United States presidential election, 1852

      United States presidential election, 1852
      United States
      1848 ←
      		 November 2, 1852
      		 → 1856
      All 296 electoral votes of the Electoral College
      149 electoral votes needed to win
        FranklinPierce.png Winfield Scott - National Portrait Gallery.JPG JP-Hale.jpg
      Nominee Franklin Pierce Winfield Scott John P. Hale
      Party Democratic Whig Free Soil
      Home state New Hampshire New Jersey New Hampshire
      Running mate William R. King William A. Graham George W. Julian
      Electoral vote 254 42 0
      States carried 27 4 0
      Popular vote 1,607,510 1,386,942 155,210
      Percentage 50.8% 43.9% 4.9%

      ElectoralCollege1852.svg
      Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Pierce/King, Orange denotes those won by Scott/Graham. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
      President before election

      Millard Fillmore
      Whig

      		 Elected President

      Franklin Pierce
      Democratic

      The United States presidential election of 1852 was the 17th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. It bore important similarities to 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 the strategy failed.

      Pierce and running mate William R. King went on to win what was at the time one of the nation's largest electoral victories, trouncing Scott and his vice-presidential nominee, William Alexander Graham of North Carolina, 254 electoral votes to 42. After the 1852 election, the Whig Party quickly collapsed, and the members of the declining party failed to nominate a candidate for the next presidential race. It was soon replaced as the Democratic Party's primary opposition by the new Republican Party. In spite of the appearance of Democratic triumph, no presidential candidate from the Democratic party would again win both a majority of the popular and electoral vote until 1932. This is the last presidential election in which the Whig Party participated. In 1854, the Whig Party effectively collapsed as a national political force, largely because of tensions over slavery.

      Nominations

      Whig Party nomination

      Whig candidates

      Scott/Graham campaign poster

      The 1852 Whig National Convention, held in Baltimore, Maryland, 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" in the military due to his insistence on 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 vote was 133 for Fillmore, 131 for Scott, and 29 for Webster. 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, principally due to regional divisions caused by the slavery issue.

      Democratic Party nomination

      Main article: 1852 Democratic National Convention

      Democratic candidates:

      Candidates gallery

      Pierce/King campaign poster

      As Democrats convened in Baltimore in June 1852, four major candidates vied for the nomination: Lewis Cass of Michigan, the nominee in 1848, who had the backing of northerners in support of the Compromise of 1850; James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, popular in the South as well as in his home state; Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, candidate of the expansionists and the railroad interests; and William L. Marcy of New York, whose strength was centered in his home state. Throughout the balloting, numerous favorite son candidates received a few votes.

      Cass led on the first 19 ballots, with Buchanan second, and Douglas and Marcy exchanging third and fourth places. Buchanan took the lead on the 20th ballot and retained it on each of the next nine tallies. Douglas managed a narrow lead on the 30th and 31st ballots. Cass then recaptured first place through the 44th ballot. Marcy carried the next four ballots. Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, a former Congressman and Senator, did not get on the board until the 35th ballot, when the Virginia delegation brought him forward as a compromise choice. He consolidated his support in subsequent voting and was nominated nearly unanimously on the 49th ballot.[1]

      In a peace gesture to the Buchanan wing of the party, Pierce's supporters allowed Buchanan's allies to fill the second position, knowing that they would select Alabama Senator William R. King. On the second ballot, with only minor opposition, King finally obtained the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. During the ensuing campaign, King's tuberculosis, which he believed he had contracted while in Paris, France, denied him the active behind-the-scenes role that he might otherwise have played, although he worked hard to assure his region's voters that New Hampshire's Pierce was a "northern man with southern principles."

      Presidential Ballot
      Ballot 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th 25th
      Franklin Pierce 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
      Lewis Cass 116 118 119 115 114 114 113 113 112 111 101 98 98 99 99 99 99 96 89 81 60 43 37 33 34
      James Buchanan 93 95 94 89 88 88 88 88 87 86 87 88 88 87 87 87 87 85 85 92 102 104 104 103 101
      William L. Marcy 27 27 26 25 26 26 26 26 27 27 27 27 26 26 26 26 26 25 26 26 26 26 27 26 26
      Stephen A. Douglas 20 23 21 33 34 34 34 34 39 40 50 51 51 51 51 51 50 56 63 64 64 77 78 80 79
      Others 40 33 36 34 34 34 35 35 31 32 31 32 33 33 33 33 34 34 33 33 44 46 50 54 56
      Presidential Ballot
      Ballot 26th 27th 28th 29th 30th 31st 32nd 33rd 34th 35th 36th 37th 38th 39th 40th 41st 42nd 43rd 44th 45th 46th 47th 48th 49th
      Franklin Pierce 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 30 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 29 44 49 55 282
      Lewis Cass 33 32 28 27 33 65 93 123 130 131 122 120 107 106 107 107 101 101 101 96 78 75 72 2
      James Buchanan 101 98 96 98 91 83 74 72 49 39 28 28 28 28 27 27 27 27 27 27 28 28 28 0
      William L. Marcy 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 25 33 34 58 70 84 85 85 85 91 91 91 97 98 95 89 0
      Stephen A. Douglas 80 85 88 91 92 92 80 60 53 52 43 34 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 32 32 33 33 2
      Others 56 55 58 54 54 30 23 16 31 25 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 16 16 19 10

      Source: US President – D Convention. Our Campaigns. (August 24, 2009).

      Vice Presidential Ballot
      Ballot 1st 2nd
      William R. King 125 277
      Solomon W. Downs 30 0
      John B. Weller 28 0
      David R. Atchison 25 0
      Gideon J. Pillow 25 0
      Robert Strange 23 0
      William O. Butler 13 0
      Thomas J. Rusk 13 0
      Jefferson Davis 2 11
      Howell Cobb 2 0
      Abstaining 2 0

      Source: US Vice President – D Convention. Our Campaigns. (August 25, 2009).

      Free Soil Party nomination

      Free Soil candidate:

      Candidates gallery

      The Free Soil Party was still the strongest third party in 1852, though many of the "Barnburners" who supported it in 1848 had returned to the Democratic Party. The second Free Soil National Convention assembled in the Masonic Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale was nominated for president with 192 delegate votes (16 votes were cast for a smattering of candidates). George Washington Julian of Indiana was nominated for vice-president over Samuel Lewis of Ohio and Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio.

      Liberty Party nomination

      The Liberty Party had ceased to become a significant political force after most of its members joined the Free Soil Party in 1848. Nonetheless, some of those who rejected the fusion strategy held a Liberty Party National Convention 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 too 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 S.M. Bell of Virginia for vice-president.

      Union Party nomination

      Union candidate:

      Candidates gallery

      The Union party was formed in 1851, an offshoot of 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.

      Southern Rights Party nomination

      The Southern Rights Party was an offshoot of 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 Troup for president, and former Mississippi Governor John A. Quitman for vice-president.

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      General election

      Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Pierce (Democratic), shades of yellow are for Scott (Whig), shades of red are for Hale (Free Soil), shades of orange are for Webster (Union), shades of green are for (Independent Democrats), and shades of purple are for Troup (Southern Rights).
      Political cartoon favoring Winfield Scott

      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 Whig Party members broke with the party's key figure, Henry Clay.[2] 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 appear on the ballot in Georgia and Massachusetts, however.

      When American voters 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 substantial share 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.

      Results

      Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral
      vote      		 Running mate
      Count Pct Vice-presidential candidate Home state Elect. vote
      Franklin Pierce Democratic New Hampshire 1,607,510 50.8% 254 William R. King Alabama 254
      Winfield Scott Whig New Jersey 1,386,942 43.9% 42 William Alexander Graham North Carolina 42
      John P. 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 J. Jenkins Georgia 0
      Jacob Broom Native American Pennsylvania 2,566 0.1% 0 Reynell Coates New Jersey 0
      George Troup Southern Rights Georgia 2,331 0.1% 0 John A. Quitman Mississippi 0
      Other 277 0.0% — 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 24, 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. He was also the original candidate of the Native American Party but was replaced on his death by Jacob Broom.
      (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.

