United States presidential election, 1852

The United States presidential election of 1852 was held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852, and featured a contest between Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire and General Winfield Scott of Virginia on the Whig ticket. Pierce won a lopsided victory over Scott in the Electoral College, although the popular vote was much more evenly split.

The incumbent (Whig) President, Millard Fillmore, was not sufficiently popular within the party, due to his support for and enforcement of the Compromise of 1850, which anti-slavery Whigs opposed; both Scott and Pierce were chosen in the hope that they could appeal to the Northern and Southern wings of their respective parties. Prior to the election, neither man had been especially noteworthy politically, nor had they been strongly associated with either side in the sectional conflicts of the day.^[1]

The election was the last in which the Whig Party was a serious contender in national politics, as sectional disputes over the westward extension of slavery would soon cause it to break apart. It was also the last presidential election before the appearance of the Republican Party. For this reason, American political historians often mark 1852 as the end of the "Second Party System," which had begun in 1828 with the election of Andrew Jackson.

Democratic Party nomination

Following the controversy over the Compromise of 1850, Democratic leaders sought to reunite the party by nominating a Northern candidate and a Southern running mate, neither of whom had been absolutely opposed to the Compromise. As 1852 began, leading contenders for the nomination included Senators Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Lewis Cass of Michigan, and Sam Houston of Texas; former Secretary of State James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; and former Secretary of War William L. Marcy of New York. Of these, Douglas and Buchanan were the apparent frontrunners, but each was ultimately unable to unite a majority of the party behind him. With the more obvious candidates canceling each other out, Democrats began seeking a "dark horse," and by March a movement had emerged in favor of Franklin Pierce, a former U.S. senator from New Hampshire who had distinguished himself in the Mexican War. To his supporters, Pierce's chief qualifications were that he was much younger than the other candidates (except for Douglas), was personally amiable and had not alienated large sections of the party, and stood for enforcement of the Compromise of 1850 (including the Fugitive Slave Act). At the Democratic convention in Baltimore in early June, Pierce was not initially put forth as a candidate, but once the others failed to gain a majority, he was, as planned, put forward as an alternative, and won on the 49th ballot. William R. King, a former U.S. senator from Alabama, was nominated for Vice-President.

Whig Party nomination

By 1852, the Whigs were even more seriously divided than the Democrats, their Northern wing being much stronger than that of the Democrats. Due to his determination to enforce the Compromise, Millard Fillmore, despite being the incumbent President, faced serious opposition from the party's anti-slavery element, and though he campaigned for nomination (and had the support of many Southern Whigs), he could not command a majority. Current Secretary of State Daniel Webster of Massachusetts made his own bid, but was in poor health (he would in fact die prior to the general election) and found little concrete support outside New England. By late spring, in an effort to repeat its success in 1840 and 1848, Whig leaders had coalesced around a military hero: General Winfield Scott, who had led the successful campaign against Mexico City in the Mexican War. As a career U.S. Army officer, Scott, though a native of Virginia, was not strongly tied to any state or section, and in the past had made comments that seemed to endorse the gradual abolition of slavery; he was therefore acceptable to Northern Whigs, and their Southern counterparts lacked the numbers and organization to effectively oppose him. The Whig convention met in Baltimore two weeks after the Democrats, and after a long deadlock between Fillmore and Scott, the general was finally nominated on the 53rd ballot, with current Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham of North Carolina chosen as Scott's running mate.

Fall Campaign

Most observers predicted early on that the general election would end in a Democratic victory. Though the nomination contests had revealed a lack of decisive leadership in both parties, the Democrats had mostly overcome their internal divisions over slavery and the Compromise of 1850, and united behind Pierce; the party machinery, including his rivals for the nomination, campaigned effectively on his behalf throughout the country, and successfully appealed to the large contingents of recent Irish and German immigrants. Pierce also refrained from committing himself on such controversial issues as slavery, the tariff, and homestead legislation.

By contrast, the Whigs were in personal and political disarray. Both Fillmore and Webster, bitter over losing the nomination, failed to campaign strenuously for Scott; and the Northern and Southern wings were drifting further apart on the slavery issue. Though most stayed loyal to the party during the election, there were significant defections on both sides: hard-core opponents of slavery's westward expansion, angered that the Compromise had not explicitly barred slavery from the Utah and New Mexico Territories, broke away to join the Free Soil Party, which nominated Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire for President; meanwhile, a smaller group of Southern Whigs, believing Scott insufficiently devoted to upholding the Compromise, bolted and formed the Southern Rights Party, with former Georgia Senator George Troup as their presidential nominee.

This disunity doomed any chance Scott might have had of winning the election. His speech-making was considered effective, and he was able to win over some industrial workers with his position on the tariff issue; but these factors were not sufficient to alter the outcome, and anti-immigration statements he had made in the past were used against him. Attacks on Pierce as a drunkard, though they gained credence later, were likewise ineffective.

Results

The results of the election, held on November 2, were as follows:

Scott's 42 electoral votes came from four states: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Vermont. All other states gave their electoral votes to Pierce. The extent of Pierce's victory in the Electoral College gave an inflated view of his real popularity, as his margin of the popular vote compared to Scott was actually rather narrow in many states; in seven states, it was less than 5%. Democratic victory was more a reflection of the strength of their party, and the weakness of the Whigs. The Free Soil Party received no electoral votes, but did win nearly 5% of all ballots cast; had its voters remained with the Whigs, Scott would have won Connecticut, Delaware, and Ohio, and an extra 32 electoral votes.^[2]

The most obvious, and significant, result of the election was the rapid disintegration of the Whig Party. Beyond its lopsided defeat in the presidential contest, it suffered serious losses in the congressional races, with the Democrats now holding decisive majorities in both houses; and it was more divided than ever into Northern and Southern wings. Indiana Whig politician Schuyler Colfax wrote after the election that his party "seems almost annihilated," and one New York Whig remarked that "There may be no political future for us..." Politicians identifying as Whigs would be active in national affairs for some time to come, and the party officially existed until 1856; but it ceased to be an effective organization after this time.^[3]

On the surface, Pierce and the Democrats appeared to have won an overwhelming victory. Despite the temporary unity they had achieved, though, tensions between Northern and Southern members continued here as well, with radical abolitionists and States' Rights advocates refusing to compromise and demanding that the party be bent to their will. This was the prelude to an internal crisis over the slavery question, and the organization of the Republican Party, in the mid-1850s.