The Election of 1836
INTRO PART III: The Election of 1836
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself.
-Alexander Hamilton, American economist, philosopher, and Founding Father.
The election of 1836 was highly contentious and fractionalized, and saw the rise of mass partisan journalism as newspapers and primitive magazines started to endorse candidates, parties, and engage in political attack ads via political cartoons. Jacksonian democracy was entering its adulthood, and hundreds of thousands of new voters were anxious to head to the voting booths come Election Day to cast their vote, or votes, for their favored candidate and party.
The inability of the Whigs to nationalize fast enough to produce a national body meant that pro-Whig newspapers were running endorsements for particular candidates in their regional operation centers. Hugh Lawson White in the south, Henry Clay in the west, and Daniel Webster in New England, all newspapers essentially endorsed the Whig platform that was uniform, but several the candidates themselves were more split on the important issues in the election. As mentioned, Texas was the hot topic, in part because many Americans saw Texas as a part of the United States, culturally and religiously homogenous to the American states than with the rest of Mexico. Secondly, Texas was perceived as a front for the expansion of slavery, Texas entering the Union would all but certainly enter as a slave state and continue to allow the Southern slave-holding states to maintain their majority of power in American politics through the near uniform Senate appointment of slavery defending politicians.
An anti-Johnson political cartoon, highlighting some of his believed "scandalous" relationships with his slaves.
At this time in American social and reformist movements, although there was an abolitionist movement in the country, it was nowhere near the power and might that it would grow to in the coming decades. Politicians that may have quietly supported slavery containment [1] or abolitionist policies often ranked the issue of slavery below issues of economics, trade, and industrial development. For the small number of Americans who did see abolitionism as their first and only cause to champion, they were often castigated to the peripheries of American political life or otherwise had little effect on the current political process and had turned to media printing to advance their cause. The Whigs had a sizeable base of anti-Jackson support in the south, mostly from wealthy landed “aristocrats” (in the American sense) who were opposed to the mass democratic appeal and participation of people whom they feared would overturn their economic fortunes. Also, a small minority of Southerners had agreed with the Hamiltonian program of industrialization instead of the Jeffersonian ideal of agrarianism, and also naturally came to support the Whig Party. Lastly, some of the more radical republicans who were descendants of the anti-federalists were frightened by the encroaching power of the Presidency under Jackson and had come to align themselves with the more liberal faction of the Whig Party.
Concerning Texas and the issue of slavery, Henry Clay was mute at best, or willing to compromise with pro-slavery politicians at worst – always in the defense of the preservation of the Union. It should be noted however, that Clay’s Unionism outweighed his soft abolitionism. Although himself a slaveholder, he was a founder of the American Colonial Society and would later free his slaves in his will. Hugh Lawson White was the champion of the liberal wing, but quietly supported that “immoral institutional” as he was a Southerner who didn’t risk alienate his base of support. In the north, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was the most outspoken of the Whig candidates over slavery, and had declared that he had no intention of going to war in Texas to allow the expansion of slavery as Texas would enter a slave-holding state, or worst, that additional territories would eventually apply for statehood as slave-holding states.
Overall, slavery was an issue that was more deeply contested within the Whig Party than in the Democratic Party. While northern Democrats were generally seen as being neutral on slavery but always willing to compromise with their southern colleagues for the sack of party unity, the Whigs were divided into three camps on slavery as evidenced above by all three regional candidates. The first group supported slavery, mostly being southern Whigs that were champions of Congressional authority over the powers of the Presidency which Jackson was a chief culprit in expanding the power of the Executive Branch (precisely because they also feared a strong executive as promoting and championing abolitionism in the future), which worried some Democrats from the anti-federalist position, and with the creation of the Whig Party joined with them as natural opposition to Jackson. The second camp was comprised of the so-called “Conscience Whigs” who formed in opposition to the anti-Jackson Democrats who had joined the Whig Party and had dubbed the pro-slavery Whigs “Cotton Whigs.” These bands of Whigs generally came out of the northeast and had very strong pro-federalist and pro-business leanings as well and were the truest heirs to the Hamiltonian tradition. The third group, of which Henry Clay was part of, was more nuanced on the issue. Some may have been against the institution but their opposition to slavery ranked at the bottom of their concerns. Most Whigs placed economic nationalism, industrial modernization, and unionism at the top of their priorities and were generally silent or ambiguous over slavery, and were almost always willing to compromise but only for the preservation of the Union. One could say that this group was itself the most Hamiltonian in political theory – even though Hamilton himself was one of the more ardent abolitionists among the Founding Fathers, going as far as opposing the constitutional amendments concerning slavery during the Convention [2]. This ambiguity over slavery also hampered the Whigs as questions of Texas were almost immediately followed by questions regarding slavery.