      • The leading 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.
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      Results by state

      Franklin Pierce
      Democratic      		 Winfield Scott
      Whig      		 John P. Hale
      Free Soil      		 State Total
      State electoral
      votes      		 #  % electoral
      votes      		 #  % electoral
      votes      		 #  % electoral
      votes      		 #
      Alabama 9 0001361826,881 60.89 9 0004866915,061 34.12 - no ballots 44,147 AL
      Arkansas 4 12,173 62.18 4 7,404 37.82 - no ballots 19,577 AR
      California 4 40,721 53.02 4 35,972 46.83 - no ballots 76,810 CA
      Connecticut 6 33,249 49.79 6 30,359 45.56 - 3,161 4.73 - 66,781 CT
      Delaware 3 6,318 49.85 3 6,293 49.66 - 62 0.49 - 12,673 DE
      Florida 3 4,318 60.03 3 2,875 39.97 - no ballots 7,193 FL
      Georgia 10 40,516 64.70 10 16,660 26.60 - no ballots 62,626 GA
      Illinois 11 80,378 51.87 11 64,733 41.77 - 9,863 6.36 - 154,974 IL
      Indiana 13 95,340 52.05 13 80,901 44.17 - 6,929 3.78 - 183,170 IN
      Iowa 4 17,763 50.23 4 15,856 44.84 - 1,606 4.54 - 35,364 IA
      Kentucky 12 53,494 48.32 - 57,428 51.44 12 266 0.24 - 111,148 KY
      Louisiana 6 18,647 51.94 6 17,255 48.06 - no ballots 42,873 LA
      Maine 8 41,609 50.63 8 32,543 39.60 - 8,030 9.77 - 82,182 ME
      Maryland 8 40,022 53.28 8 35,077 46.69 - 21 0.03 - 75,120 MD
      Massachusetts 13 44,569 35.07 - 52,683 41.45 13 28,203 22.05 - 127,103 MA
      Michigan 6 41,842 50.45 6 33,860 40.83 - 7,237 8.73 - 82,939 MI
      Mississippi 7 26,896 60.50 7 17,558 39.50 - no ballots 44,454 MS
      Missouri 9 38,817 56.42 9 29,984 43.58 - no ballots 68,801 MO
      New Hampshire 5 28,503 56.40 5 15,486 30.64 - 6,546 12.95 - 50,535 NH
      New Jersey 7 44,305 53.24 7 38,556 46.33 - 359 0.43 - 83,220 NJ
      New York 35 262,083 50.18 35 234,882 44.97 - 25,329 4.85 - 522,294 NY
      North Carolina 10 39,778 50.43 10 39,043 49.49 - no ballots 78,881 NC
      Ohio 23 168,933 47.83 23 152,523 43.18 - 31,732 8.98 - 353,188 OH
      Pennsylvania 27 198,562 51.20 27 179,104 46.18 - 8,495 2.19 - 387,389 PA
      Rhode Island 4 8,735 51.37 4 7,626 44.85 - 644 3.79 - 17,005 RI
      South Carolina 8 no popular vote 8 no popular vote no popular vote - SC
      Tennessee 12 56,900 49.27 - 58,586 50.73 12 no ballots 115,486 TN
      Texas 4 13,552 73.07 4 4,995 26.93 - no ballots 18,547 TX
      Vermont 5 13,044 29.72 - 22,173 50.52 5 8,621 19.64 - 43,890 VT
      Virginia 15 73,872 55.71 15 58,732 44.29 - no ballots 132,604 VA
      Wisconsin 5 33,658 52.04 5 22,210 34.34 - 8,814 13.63 - 64,682 WI
      TOTALS: 303 1,605,943 50.83 254 1,386,418 43.88 42 155,799 4.93 - 3,159,640 US
      TO WIN: 152


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      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)
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      See also

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      References

      1. ^ William DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, Gramercy 1997
      2. ^ Biography of Franklin Pierce
      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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      External links
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      Last modified on 14 June 2013, at 20:22