Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 1848 in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War. General Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Senator Lewis Cass of the Democratic Party.Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: Volume I. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852 (1947).
Despite his unclear political alignment and Whig opposition to the Mexican–American War in which Taylor had led American forces to victory, the 1848 Whig National Convention nominated the popular general over party stalwarts Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. For vice president, the Whigs nominated Millard Fillmore from New York, known for moderate views on slavery. Incumbent President James K. Polk, a Democrat, as he promised in his inaugural address refused to seek re-election. The 1848 Democratic National Convention nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan after former President Martin Van Buren withdrew his bid for a third and nonconsecutive nomination over a platform dispute. Van Buren, from New York, instead broke from the Democratic Party to win the nomination of the Free Soil Party, which opposed the extension of slavery into the territories.
The Democrats had a record of prosperity and had acquired vast lands including Texas, the Mexican Cession, and the southern portion of the Oregon Country. They appeared certain to win unless the Whigs masked their prior opposition to the successful war by nominating Taylor. Taylor won a popular plurality and an electoral majority, while Van Buren won 10.1% of the popular vote, a strong showing for a third party candidate.
Taylor was the second and final member of the Whig Party to win a Presidential election, following fellow general William Henry Harrison's victory in 1840. Like Harrison, Taylor died in office, and was succeeded by Fillmore. The Whig Party would later permanently disband after the 1856 Election. Notably this was the last presidential election in which a southerner won until Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912.
Nominations
Whig Party nomination
1848 Whig Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President Major generalof the United States Army(1846–1849) 14thNew York State Comptroller(1848–1849)
The Whig Party held its national convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with delegates from every state except for Texas although the Texas Whigs had selected to make the Louisiana delegates their proxies. Henry Clay, Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor, and Daniel Webster sought the presidential nomination and Taylor led on every ballot before winning on the fourth ballot. After Webster turned down the vice presidential candidacy, Millard Fillmore received the party's vice-presidential nomination on the second ballot after defeating Abbott Lawrence, a Massachusetts politician whose mild opposition to slavery led him to be dubbed a "Cotton Whig". An attempt was made to make both nominations unanimous, but it was unsuccessful due to Taylor's support for the Whig Party being seen as dubious.
Democratic Party nomination
1848 Democratic Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President U.S. Senator from Michigan(1845–1848) U.S. Representativefor Kentucky's 13th(1839–1843)
The Democratic Party held its national convention in Baltimore, Maryland. There was a credentials dispute over the New York delegation between the Barnburners and Hunkers factions with the Barnburners being anti-slavery. The delegates voted 126 to 125 to seat both delegations and share their control of New York's votes, but the Barnburners left the convention in disagreement with the compromise while the Hunkers refused to vote. The withdrawal of the Barnburners effectively removed former President Martin Van Buren, who had already become unenthusiastic about trying to win the party's nomination after the convention had voted to endorse a platform supporting popular sovereignty, from contention.
As a result of Van Buren's withdrawal, U.S. Senator Lewis Cass and Secretary of State James Buchanan were seen as the only serious contenders for the presidential nomination, with a draft effort also focusing on Supreme Court associate justice Levi Woodbury. In stark contrast to the highly contested and protracted convention at the previous election, Cass held a wide lead on all four ballots, only being denied victory on the third due to the convention rules requiring a two-thirds majority, before the Buchanan and Woodbury campaigns quietly released enough delegates to allow Cass victory on the fourth ballot. William Orlando Butler won the vice-presidential nomination on the second ballot against John A. Quitman.
Free Soil Party nomination
1848 Free Soil Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President 8thPresident of the United States(1837–1841) Massachusetts State Senator(1844–1845)
Members of the Whig Party who opposed slavery, New York Barnburners, and members of the Liberty Party met in August 1848 in Buffalo, New York, to found a new political party. The Barnburners made a call for the formation of an anti-slavery party at their conclave in June, and by the People's Convention of Friends of Free Territory, which was organized by Salmon P. Chase, in Columbus, Ohio. The convention was attended by 165 delegates from eight states to form the Free Soil Party.
Van Buren won the party's presidential nomination against John P. Hale on the first ballot with 244 votes against Hale's 181 votes. Hale had been nominated by the Liberty Party in October 1847, but withdrew from the election after the Free Soil Party gave its presidential nomination to Van Buren. Charles Francis Adams Sr. won the party's vice-presidential nomination.