A Whig pamphlet for a meeting in New York. The problem was for the Whigs, local meetings and media endorsements of different candidates effectively created three independent Whig Parties running a candidate, rather than a unified party platform that just had 3 representatives running on the regional election strategy.
The Democrats, led by Richard Mentor Johnson, didn’t speak much on the issue of slavery or Texas, even though most people knew that the party and Johnson would certainly support the opportunity to see to the expansion of slavery into a new prospective state. Rather than become bogged down by the ongoing tussle over the Texas War, Johnson promised to continue to champion Jacksonian reforms. After all, this seemed to be the most appropriate stance to take in the election. President Jackson was still highly popular, and the economic boom of his administration which had taken off since the elimination of the National Bank seemed to bring greater prosperity to the commoner, which was the main base of support for the Democratic Party.
Essentially having co-opted van Buren’s plan to “tread in the footsteps” of Jackson, Johnson was running on highs as the election as he received nearly universal approval among Southern newspapers as well as the important media venues in the Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania and New York. New York and Pennsylvania were the two largest states in the Union, and together, comprised 72 electoral votes, already almost half of the needed 148 to secure a victory. Although both states were highly modernized and somewhat industrialized, however less so than the New England states, the frontier and rural regions of both states were yeomanry strongholds for the Democratic Party that prevented the Whigs from dominating these states as they did in the much of pro-big business New England; therefore the endorsements of newspapers in New York and Philadelphia were essential for Johnson and the Democratic Party’s election hopes. Even though the more Northern Democrats were less reliable when it came to states’ rights, slavery, and free trade, the big three issues that united Southern Democrats, the general willingness of Northern Democrats to be accepting of free trade and their pro-agrarian attitudes than the modernize, industrialize, and tariff-raising policies of the Whigs kept the uneasy but still binding alliance of Democrats together.
In a letter to Senator Hugh Lawson White, Senator Henry Clay wrote, “I am confident that the mistake of history[3] will be corrected this election.” Senator White responded, “…indeed, the very salvation of our republic depends upon the defeat of R.M.J. (meaning Richard Mentor Johnson) and the Democratic Party this election.”
By contrast, Richard Johnson wrote a letter to Andrew Jackson concerning the election, “I have been told by our friends that we will win the election handily, and any hopes that Clay might have of instituting the American System will die with my election.” In the week leading up to the end of the election, Martin van Buren, who was in New York for the month long election cycle [4] wrote to Johnson, “I have been informed by our friends here in New York, that we should have an exceptional showing and have thoroughly crushed Webster” (the Whig nominee in the state of New York).
Democratic unity and Whig disunity would prove more decisive than any of the candidates or party positions on a national bank, free trade, slavery, or the Texas War. Democratic unity in the election ensured that ticket of Johnson and van Buren would cruise to an easy victory of their three Whig opponents. Receiving over 750,000 votes, just over 50% of the national popular vote, Johnson had won a decisive victory in the Electoral College with 184 votes of the needed 148 to secure his win. Although the Whigs, when tallied together, put up a good showing for a recently formed party, the inability to create the political machine that the Democrats had done under Jackson’s Presidency gifted the election to the Democrats. Richard Mentor Johnson was now the President-Elect of the United States of America.
