1836 United States presidential election

The 1836 United States presidential election was the 13th quadrennial presidential election, held from Thursday, November 3 to Wednesday, December 7, 1836. In the third consecutive election victory for the Democratic Party, incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren defeated four candidates fielded by the nascent Whig Party.

1836 United States presidential election

  • November 3 – December 7, 1836

294 members of the Electoral College
148 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout56.5%[1] Decrease 0.5 pp
 
Nominee Martin Van Buren William Henry Harrison Hugh L. White
Party Democratic Whig Whig
Alliance Anti-Masonic
Home state New York Ohio Tennessee
Running mate Richard M. Johnson Francis Granger John Tyler
Electoral vote 170 73 26
States carried 15 7 2
Popular vote 764,176 550,816 146,109
Percentage 50.8% 36.6% 9.7%

 
Nominee Daniel Webster Willie P. Mangum
Party Whig Whig
Alliance Nullifier
Home state Massachusetts North Carolina
Running mate Francis Granger John Tyler
Electoral vote 14 11
States carried 1 1
Popular vote 41,201 N/A
Percentage 2.7% N/A

Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Van Buren and Johnson or Smith, pale grey-purple denotes those won by Harrison and Granger or Tyler, purple denotes those won by White/Tyler, coral pink denotes those won by Webster/Granger, and bluegrass green denotes those won by Mangum/Tyler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election

Andrew Jackson
Democratic

Elected President

Martin Van Buren
Democratic

1837 contingent U.S. vice presidential election
February 8, 1837

52 United States Senators
27 votes needed to win
 
Candidate Richard M. Johnson Francis Granger
Party Democratic Whig
Senate vote 33 16
Percentage 63.46% 30.77%

The 1835 Democratic National Convention chose a ticket of Van Buren (President Andrew Jackson's handpicked successor) and U.S. Representative Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. The Whig Party, which had only recently emerged and was primarily united by opposition to Jackson, was not yet sufficiently organized to agree on a single candidate. Hoping to compel a contingent election in the House of Representatives by denying the Democrats an electoral majority, the Whigs ran multiple candidates. Most Northern and border state Whigs supported the ticket led by former Senator William Henry Harrison of Ohio, while most Southern Whigs supported the ticket led by Senator Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee. Two other Whigs, Daniel Webster and Willie Person Mangum, carried Massachusetts and South Carolina respectively on single-state tickets.

Despite facing multiple candidates, Van Buren won a majority of the electoral vote, and he won a majority of the popular vote in both the North and the South. Nonetheless, the Whig strategy came very close to success, as Van Buren won the decisive state of Pennsylvania by just over two points. As Virginia's electors voted for Van Buren but refused to vote for Johnson, Johnson fell one vote short of an electoral majority, compelling a contingent election for vice president. In that contingent election, the United States Senate elected Johnson over Harrison's running mate, Francis Granger, on the first ballot.

Van Buren was the third incumbent vice president to win election as president, an event which would not happen again until 1988, when George H. W. Bush was elected president. Harrison finished second in both the popular and electoral vote, and his strong performance helped him win the Whig nomination in the 1840 presidential election. The election of 1836 was crucial in developing the Second Party System and a stable two-party system more generally. By the end of the election, nearly every independent faction had been absorbed by either the Democrats or the Whigs.[2]

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

1836 Democratic Party ticket
Martin Van Buren Richard M. Johnson
for President for Vice President
8th
vice president of the United States
(1833–1837)
U.S. representative
for Kentucky's 13th
(1833–1837)
Andrew Jackson, the incumbent president in 1836, whose second term expired on March 4, 1837

The 1835 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland, from 20–22 May 1835. The early date of the convention was selected by President Andrew Jackson to prevent the formation of opposition to Martin Van Buren. Twenty-two states and two territories were represented at the convention with Alabama, Illinois, and South Carolina being unrepresented. The delegate amount per state varied from Maryland having 188 delegates to cast its ten votes while Tennessee's fifteen votes were cast by one delegate.[3]

The convention saw the first credentials dispute in American history with two rival delegations from Pennsylvania claiming the state's votes. The issue was solved by seating both delegations and having them share the state's votes. An attempt to remove the two-thirds requirement for the selection of a candidate was passed by a vote of 231 to 210, but was later restored through a voice vote.[3]

Some Southerners opposed Johnson's nomination, due to his open relationship with an enslaved woman, whom he had regarded as his common-law wife. At the convention, Van Buren was nominated unanimously with all 265 delegates in favor, but the Virginia delegates supported Senator William Cabell Rives against Johnson. However, Rives got little support and Johnson was nominated with one more vote than the two-thirds requirement.[4][3]