Van Buren knew that the Free Soilers had not the slightest chance of winning, rather that his candidacy would split the Democratic vote and throw the election to the Whigs. Bitter and aging, Van Buren did not care despite the fact that his life had been built upon the rock of party solidarity and party regularity. He loathed Lewis Cass and the principle of popular sovereignty with equal intensity.They Also Ran, Irving Stone, pg. 263
Liberty Party nomination
1848 Liberty Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President Philanthropistfrom New York Ministerfrom Michigan Despite their significant showing in the prior presidential election, certain events would conspire to remove the Liberty Party from political significance.
Initially, the party's presidential nomination was to be decided in the fall of 1847 at a Convention in Buffalo, New York. There, Senator John P. Hale was nominated for president over Gerrit Smith, brother-in-law to the party's previous presidential nominee James G. Birney. Leicester King, a former judge and state senator in Ohio, was nominated for vice president. Anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs, disappointed with their respective nominees, would form a new movement in conjunction with members of the Liberty Party such as John Hale and Salmon Chase to form the Free Soil Party that summer. At this point, both Hale and King withdrew in favor of a Free Soil ticket led by former President Martin Van Buren, and the great majority of members of the Liberty Party followed them into the new political party.
A small faction refused to support Van Buren for the presidency, however. They held another convention in June 1848 as the "National Liberty Party." Gerrit Smith was nominated for president with Charles C. Foote, a Presbyterian minister from Michigan, as his vice presidential running mate.
+ Convention vote Presidential vote Vice presidential vote Gerrit Smith 99 Charles C. Foote 44 Beriah Green 2 George Bradburn 12 Frederick Douglass 1 Samuel Ringgold Ward 12 Charles C. Foote 1 Lucretia Mott 5 Amos A. Sampson 1 John Curtis 3 Beriah Green 3 Charles O. Shepard 3 Frederick Douglass 1 Edward Smith 1
Other nominations
The Native American Party, a precursor to the Know Nothings, which had split from the Whig Party in 1845, met in September 1847 in Philadelphia, where they nominated Zachary Taylor for president and Henry A. S. Dearborn of Massachusetts for vice president. However, when the Whig Party nominated Taylor for the presidency with Millard Fillmore as his running mate the following year, this rendered his previous nomination moot and the Native American Party failed to make an alternate nomination.
The 3rd National Industrial Congress took place at Philadelphia on June 7, 1848. The gathering was attended by delegates of the National Reform Association, as well as by representatives of other socialist and radical groups, including the Fourierist American Union of Associationists, the German-American Social Reform Association, and veterans of the Dorrite, Owenite, and Chartist movements. The delegates nominated Gerrit Smith for president and William S. Waite for vice president; the platform paired the NRA's signature issue, land reform, with resolutions endorsing consumer cooperatives, direct democracy, labor rights, and opposing federal subsidies to fund the transcontinental railroad. Waite subsequently declined the vice-presidential nomination and was replaced on the ticket by Charles C. Foote.
General election
Campaign The campaign was fought without much enthusiasm, and practically without an issue. Neither of the two great parties made an effort to rally the people to the defense of any important principle.
Whig campaigners, who included future presidents Abraham Lincoln and Rutherford B. Hayes, talked up Taylor's "antiparty" opposition to the Jacksonian commitment to the spoils system and yellow-dog partisanship. In the South, they stressed that he was a Louisiana slaveholder, while in the North they highlighted his Whiggish willingness to defer to Congress on major issues (which he subsequently did not do).
Democrats repeated, as they had for many years, their opposition to a national bank, high tariffs, and federal subsidies for local improvements. The Free Soilers branded both major parties lackeys of the Slave Power, arguing that the rich planters controlled the agenda of both parties, leaving the ordinary white man out of the picture. They had to work around Van Buren's well-known reputation for compromising with slavery.
The Whigs had the advantage of highlighting Taylor's military glories. 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.Silbey (2009)
The Free Soilers were on the ballots in only 17 of the 29 states with the popular vote, making it mathematically possible for Van Buren to win the presidency, but he had no real chance. Still, the party campaigned vigorously, particularly in the traditional Democratic strongholds in the northeast.
While some Free Soilers were hopeful of taking enough states to throw the election into the House of Representatives, Van Buren himself knew this was a long shot and that the best that his party could do was lay the groundwork for a hopefully improved showing in 1852.
1848 campaign artwork
Records This was the first time in the Second Party System in which the victorious party failed to gain at least a plurality of the counties as well as of the popular vote.
This was the last election in which Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island voted for the Whigs. It was also the last time that Georgia voted against the Democrats until 1964, the last time Delaware and Louisiana did so until 1872, and the last time Florida and North Carolina did so until 1868.