Johnson/van Buren: 184 Electoral Votes; 16 states carried; 757,781 popular votes (50.4%)
Clay: 48 Electoral Votes; 4 states carried; 412,219 popular votes (27.4%)
Webster: 36 Electoral Votes; 4 states carried; 189,113 popular votes (12.6%)
White: 26 Electoral Votes; 2 states carried; 144,421 popular votes (9.6%)
[1] The anti-slavery movement in America wasn’t fully integrated with outright abolitionists in a strict sense, and there should be a noted difference between the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements. Initially, the majority of politicians that had supported “anti-slavery” positions really just wanted to contain slavery and not allow it to spread beyond the current slave-holding states as a compromise position for the preservation of the Union. The more radical abolitionists however, wanted nothing more than to see the destruction of this “institutional evil.” Some planned, once the slaves were free, to send them back to Africa (Liberia), one of the major policy positions of the American Colonial Society, which thought that this would provide greater freedom for African Americans since the north was just as racist as the American South, simply not through law but the personal biases and prejudices of northern Americans. When it became clear that the Southern states wanted slavery to be expanded, the anti-slavery positioned balked and compromised to allow slavery’s “popular vote” in territories north of the Missouri Compromise and spelled its doom and allowed for the rise of the abolitionists who would eventually control the debate over slavery in the north.
[2] Once again, read Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton (2005) of which I cannot sing enough praise if one wishes to understand Alexander Hamilton and the formation of the American federal government and political system.
[3]Clay is referencing his belief that the election of Andrew Jackson was a mistake of history. He historically held to this belief in real life and expected to be President in the 1840s.
[4] Unlike today, where American elections are held on a single day, the elections of the early nineteenth century were hold over the course of a month, as the democratic and electoral infrastructure was not as pronounced as it later became to allow for a “fairer” time table of voting. The traditional of voting all on one day emerged later in the nineteenth century when voting was more accessible and more polling stations were more widespread. However, the month long voting method allowed for higher degrees of election fraud, as voters would return to vote again (having shaved or changed their appearance). Election controls were virtually nonexistent in the early nineteenth century. There are stories of elected officials winning by more votes than there were voters in a district.
INTRO PART III: The Election of 1836
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself.
-Alexander Hamilton, American economist, philosopher, and Founding Father.
The election of 1836 was highly contentious and fractionalized, and saw the rise of mass partisan journalism as newspapers and primitive magazines started to endorse candidates, parties, and engage in political attack ads via political cartoons. Jacksonian democracy was entering its adulthood, and hundreds of thousands of new voters were anxious to head to the voting booths come Election Day to cast their vote, or votes, for their favored candidate and party.
The inability of the Whigs to nationalize fast enough to produce a national body meant that pro-Whig newspapers were running endorsements for particular candidates in their regional operation centers. Hugh Lawson White in the south, Henry Clay in the west, and Daniel Webster in New England, all newspapers essentially endorsed the Whig platform that was uniform, but several the candidates themselves were more split on the important issues in the election. As mentioned, Texas was the hot topic, in part because many Americans saw Texas as a part of the United States, culturally and religiously homogenous to the American states than with the rest of Mexico. Secondly, Texas was perceived as a front for the expansion of slavery, Texas entering the Union would all but certainly enter as a slave state and continue to allow the Southern slave-holding states to maintain their majority of power in American politics through the near uniform Senate appointment of slavery defending politicians.
An anti-Johnson political cartoon, highlighting some of his believed "scandalous" relationships with his slaves.
At this time in American social and reformist movements, although there was an abolitionist movement in the country, it was nowhere near the power and might that it would grow to in the coming decades. Politicians that may have quietly supported slavery containment [1] or abolitionist policies often ranked the issue of slavery below issues of economics, trade, and industrial development. For the small number of Americans who did see abolitionism as their first and only cause to champion, they were often castigated to the peripheries of American political life or otherwise had little effect on the current political process and had turned to media printing to advance their cause. The Whigs had a sizeable base of anti-Jackson support in the south, mostly from wealthy landed “aristocrats” (in the American sense) who were opposed to the mass democratic appeal and participation of people whom they feared would overturn their economic fortunes. Also, a small minority of Southerners had agreed with the Hamiltonian program of industrialization instead of the Jeffersonian ideal of agrarianism, and also naturally came to support the Whig Party. Lastly, some of the more radical republicans who were descendants of the anti-federalists were frightened by the encroaching power of the Presidency under Jackson and had come to align themselves with the more liberal faction of the Whig Party.
