Today our national political conventions are really dull affairs unless you are a complete political junkie. The presidential nominee is selected well in advance. The only drama concerns the vice presidential candidate, unless that has been pre-selected also. The last time a political party needed more than one ballot to select their candidate was in 1956. That year the Democrats needed three ballots to nominate Estes Kefauver over John F. Kennedy for vice president. In the 19th and early 20th century, it often took more than one ballot for a party to select a nominee. If the it took many ballots it usually met that the party was in trouble. If both parties took many ballots, it often met that the country was in trouble. That was the case in 1852. The slavery issue was ripping the country apart, and all the politicians knew it. The Whig Party Nomination The Whig Party needed 53 ballots to select a presidential candidate. The leading contenders were the sitting president, Millard Filmore and General Winfield Scott with old warhorse, Daniel Webster, a distant third. Filmore viewed the Compromise of 1850 as the great achievement of his administration. The problem with that was the Fugitive Slave Law, which required northern officials to return runaway slaves to their southern masters. It was deeply divisive and unpopular in the North. Winfield Scott was one of the two great heroes from the Mexican War. The late Zachary Taylor had been the other one. Scott was the greatest American military officer at the time. He had been a hero during the war of 1812 and had only built on his reputation since then. BUT he opposed slavery. Ultimately Scott swallowed hard and said he supported the Fugitive Slave Law. The Democratic Party Nomination The Democrats needed 49 ballots to find a nominee. The front runners were Lewis Cass, who had lost in 1884, James Buchanan and a newcomer, Senator Stephen Douglas from Illinois. After none of them could get the required two-thirds vote for the nomination, Franklin Piece had his name appear on the 35th ballot. He won the top spot 14 ballots later. Piece was the darkest of all the dark horse candidates. He had not held pubic office in ten years, although his career had had an impressive start. Piece won a seat in the New Hampshire legislature when he was 25 years old. He became that body’s Speaker at age 27. From there he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and then the Senate. Piece enjoyed politics and the drinking parties that surrounded it. His wife, Jane, did not. She was a strait-laced preacher’s daughter. She didn’t the parties and the drinking. Ultimately, she made Frank resign from the Senate and return to New Hampshire to practice law. Frank didn’t like that. He constantly had his fingers in politics. In 1852 he quietly told other Democrats that he was “available” as a presidential nominee if the opportunity arose. Surprising the chance came, and Franklin Pierce won the nomination. Jane didn’t know about it until Frank had won it. She was not pleased. The Campaign The presidential campaign stayed away from the thorny issue of slavery. It was mostly made up of slogans and images. Franklin Piece was the youngest man to run for president up until that time. He was regarded as a good looking man, and some called him “Handsome Frank.” Harking back to Andrew Jackson, he was also called “The Young Hickory of the granite hills.” The Democrats’ best slogan was “We poked ‘em in ’44; we’ll piece ‘em in ’52.” Winfield Scott emphasized his war record. He had led attacks on the British during the War of 1912 and had been wounded at a placed called Lundy’s Lane. The Whigs issued a medalet that commemorated that. Most of Scott’s tokens included the lists of battle he had won during the Mexican War. Here are two very different looking medals that were struck from the same die pair. The first one, in white metal, was issued during the campaign. It has a hole so that it could be worn on a ribbon or string. The second one was struck in bronze, circa 1860, for collectors. It has no hole and every effort was made to make it as attractive as possible. Neither of these pieces are easy to find although purist collectors would prefer the first one which is probably quite rare. This piece was more typical of the items that were issued during the campaign. It is holed and made of brass. Franklin Pierce tried to make himself into a Mexican War hero, but that got him into some trouble. In the 19th century, claiming war hero status as a general was very valuable for a presidential candidate. The trouble was Piece had jammed his groin into the horn of his saddle which left him with a painful injury. After that he passed out from sun stroke a couple of times in the Mexican heat. The Whigs picked up on that, and had some unkind things to say about it. Here is a very rare "General Franklin Piece" medalet. The Whigs cited Pierce's drinking problems with the slogan, "The general who never lost a bottle." Another slogan referred to him as “fainting general.” The most devastating commentary of all was printed in a Kentucky newspaper, The Lewisville Journal. “Pierce tumbled from his horse just as he was getting ready for one fight … fainted and fell in the opening of the second … got sick and had to go to bed on the eve of the third, and came pretty near to getting into a fourth, missing it only by an hour.” The Whigs thought that they were quite clever when the published a book The Military Services of General Piece. It was an inch high and half an inch thick. Although the Piece campaign issued few varieties of tokens, they issued them in quantity. Therefore pieces like this are fairly common. Franklin Piece won the 1852 presidential election by a wide margin. He captured 254 electoral votes to just 42 for Scott. After the election, the Whig Party broke into to pieces. Many Whigs joined the Republican Party which was able to field a credible presidential candidate in 1856. As for the Piece presidency, it did not work out well. Historians rate him next to the bottom as president. Only James Buchanan is held in lower regard. If you like I can expand upon that in a subsequent post.
Thank you. I was wondering when I read the article at the end, I wonder what the historical ranking of Herbert Hoover would be? Just curious, it is always a joy to read your articles.
Hoover has consistently ranked as a low average president. The initial economic downturn was not his fault. He took office on March 4, 1929. Things went bad staring at the end of October. The problems and excess of agriculture products which depressed prices. Stock investors borrowed too much to buy stocks. They pumped up the market with borrowed funds which lead to speculate prices. Hoover signed the Smoot - Harley Tariff which discouraged world trade. Some argued that corporations did not share high profits by paying high wages to their employees. Hoover’s responses were too conservative and too small. Some have characterized his policy as “New Deal light.” Hoover also exhibited a sour demeanor. Unlike Franklin Roosevelt, he did not exude confidence. Hoover took the blame for the Great Depression, and ended his presidency. Hoover was a very bright man (He was a great engineer.) who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Thank you for your response. I have read quite a lot about him, and your last sentence I have never read of him being characterized this way. I have no doubt it is a very good description of him and his term in office. FDR and Churchill are very often referred to as being in the right place at the right time.
Very interesting. It seems the the most important quality of a candidate during this period was not his qualifications, but who would offend the least number of voters.
The big problem for Winfield Scott was that the Whig Party was dying under his feet. The party was splitting in half as the southern and northern Whigs were parting company. Scott tried to appeal to German immigrants by pledging that he would push to make them citizens if they joined the military. His supporters made the point that Scott’s daughter was a Catholic who had become a nun. That may have backfired because the nativist sentiment was growing in the U.S. at the time. The American or “Know Nothing” Party would reach its peak in the mid 1850s. Overall the Democratic Party simply had a natural majority prior to the Civil War. It took special circumstances for a Whig to win the presidency during that time. In 1840, the William Henry Harrison supporters put out a huge effect to get him elected. They also had the advantage of a bad economic depression which had begun under the Democrats in 1837 and was still going strong. In 1848, Zachary Taylor was coming off his triumph in the Mexican War.
One of Hoover's comments was that he needed some way to lift the country's spirts. He talked about finding some joke that could get the people to laugh and lighten up. Here is one of Hoover's campaign buttons, which is quite typical of the image he projected. Does this look like a guy who could crack a joke?
