|
|
| |
The Most Peculiar Presidential Elections
|
| Top to bottom: Jackson, W. Harrison, Polk
|
By Martin H. Levinson, PhD
Forest Hills, Queens
Do you know the names of the two candidates who took part in the most disputed presidential election in U.S. history (hint—the names aren’t Bush and Gore)? Who was the first dark horse presidential nominee? What third-party candidate received the most votes recorded in the annals of American presidential contests (it wasn’t Ross Perot)?
Here is our selection of America’s 10 most peculiar presidential elections. Aside from the fascinating facts that surround each of the contests, these elections helped set the stage for the quirks in our modern-day presidential campaigns. They show that, to paraphrase the great writer Pearl S. Buck, “if you want to understand the present you have to search the past.”
1828: A Real Mudslinger—John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson
The election of 1828 was one of the ugliest presidential elections in American history, pitting the incumbent, John Quincy Adams, against an angry Andrew Jackson who believed that he had won the election in 1824 (in that contest Jackson won the popular vote but lost to Adams in the Electoral College).
The 1828 election included many personal attacks on each of the candidates. Jackson’s supporters accused Adams of having premarital sex with his foreign-born wife and living in “kingly pomp and splendor.” Adams was also accused of misusing public funds—he had supposedly purchased gambling devices for the presidential residence. In point of fact he had simply bought a chessboard and a pool table.
Adams’ supporters attacked Jackson as being uneducated and reckless and said that he and his wife Rachel were adulterers. Rachel was a divorcee and she and Jackson believed that her divorce was finalized before their marriage. The papers were incomplete, however, and Jackson’s political opponents publicly branded her an adulteress. Mrs. Jackson was humiliated by the accusations, became ill, and died before the inauguration. Jackson believed the personal attacks against his wife caused her death and said, “May God Almighty forgive her murderers as I know she forgave them. I never can.”
Amidst all the mudslinging, Adams lost the election in a landslide. He was so upset over the defeat that he didn’t attend Jackson’s inauguration. Like his father, John Adams, he snuck out of the capital and returned home.
1840: First Image Campaign— Martin Van Buren vs. William Henry Harrison
The election of 1840 was the first presidential campaign with slogans, songs, and modern campaign paraphernalia. It was also the first image campaign, since rather than talking about issues Harrison ran on the notion that he was a man of the people. His commoner message involved hauling log cabins around, to show that he was brought up in modest circumstances, and providing his audiences with free alcohol. Actually, Harrison was a wealthy aristocrat who grew up on a plantation and owned slaves—his manor in Ohio had 22 rooms and employed numerous servants. Predictably, the public bought the fabricated image of Harrison, and he won handily. However, his tenure in office didn’t last very long.
Harrison presented his inaugural address, the longest in American history, on March 4, 1841. It was a cold and rainy day, and he refused to wear a hat and a warm winter coat. After the address he attended a round of receptions in his wet clothing. Catching a cold, which turned into pneumonia, he expired a month later.
1844: First Dark Horse Nominee: Henry Clay vs. James Polk
At the Democratic convention in Baltimore in May 1844, the expected candidate was former President Martin Van Buren. However, he didn’t receive the required two-thirds vote and as a result the convention seemed near a deadlock. Finally, on the ninth ballot, the convention swung behind James Polk. This was the first time that a dark horse (an unknown) was nominated.
Polk faced a formidable challenger in the general election in the person of Whig candidate Henry Clay. At first, the Whigs had fun with Polk’s candidacy. They thought he was a nonentity who had no chance of beating their well-known nominee. Clay was even quoted as asking, “Who is James Polk?” His tune soon changed.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| Top to bottom: Hayes, Cleveland, B. Harrison
|
Polk ran for office on a limited platform, making only a few campaign promises instead of presenting a major agenda as is common today. His main theme in the campaign was the territorial expansion of the United States, a policy known as “Manifest Destiny,” and a promise to reoccupy the Oregon territory, re-annex Texas, and acquire California.