Concerning Texas and the issue of slavery, Henry Clay was mute at best, or willing to compromise with pro-slavery politicians at worst – always in the defense of the preservation of the Union. It should be noted however, that Clay’s Unionism outweighed his soft abolitionism. Although himself a slaveholder, he was a founder of the American Colonial Society and would later free his slaves in his will. Hugh Lawson White was the champion of the liberal wing, but quietly supported that “immoral institutional” as he was a Southerner who didn’t risk alienate his base of support. In the north, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was the most outspoken of the Whig candidates over slavery, and had declared that he had no intention of going to war in Texas to allow the expansion of slavery as Texas would enter a slave-holding state, or worst, that additional territories would eventually apply for statehood as slave-holding states.
Overall, slavery was an issue that was more deeply contested within the Whig Party than in the Democratic Party. While northern Democrats were generally seen as being neutral on slavery but always willing to compromise with their southern colleagues for the sack of party unity, the Whigs were divided into three camps on slavery as evidenced above by all three regional candidates. The first group supported slavery, mostly being southern Whigs that were champions of Congressional authority over the powers of the Presidency which Jackson was a chief culprit in expanding the power of the Executive Branch (precisely because they also feared a strong executive as promoting and championing abolitionism in the future), which worried some Democrats from the anti-federalist position, and with the creation of the Whig Party joined with them as natural opposition to Jackson. The second camp was comprised of the so-called “Conscience Whigs” who formed in opposition to the anti-Jackson Democrats who had joined the Whig Party and had dubbed the pro-slavery Whigs “Cotton Whigs.” These bands of Whigs generally came out of the northeast and had very strong pro-federalist and pro-business leanings as well and were the truest heirs to the Hamiltonian tradition. The third group, of which Henry Clay was part of, was more nuanced on the issue. Some may have been against the institution but their opposition to slavery ranked at the bottom of their concerns. Most Whigs placed economic nationalism, industrial modernization, and unionism at the top of their priorities and were generally silent or ambiguous over slavery, and were almost always willing to compromise but only for the preservation of the Union. One could say that this group was itself the most Hamiltonian in political theory – even though Hamilton himself was one of the more ardent abolitionists among the Founding Fathers, going as far as opposing the constitutional amendments concerning slavery during the Convention [2]. This ambiguity over slavery also hampered the Whigs as questions of Texas were almost immediately followed by questions regarding slavery.
A Whig pamphlet for a meeting in New York. The problem was for the Whigs, local meetings and media endorsements of different candidates effectively created three independent Whig Parties running a candidate, rather than a unified party platform that just had 3 representatives running on the regional election strategy.
The Democrats, led by Richard Mentor Johnson, didn’t speak much on the issue of slavery or Texas, even though most people knew that the party and Johnson would certainly support the opportunity to see to the expansion of slavery into a new prospective state. Rather than become bogged down by the ongoing tussle over the Texas War, Johnson promised to continue to champion Jacksonian reforms. After all, this seemed to be the most appropriate stance to take in the election. President Jackson was still highly popular, and the economic boom of his administration which had taken off since the elimination of the National Bank seemed to bring greater prosperity to the commoner, which was the main base of support for the Democratic Party.
Essentially having co-opted van Buren’s plan to “tread in the footsteps” of Jackson, Johnson was running on highs as the election as he received nearly universal approval among Southern newspapers as well as the important media venues in the Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania and New York. New York and Pennsylvania were the two largest states in the Union, and together, comprised 72 electoral votes, already almost half of the needed 148 to secure a victory. Although both states were highly modernized and somewhat industrialized, however less so than the New England states, the frontier and rural regions of both states were yeomanry strongholds for the Democratic Party that prevented the Whigs from dominating these states as they did in the much of pro-big business New England; therefore the endorsements of newspapers in New York and Philadelphia were essential for Johnson and the Democratic Party’s election hopes. Even though the more Northern Democrats were less reliable when it came to states’ rights, slavery, and free trade, the big three issues that united Southern Democrats, the general willingness of Northern Democrats to be accepting of free trade and their pro-agrarian attitudes than the modernize, industrialize, and tariff-raising policies of the Whigs kept the uneasy but still binding alliance of Democrats together.
