United States presidential election, 1848

United States presidential election, 1848

1844 ← November 7, 1848 → 1852

Nominee Zachary Taylor Lewis Cass Martin Van Buren Party Whig Democratic Free Soil Home state Louisiana Michigan New York Running mate Millard Fillmore William O. Butler Charles F. Adams Electoral vote 163 127 0 States carried 15 15 0 Popular vote 1,361,393 1,223,460 291,501 Percentage 47.3% 42.5% 10.1%

Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Cass/Butler, Orange denotes those won by Taylor/Fillmore. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election James K. Polk Democratic Elected President Zachary Taylor Whig

The United States presidential election of 1848 was an open race. President James K. Polk, having achieved all of his major 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 reverse course quickly. In February 1848 Polk surprised everyone with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War and gave the U.S. vast new territories (including California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, 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 Mexican-American War or criticize Polk, and the 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 made almost out of 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. It appeared almost certain that they would win unless the Whigs picked Taylor. His victory made him one of only two Whigs to be elected President before the party ceased to exist in the 1850s; the other 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

• Zachary Taylor, U.S. General from Louisiana
• Henry Clay, former U.S. senator from Kentucky
• Winfield Scott, U.S. General from New Jersey
• Daniel Webster, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
• John Middleton Clayton, U.S. senator from Delaware
• John McLean, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from Ohio

Candidates gallery

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  General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana

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  Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky

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  General Winfield Scott of New Jersey

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  Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts

Grand National Whig banner

Mexican-American War General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, an attractive candidate because of 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.

Convention Presidential vote

Ballots	1	2	3	4
Zachary Taylor	111	118	133	171
Henry Clay	97	86	74	32
Winfield Scott	43	49	54	63
Daniel Webster	22	22	17	14
John Middleton Clayton	4	3	1	0
John McLean	2	1	0	0

Convention Vice Presidential vote

Ballots	1	2
Millard Fillmore	115	173
Abbott Lawrence	109	87
Andrew Stewart	14	0
Thomas M.T. McKennan	13	0
Abstaining	23	6

Democratic Party nomination

Main article: 1848 Democratic National Convention

Democratic candidates:

• Lewis Cass, U.S. senator from Michigan
• Levi Woodbury, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from New Hampshire
• James Buchanan, Secretary of State from Pennsylvania
• Martin Van Buren, former President from New York

Candidates gallery

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  Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan

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  Associate Justice Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire

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  Secretary of State James Buchanan of Pennsylvania

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  Former President Martin Van Buren of New York

Cass/Butler campaign poster

Former President Martin Van Buren once again sought the Democratic nomination, but Lewis Cass was nominated on the fourth ballot. Cass had served as Governor and Senator for Michigan, as well as Secretary of War under Andrew Jackson, and from 1836 to 1842 as ambassador to France. General William Orlando Butler was nominated to join Cass on the ticket, garnering 169 delegate votes to defeat five other candidates, including future Vice President William R. King and future Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

The Democrats chose a platform that remained silent on slavery, and with Cass suspected of pro-slavery leanings, many anti-slavery Democrats walked out of the Baltimore convention to begin the Free Soil party. Van Buren had burned for the nomination, but he had wanted it on a Free Soil platform. Neither his name nor his stand had received any support at the Democratic convention. Exactly one month later, on June 22, 1848, the Free Soil party met in convention and nominated Van Buren. He knew that the Free Soilers had not the slightest chance of winning; he knew 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 his life had been built upon the rock of party solidarity and party regularity. He loathed Lewis Cass and Popular Sovereignty with equal intensity.

Convention Presidential vote

Ballots	1	2	3	4
Lewis Cass	125	133	156	179
Levi Woodbury	53	56	53	38
James Buchanan	55	54	39	33
John C. Calhoun	9	0	0	0
William Jenkins Worth	6	6	5	1
George M. Dallas	3	3	0	0
William Orlando Butler	0	0	0	4
Abstaining	39	38	37	35

Convention Vice Presidential vote

Ballots	1	2 Before shifts	2 After shifts
William Orlando Butler	114	169	290
John A. Quitman	74	62	0
William R. King	26	8	0
John Y. Mason	24	3	0
James Iver McKay	13	11	0
Jefferson Davis	1	0	0

Free Soil Party nomination

Van Buren/Adams

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

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  Former President Martin Van Buren of New York

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  Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire

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  Representative Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio

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  Former State Senator Charles Francis Adams, Sr. of Massachusetts

Convention vote

Presidential vote		Vice Presidential vote
Martin Van Buren	244	Charles Francis Adams, Sr.	467
John Parker Hale	183
Joshua R. Giddings	23
Charles Francis Adams, Sr.	13
Others	4

General election

Campaign

Across the land, Whig campaigners such as Abraham Lincoln 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.

• 1848 Campaign Artwork
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  Artwork for "Fort Harrison March," a campaign song for Zachary Taylor's presidential campaign which recalled his triumph at the Siege of Fort Harrison in 1812.

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  Political cartoon about the election campaign, titled "Shooting the Christmas Turkey"

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  "Grand Presidential sweep-stakes" - political cartoon of the three main candidates

Results

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of yellow are for Taylor (Whig), shades of blue are for Cass (Democrat), and shades of red are for Van Buren (Free Soil).

"Cock of the walk" - Zachary Taylor as victor

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 the election over Cass, capturing 163 of the 290 electoral votes cast. However, Taylor won barely more than 47% of the popular vote, mainly because of the 10% the Free Soil Party had won.

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote(a)		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Pct		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Elect. vote
Zachary Taylor	Whig	Louisiana	1,361,393	47.3%	163	Millard Fillmore	New York	163
Lewis Cass	Democratic	Michigan	1,223,460	42.5%	127	William Orlando Butler	Kentucky	127
Martin Van Buren	Free Soil	New York	291,501	10.1%	0	Charles Francis Adams, Sr.	Massachusetts	0
Gerrit Smith	Liberty	New York	2,545	0.1%	0	Charles C. Foote	Michigan	0
Other			285	0.0%	—	Other		—
Total			2,879,184	100%	290			290
Needed to win					146			146

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1848 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005). Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (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

Method of choosing Electors	State(s)
Each Elector appointed by state legislature	South Carolina
Each Elector chosen by voters statewide	(all other States) *

* 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

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• Second Party System
• History of the United States (1789-1849)
• United States House elections, 1848

Bibliography

• Blue, Frederick J. The Free Soilers: Third Party Politics, 1848–54 (1973).
• Boritt, G. S. "Lincoln's Opposition to the Mexican War," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society Vol. 67, No. 1, Abraham Lincoln Issue (Feb., 1974), pp. 79-100 in JSTOR
• Earle, Jonathan H. Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1828–1854 (2004).
• Eyal, Yonatan. "The 'Party Period' Framework and the Election of 1848", Reviews in American History Volume 38, Number 1, March 2010, in Project Muse
• Graebner, Norman A. "Thomas Corwin and the Election of 1848: A Study in Conservative Politics." Journal of Southern History, 17 (1951), 162-79. in JSTOR
• Hamilton, Holman. Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House (1951)
• Holt; Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. (1999). online edition
• Morrison, Michael A. "New Territory versus No Territory": The Whig Party and the Politics of Western Expansion, 1846-1848," Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 25-51 in JSTOR
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: Volume I. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852 (1947).
• Rayback, Joseph A. Free Soil: The Election of 1848. (1970).
• Silbey, Joel H. Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848 (2009). 205 pp.

External links

• Library of Congress
• 1848 Election State-by-State popular results
• The Election of 1848
• How close was the 1848 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology