William L. Marcy, former Secretary of War and Governor of New York
- Franklin Pierce, former U.S. senator from New Hampshire
- John B. Weller, U.S. senator from California
The Democrats anticipated a loss in the general election and had no consensus on who their candidate should be. The four major candidates were Lewis Cass, James Buchanan, William Marcy, and Stephen Douglas all had substantial support. Throughout the balloting, numerous favorite son candidates received a few votes. 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. Senator William R. King of Alabama was tapped for Vice President.
| Presidential Ballots | 1 | 10 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 46 | 48 | 49 | Vice Presidential Ballots |
1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Cass | 116 | 111 | 81 | 34 | 33 | 131 | 107 | 78 | 72 | 2 | William R. King | 125 | 277 |
| James Buchanan | 93 | 86 | 92 | 101 | 91 | 39 | 27 | 28 | 28 | 0 | Solomon W. Downs | 30 | 0 |
| William L. Marcy | 27 | 27 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 44 | 85 | 97 | 89 | 0 | John B. Weller | 28 | 0 |
| Stephen A. Douglas | 20 | 40 | 64 | 79 | 92 | 52 | 33 | 32 | 33 | 2 | David R. Atchison | 25 | 0 |
| William O. Butler | 2 | 1 | 1 | 24 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Gideon J. Pillow | 25 | 0 |
| Joseph Lane | 13 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Robert Strange | 23 | 0 |
| Daniel S. Dickinson | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | William O. Butler | 13 | 0 |
| Linn Boyd | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Thomas J. Rusk | 13 | 0 |
| Robert M.T. Hunter | 0 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 4 | Jefferson Davis | 2 | 11 |
| Henry Dodge | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Howell Cobb | 2 | 0 |
| R. I. Ingersoll | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Abstaining | 2 | 0 |
| Sam Houston | 0 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | |||
| John B. Weller | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Franklin Pierce | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 29 | 44 | 55 | 279 |
[edit] Free Soil Party nomination
The second Free Soil National Convention assemble in the Masonic Hall in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale was nominated for President with 192 delegate votes, with 16 votes scattering. George W. Julian of Indiana was nominated for Vice President over Samuel Lewis of Ohio and Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio.
[edit] Liberty Party nomination
The Liberty Party National Convention was held in Buffalo, New York. There were few delegates present, so a ticket was recommended and a later convention called. The Convention recommended Gerrit Smith of New York for President and Charles Durkee of Wisconsin for Vice President. A second convention was held in Syracuse, New York in early September, 1852, but it to failed to draw enough delegates to select a nominee. yet a third convention gathered in Syracuse later that month and nominated William Goodell of New York for President and Samuel M. Piper of Virginia for Vice President.
[edit] Union Party nomination
The Union party was formed in 1851, and was the successor to the Whig party in several Southern states including Georgia. As the 1852 presidential election approached, Union party leaders decided to wait and see who was nominated by the two major parties. The movement to nominate Daniel Webster as a third-party candidate began in earnest following the Whig Convention. The Union Party held its Georgia state convention on August 7, 1852, and nominated Webster for President and Charles J. Jenkins of Georgia for Vice President. The Webster/Jenkins ticket received nationwide support, particularly in the South but also in Massachusetts.
[edit] Southern Rights Party nomination
The Southern Rights Party was the successor to the Democratic party in several Southern states and held its National Convention in Montgomery, Alabama. There were 62 delegates present, and they voted unanimously to nominate Georgia Senator George M. Troup for president, and former Mississippi Governor John A. Quitman for vice president.
[edit] General election
[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. After the Compromise of 1850 was passed, many of the southern Wing Party members broke with the party's key figure, Henry Clay.[1] Finally, Scott's status as a war hero was somewhat offset by the fact that Pierce was himself a Mexican-American War brigadier general.
Shortly before the election Union party candidate Daniel Webster died, causing many Union state parties to remove their slates of electors. The Union ticket did apear on the ballot in Georgia and Massachusetts however.
When America went to the polls Pierce won in a landslide, Scott won only the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The fact that Daniel Webster received a nice piece of the vote in Georgia and Massachusetts, even though he was dead, shows how disenchanted voters were with the two main party candidates. 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 |
| George M. Troup | Southern Rights | Georgia | 2,331 | 0.1% | 0 | John A. Quitman | Mississippi | 0 |
| Other | 2,843 | 0.1% | – | 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
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- "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
- How close was the 1852 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University
[edit] Navigation
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