In a letter to Senator Hugh Lawson White, Senator Henry Clay wrote, “I am confident that the mistake of history[3] will be corrected this election.” Senator White responded, “…indeed, the very salvation of our republic depends upon the defeat of R.M.J. (meaning Richard Mentor Johnson) and the Democratic Party this election.”
By contrast, Richard Johnson wrote a letter to Andrew Jackson concerning the election, “I have been told by our friends that we will win the election handily, and any hopes that Clay might have of instituting the American System will die with my election.” In the week leading up to the end of the election, Martin van Buren, who was in New York for the month long election cycle [4] wrote to Johnson, “I have been informed by our friends here in New York, that we should have an exceptional showing and have thoroughly crushed Webster” (the Whig nominee in the state of New York).
Democratic unity and Whig disunity would prove more decisive than any of the candidates or party positions on a national bank, free trade, slavery, or the Texas War. Democratic unity in the election ensured that ticket of Johnson and van Buren would cruise to an easy victory of their three Whig opponents. Receiving over 750,000 votes, just over 50% of the national popular vote, Johnson had won a decisive victory in the Electoral College with 184 votes of the needed 148 to secure his win. Although the Whigs, when tallied together, put up a good showing for a recently formed party, the inability to create the political machine that the Democrats had done under Jackson’s Presidency gifted the election to the Democrats. Richard Mentor Johnson was now the President-Elect of the United States of America.
Johnson/van Buren: 184 Electoral Votes; 16 states carried; 757,781 popular votes (50.4%)
Clay: 48 Electoral Votes; 4 states carried; 412,219 popular votes (27.4%)
Webster: 36 Electoral Votes; 4 states carried; 189,113 popular votes (12.6%)
White: 26 Electoral Votes; 2 states carried; 144,421 popular votes (9.6%)
[1] The anti-slavery movement in America wasn’t fully integrated with outright abolitionists in a strict sense, and there should be a noted difference between the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements. Initially, the majority of politicians that had supported “anti-slavery” positions really just wanted to contain slavery and not allow it to spread beyond the current slave-holding states as a compromise position for the preservation of the Union. The more radical abolitionists however, wanted nothing more than to see the destruction of this “institutional evil.” Some planned, once the slaves were free, to send them back to Africa (Liberia), one of the major policy positions of the American Colonial Society, which thought that this would provide greater freedom for African Americans since the north was just as racist as the American South, simply not through law but the personal biases and prejudices of northern Americans. When it became clear that the Southern states wanted slavery to be expanded, the anti-slavery positioned balked and compromised to allow slavery’s “popular vote” in territories north of the Missouri Compromise and spelled its doom and allowed for the rise of the abolitionists who would eventually control the debate over slavery in the north.
[2] Once again, read Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton (2005) of which I cannot sing enough praise if one wishes to understand Alexander Hamilton and the formation of the American federal government and political system.
[3]Clay is referencing his belief that the election of Andrew Jackson was a mistake of history. He historically held to this belief in real life and expected to be President in the 1840s.
[4] Unlike today, where American elections are held on a single day, the elections of the early nineteenth century were hold over the course of a month, as the democratic and electoral infrastructure was not as pronounced as it later became to allow for a “fairer” time table of voting. The traditional of voting all on one day emerged later in the nineteenth century when voting was more accessible and more polling stations were more widespread. However, the month long voting method allowed for higher degrees of election fraud, as voters would return to vote again (having shaved or changed their appearance). Election controls were virtually nonexistent in the early nineteenth century. There are stories of elected officials winning by more votes than there were voters in a district.
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