Convention vote
Presidential vote Vice Presidential vote
Martin Van Buren 265 Richard M. Johnson 178
William C. Rives 87

Whig Party nomination

Whig presidential candidates
William Henry Harrison
Former U.S. Senator from Ohio
Daniel Webster
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
Hugh L. White
U.S. Senator from Tennessee
Willie Person Mangum
U.S. Senator from North Carolina
Whig vice-presidential candidates
Francis Granger
U.S. Representative from New York
John Tyler
U.S. Senator from Virginia

The Whig Party emerged during the 1834 mid-term elections as the chief opposition to the Democratic Party. The party was formed from members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party, disaffected Jacksonians, and small remnants of the Federalist Party (people whose last political activity was with them a decade before). Some Southerners who were angered by Jackson's opposition to states' rights, including Sen. John C. Calhoun and the Nullifiers, also temporarily joined the Whig coalition.[4]

Unlike the Democrats, the Whigs did not hold a national convention. Instead, state legislatures and state conventions nominated candidates, being the reason why so many candidates from the Whig party ran in the general election. Southern Nullifiers placed Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White into contention for the presidency in 1834 soon after his break with Jackson. White was a moderate on the states' rights issue, which made him acceptable in the South, but not in the North. The state legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee officially nominated White. The South Carolina state legislature nominated Senator Willie Person Mangum of North Carolina. By early 1835, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was building support among Northern Whigs. Both Webster and White used Senate debates to establish their positions on the issues of the day, as newspapers carried the text of their speeches nationwide. The Pennsylvania legislature nominated popular former general William Henry Harrison, who had led American forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The Whigs hoped that Harrison's reputation as a military hero could win voter support. Harrison soon displaced Webster as the preferred candidate of Northern Whigs. State legislatures, particularly in larger states, also nominated various vice presidential candidates.[4]

Despite multiple candidates, there was only one Whig ticket in each state. The Whigs ended up with two main tickets: William Henry Harrison for president and Francis Granger for vice president in the North and the border states, and Hugh Lawson White for president and John Tyler for vice president in the middle and lower South. In Massachusetts, the ticket was Daniel Webster for president and Granger for vice president. In South Carolina, the ticket was Mangum for president and Tyler for vice president. Of the four Whig presidential candidates, only Harrison was on the ballot in enough states for it to be mathematically possible for him to win a majority in the Electoral College, and even then, it would have required him to win Van Buren's home state of New York.[4]

Anti-Masonic Party nomination

After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party began to disintegrate. Some of its members began moving to the Whig Party, which had a broader issue base than the Anti-Masons. The Whigs were also regarded as a better alternative to the Democrats.

A state convention for the Anti-Masonic Party was held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from December 14–17, 1835, to choose Presidential Electors for the 1836 election. The convention unanimously nominated William Henry Harrison for president and Francis Granger for vice president. The Vermont state Anti-Masonic convention followed suit on February 24, 1836. Anti-Masonic leaders were unable to obtain assurance from Harrison that he was not a Mason, so they called a national convention. The second national Anti-Masonic nominating convention was held in Philadelphia on May 4, 1836. The meeting was divisive, but a majority of the delegates officially stated that the party was not sponsoring a national ticket for the presidential election of 1836 and proposed a meeting in 1837 to discuss the future of the party.

Nullifier Party nomination

The Nullifier Party had also begun to decline sharply since the previous election, after it became clear that the doctrine of nullification lacked sufficient support outside of the party's political base of South Carolina to ever make the Nullifiers more than a fringe party nationwide. Many party members began to drift towards the Democratic Party, but there was no question of the party endorsing Van Buren's bid for the presidency, as he and Calhoun were sworn enemies. Seeing little point in running their own ticket, Calhoun pushed the party into backing the White/Tyler ticket, as White had previously sided against Jackson during the Nullification Crisis.

General election

Campaign

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Van Buren (Democratic), shades of orange are for Harrison (Whig), shades of green are for White (Whig), and shades of red are for Webster (Whig).

In the aftermath of the Nat Turner slave rebellion and other events, slavery emerged as an increasingly prominent political issue. Calhoun attacked Van Buren, saying that he could not be trusted to protect Southern interests and accusing the sitting Vice President of affiliating with abolitionists.[4] Van Buren defeated Harrison by a margin of 51.4% to 48.6% in the North, and he defeated White by a similar margin of 50.7% to 49.3% in the South.