Clay was the early front-runner, and expected to have an easy victory. However, his opposition to the annexation of Texas lost him support in the South, and a third party abolitionist candidate named James Bireny siphoned off enough support in the North to hurt Clay. The election was very personal with newspaper attacks calling Polk a coward and Clay a drunkard. The final result was close, Polk beat Clay by about 38,000 votes, and the unexpected candidate went on to become one of our most highly revered presidents.
1876: Most Disputed and Intense Election —Samuel Tilden
vs. Rutherford B. Hayes
The election of 1876 was perhaps the most disputed and intense election in U.S. history.
Samuel Tilden, the Democratic nominee, won the popular vote by more than 200,000 votes and in the Electoral College he appeared to have won 203 votes to Hayes 166. However, the Republican Party disputed the outcome of the election, claiming that blacks had been denied the right to vote in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. In response, the election officials refused to credit the Democratic electors in those three states. The officials instead had the three states give their electoral votes to Hayes. Now the election was tied, with each candidate receiving 184 electoral votes. (Interestingly, the Republican Party paid for recounts in many of the counties.)
Chaos descended on the Capitol. The Democrats controlled the House, and the Republicans controlled the Senate. The Republicans knew if the election went to the House they would lose, so they recommended a bipartisan commission to study the election and certify the results. They also arranged it so that the commission would ensure a victory for Hayes.
The returns accepted by the Commission placed Hayes’s victory margin in South Carolina at 889 votes, making this the second-closest election in U.S. history, after the 2000 election, decided by 537 votes in Florida. Democrats, furious at the machinations of the Electoral Commission, refused to attend the inauguration. It had to be held in secret because the Republicans feared for Hayes’s life. The Democrats nicknamed Hayes, “His Fraudulency” and “His Accidency.”
1884: Slogans, Slogans, Slogans—James G. Blaine vs. Grover Cleveland
The 1884 election was based in large part on the integrity of the candidates. Cleveland supporters pilloried Blaine for his unethical business deals with the railroad industry and for being evasive when the deals were exposed. They chanted “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the Continental Liar from the state of Maine.”
Blaine’s backers attacked Cleveland for allegedly fathering an out-of-wedlock child. They employed the catchphrase “Ma, ma, Where’s my pa?” (In 1874, Cleveland had quietly accepted paternity for a child with a woman who had been involved with a number of men. He was paying his son’s child support when the story about his putative fatherhood publicly broke in 1884. His campaign staff asked him if the allegations were true and what they should do about it? Cleveland replied, “Tell the truth.” They did.)
The 1884 election was one of the closest in U.S. history. The Republican candidate, James G. Blaine, might have won if one of his supporters had kept his mouth shut. The Rev. Samuel Burchard called the Democratic Party the “party of rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” “Romanism” was a derogatory term. The slur alienated Catholic voters and they voted for Grover Cleveland — an independent-minded Democrat — who narrowly prevailed in the general election.
Cleveland lost his re-election bid but won after that. He is the only American president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
1888: Nineteenth Century Dirty Tricks—Grover Cleveland
vs. Benjamin Harrison
The election of 1888 was rather nasty. The Republican Party not only attacked Cleveland’s war record, during the Civil War Cleveland was one of the few men who possessed the resources to avoid Lincoln’s controversial draft order of 1863 by hiring another man to take his place, but also engaged in open deception through a hoax known as the Murchison Letter.
At the end of October, as the election neared, a letter was sent to Lionel Sackville-West, British ambassador to the United States, signed by Charles F. Murchison, who claimed to be a former British subject and now a naturalized American. The Murchison Letter asked for Sackville-West’s views on the coming election, and the ambassador wrote a reply hinting that Britain would gain by Cleveland’s re-election. Murchison was actually a California Republican, named George A. Osgoodby, and the Republicans used the British ambassador’s letter to attack Cleveland, who at once demanded Sackville-West’s recall. But the damage was done and Cleveland lost a good many votes, especially among Irish Americans opposed to a candidate allegedly favorable to Britain.
Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the general election in the Electoral College. His wife said, “They better not move the furniture, we’re coming back four years from today.” Four years later, Cleveland beat Harrison in a landslide.
The first of a 2 part series.
Part 2 will appear in 2 weeks. |
|
|
Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
|
|
|
|
