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1852 Election
The 1852 election rang a death knell for the Whig party.
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1836 Election
The election of 1836 was largely a referendum on Andrew Jackson, but it also helped shape what is known as the second party system.
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1828 Election
Andrew Jackson won the presidency in 1828 by a landslide, receiving a record 647,292 popular votes (56 percent) to 507,730 (44 percent) for the incumbent John Quincy Adams.
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1844 Election
The election of 1844 introduced expansion and slavery as important political issues and contributed to westward and southern growth and sectionalism.
The 1856 election was waged by new political coalitions and was the first to confront directly the issue of slavery. The violence that followed the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the old political system and past formulas of compromises. The Whig party was dead. Know-Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore to head their nativist American party and chose Andrew J. Donelson for vice president. The Democratic party, portraying itself as the national party, nominated James Buchanan for president and John C. Breckinridge for vice president. Its platform supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act and noninterference with slavery. This election saw the emergence of a new, sectional party composed of ex-Whigs, Free-Soil Democrats, and antislavery groups. The Republican party opposed the extension of slavery and promised a free-labor society with expanded opportunities for white workers. It nominated military hero, John C. Frémont of California for president and William L. Dayton for vice president.
The campaign centered around "Bleeding Kansas." The battle over the concept of popular sovereignty sharpened northern fears about the spread of slavery and southern worries about northern interference. The physical assault by Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina on Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate heightened northern resentment of southern aggressiveness.
Although the Democratic candidate, Buchanan, won with 174 electoral votes and 1,838,169 votes, the divided opposition gained more popular votes. The Republican party captured 1,335,264 votes and 114 in the electoral college, and the American party received 874,534 popular and 8 electoral votes. The Republicans' impressive showing--carrying eleven of sixteen free states and 45 percent of northern ballots--left the South feeling vulnerable to attacks on slavery and fearful the Republicans would soon capture the government.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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This Day in History
Feb 9
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