United States presidential election, 1848

Infobox Election
election_name = United States presidential election, 1848
country = United States
type = presidential
ongoing = no
previous_election = United States presidential election, 1844
previous_year = 1844
next_election = United States presidential election, 1852
next_year = 1852
election_date = November 7, 1848


nominee1 = Zachary Taylor
party1 = Whig Party (United States)
home_state1 = Louisiana
running_mate1 = Millard Fillmore
electoral_vote1 = 163
states_carried1 = 15
popular_vote1 = 1,361,393
percentage1 = 47.3%


nominee2 = Lewis Cass
party2 = Democratic Party (United States)
home_state2 = Michigan
running_mate2 = William Orlando Butler
electoral_vote2 = 127
states_carried2 = 15
popular_vote2 = 1,223,460
percentage2 = 42.5%
map_

---

map_size = 350px
map_caption = Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Cass/Butler, gold denotes those won by Taylor/Fillmore. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
title = President
before_election = James K. Polk
before_party = Democratic Party (United States)
before_color = FF3333
after_election = Zachary Taylor
after_party = Whig Party (United States)
after_color = 990066

The United States presidential election of 1848 was an open race. President James Polk, having achieved virtually all of his objectives in one term and suffering from declining health that would take his life less than four months after leaving office, kept his promise not to seek re-election.

The Whigs in 1846-47 had focused all their energies on condemning Polk's war policies. They had to quickly reverse course. In February 1848 Polk surprised everyone with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war and gave the U.S. vast new territories (including California and most of Arizona and New Mexico). The Whigs in the Senate voted 2-1 to approve the treaty. Then in the summer the Whigs nominated the hero of the war, Zachary Taylor. While he did promise no more future wars, he did not condemn the war or criticize Polk, and Whigs had to follow his lead. They shifted their attention to the new issue of whether slavery could be banned from the new territories. The choice of Taylor was almost in desperation--he was not clearly committed to Whig principles, but he was popular for leading the war effort. The Democrats had a record of victory, peace, prosperity, and the acquisition of both Oregon and the Southwest; they appeared almost certain winners unless the Whigs picked Taylor. Taylor's victory made him one of only two Whigs to be elected President before the party ceased to exist in the 1850's, the other Whig to be elected President was William Henry Harrison, who had also been a general and war hero, but died a month into office.

Nominations

Whig Party nomination

Whig candidates

* Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky
* John M. Clayton, U.S. senator from Delaware
* John McLean, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from Ohio
* Winfield Scott, U.S. General from from New Jersey
* Zachary Taylor, U.S. General from Virginia
* Daniel Webster, U.S. senator from Massachusetts

Candidates gallery

Mexican-American War General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, spurred by his successes on the battlefield but who had never voted in an election himself, was openly courted by both the Democratic and Whig parties. Taylor ultimately declared himself a Whig, and easily took their nomination, receiving 171 delegate votes to defeat Henry Clay, Winfield Scott, Daniel Webster and others. After Webster turned down the vice presidential candidacy, Millard Fillmore received the party's nomination for Vice President.

Free Soil Party nomination

A third party, the Free Soil Party, was organized for the 1848 election to oppose further expansion of slavery into the western territories. Led by Salmon P. Chase and John Parker Hale former President Martin Van Buren defeated Hale by a 154-129 delegate count to capture their nomination, while Charles Francis Adams, the son and grandson of two other presidents, was chosen as the vice presidential nominee.

General election

Campaign

With Taylor remaining vague on the issues, the campaign was dominated by personalities and personal attacks, with the Democrats calling Taylor vulgar, uneducated, cruel and greedy, and the Whigs attacking Cass for graft and dishonesty. The division of the Democrats over slavery allowed Taylor to dominate the Northeast.

Results

With the exception of South Carolina, which left the selection of electors to its legislature, the election of 1848 marked the first time in which every state in the union voted for President and Vice President on the same day: November 7, 1848. Taylor won election over Cass, capturing 163 of the 290 electoral votes cast. However, Taylor won barely more than 47% of the popular vote.

Source (Popular Vote): Leip PV source| year=1848| as of=July 27, 2005

Source (Electoral Vote): National Archives EV source| year=1848| as of=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."

Electoral college selection

* "Massachusetts law provided that the state legislature would choose the Electors if no slate of Electors could command a majority of voters statewide. In 1848, this provision was triggered."

See also

* History of the United States (1789-1849)
* United States House elections, 1848

References

* Graebner, Norman A. "Thomas Corwin and the Election of 1848: A Study in Conservative Politics." "Journal of Southern History", 17 (1951), 162-79.
* Hamilton, Holman. "Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House" reprint 1966.
* Michael F. Holt; "The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War." 1999.
* Nevins, Allan. "Ordeal of the Union: Volume I. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852" 1947.
* Rayback, Joseph A. "Free Soil: The Election of 1848". University Press of Kentucky, 1970.

External links

* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov05.html Library of Congress]
* [http://www.multied.com/elections/1848Pop.html 1848 Election State-by-State popular results]
* [http://www.american-presidents.org/2007/03/election-of-1848.html The Election of 1848]
* [http://www.msu.edu/~sheppa28/elections.html#1848 How close was the 1848 election?] - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

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