Disputes

A dispute similar to that of Indiana in 1817 and Missouri in 1821 arose during the counting of the electoral votes. Michigan only became a state on January 26, 1837, and had cast its electoral votes for president before that date. Anticipating a challenge to the results, Congress resolved on February 4, 1837, that during the counting four days later the final tally was read twice, once with Michigan and once without Michigan. The counting proceeded in our vice-president.[5]

Results

The Whigs' strategy narrowly failed to prevent Van Buren's election as president, though he earned a somewhat lower share of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes than Andrew Jackson had in either of the previous two elections.

The key state in this election was ultimately Pennsylvania, which Van Buren won from Harrison with a narrow majority of just 4,222 votes. Had Harrison won the state, Van Buren would have been left eight votes short of an Electoral College majority - despite receiving a majority (50.48%) in the popular vote - and the Whig goal to force the election into the House of Representatives (in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution) would have succeeded.

In a contingent election, the House would have been required to choose between Van Buren, Harrison, and White as the three candidates with the most electoral votes. Jacksonians controlled enough state delegations (14 out of 26) and enough Senate seats (31 out of 52) to win both the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency in a contingent election.

This was the last election in which the Democrats won Connecticut, Rhode Island, and North Carolina until 1852. This was also the only election where South Carolina voted for the Whigs, and the last time it voted against the Democrats until 1868. It was also the last time that a Democrat was elected to the U.S. presidency succeeding a Democrat who had served two terms as U.S. president.[6]

Contingent election for Vice-President

In an unusual turn of events, Virginia's 23 electors, who were all pledged to Van Buren and his running mate Richard Mentor Johnson, became faithless electors due to dissention related to Johnson's interracial relationship with a slave[7] and refused to vote for Johnson, instead casting their vice-presidential votes for former South Carolina senator William Smith.

This left Johnson one electoral vote short of an Electoral College majority, forcing a contingent election in the Senate decided between the top two vote recipients, Johnson and Francis Granger. Since no vice presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, and for the only time in American history, the Senate decided a vice presidential race, and Johnson was elected vice president.[8]

Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral vote
Count Percentage
Martin Van Buren Democratic New York 764,176 50.83% 170
William Henry Harrison Whig Ohio 550,816 36.63% 73
Hugh Lawson White Whig Tennessee 146,107 9.72% 26
Daniel Webster Whig Massachusetts 41,201 2.74% 14
Willie Person Mangum Whig North Carolina (b) 11
Other 1,234 0.08% 0
Total 1,503,534 100.0% 294
Needed to win 148

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1836 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 27, 2005. Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 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.
(b) Mangum received his electoral votes from South Carolina where the electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.

Popular vote
Van Buren
50.83%
Harrison
36.63%
White
9.72%
Webster
2.74%
Others
0.08%
Electoral vote
Van Buren
57.82%
Harrison
24.83%
White
8.84%
Webster
4.76%
Mangum
3.74%
Vice presidential candidate Party State Electoral vote
Richard M. Johnson Democratic Kentucky 147
Francis Granger Whig New York 77
John Tyler Whig Virginia 47
William Smith Democratic South Carolina 23
Total 294
Needed to win 148

Source: "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

Results by state

Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836-1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States/districts won by Van Buren/Johnson
States/districts won by a Whig candidate
Martin Van Buren
Democratic
William H. Harrison
Whig
Hugh L. White
Whig
Daniel Webster
Whig
Willie Person Mangum
Whig
Margin Total
State electoral
votes
Votes cast  % electoral
votes
Votes cast  % electoral
votes
Votes cast  % electoral
votes
Votes cast  % electoral
votes
electoral
votes
# % #
Alabama 7 20,638 55.34 7 no ballots 16,658 44.66 0 no ballots no ballots 3,980 10.68 37,296 AL
Arkansas 3 2,380 64.08 3 no ballots 1,334 35.92 0 no ballots no ballots 1,046 28.16 3,714 AR
Connecticut 8 19,294 50.65 8 18,799 49.35 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 495 1.30 38,093 CT
Delaware 3 4,154 46.70 0 4,736 53.24 3 no ballots no ballots no ballots -582 -6.54 8,895 DE
Georgia 11 22,778 48.20 0 no ballots 24,481 51.80 11 no ballots no ballots -1,703 -3.60 47,259 GA
Illinois 5 18,369 54.69 5 15,220 45.31 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 3,149 9.38 33,589 IL
Indiana 9 32,478 44.03 0 41,281 55.97 9 no ballots no ballots no ballots -8,803 -11.94 73,759 IN
Kentucky 15 33,229 47.41 0 36,861 52.59 15 no ballots no ballots no ballots -3,632 -5.18 70,090 KY
Louisiana 5 3,842 51.74 5 no ballots 3,583 48.26 0 no ballots no ballots 259 3.48 7,425 LA
Maine 10 22,825 58.92 10 14,803 38.21 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 8,022 20.71 38,740 ME
Maryland 10 22,267 46.27 0 25,852 53.73 10 no ballots no ballots no ballots -3,585 -7.46 48,119 MD
Massachusetts 14 33,486 44.81 0 no ballots no ballots 41,201 55.13 14 no ballots -7,715 -10.32 74,687 MA
Michigan 3 7,122 56.22 3 5,545 43.78 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 1,577 12.44 12,667 MI
Mississippi 4 10,297 51.28 4 no ballots 9,782 48.72 0 no ballots no ballots 515 2.56 20,079 MS
Missouri 4 10,995 59.98 4 no ballots 7,337 40.02 0 no ballots no ballots 3,658 19.96 18,332 MO
New Hampshire 7 18,697 75.01 7 6,228 24.99 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 12,469 50.02 24,925 NH
New Jersey 8 25,592 49.47 0 26,137 50.53 8 no ballots no ballots no ballots -545 -1.06 51,729 NJ
New York 42 166,795 54.63 42 138,548 45.37 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 28,247 9.26 305,343 NY
North Carolina 15 26,631 53.10 15 no ballots 23,521 46.90 0 no ballots no ballots 3,110 6.20 50,153 NC
Ohio 21 96,238 47.56 0 104,958 51.87 21 no ballots no ballots no ballots -8,720 -4.31 202,333 OH
Pennsylvania 30 91,457 51.18 30 87,235 48.82 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 4,222 2.36 178,692 PA
Rhode Island 4 2,964 52.24 4 2,710 47.76 0 no ballots no ballots no ballots 254 4.48 5,674 RI
South Carolina 11 no popular vote no popular vote no popular vote no popular vote 11 - - 0 SC
Tennessee 15 26,170 42.08 0 no ballots 36,027 57.92 15 no ballots no ballots -9,857 -15.84 62,197 TN
Vermont 7 14,037 40.07 0 20,994 59.93 7 no ballots no ballots no ballots -6,957 -19.86 35,031 VT
Virginia 23 30,556 56.64 23 no ballots 23,384 43.35 0 no ballots no ballots 7,172 13.29 53,945 VA
TOTALS: 294 763,291 50.79 170 549,907 36.59 73 146,107 9.72 26 41,201 2.74 14 11 213,384 14.20 1,502,811 US
TO WIN: 148

Close states

States where the margin of victory was under 5%:

  1. New Jersey 1.06% (545 votes)
  2. Connecticut 1.3% (495 votes)
  3. Pennsylvania 2.36% (4,222 votes) (tipping point state for a Van Buren victory)
  4. Mississippi 2.56% (515 votes)
  5. Louisiana 3.48% (259 votes)
  6. Georgia 3.6% (1,703 votes)
  7. Ohio 4.31% (8,720 votes)
  8. Rhode Island 4.48% (254 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 10%:

  1. Kentucky 5.18% (3,632 votes)
  2. North Carolina 6.2% (3,110 votes)
  3. Delaware 6.54% (582 votes)
  4. Maryland 7.46% (3,585 votes)
  5. New York 9.26% (28,247 votes) (tipping point state for a Harrison victory)
  6. Illinois 9.38% (3,149 votes)

Breakdown by ticket

Candidate Total Martin Van Buren
Democratic
William H. Harrison
Whig
Hugh L. White
Whig
Daniel Webster
Whig
Willie P. Mangum
Whig
Electoral Votes for President 294 170 73 26 14 11
For Vice President, Richard Mentor Johnson 147 147        
For Vice President, Francis Granger 77   63   14  
For Vice President, John Tyler 47   10 26   11
For Vice President, William Smith 23 23        

1837 contingent election

Since no candidate for vice president received a majority of the electoral votes, the U.S. Senate held a contingent election in which the top two electoral vote recipients, Richard Johnson and Francis Granger, were the candidates. On February 8, 1837, Johnson was elected on the first ballot by a vote of 33 to 16; the vote proceeded largely along party lines, albeit with three Whigs voting for Johnson, one Democrat voting for Granger, and three abstentions (Hugh L. White declined to vote out of respect for his own running-mate, John Tyler, while the two Nullifier Party senators refused to back either candidate). This is the only time that the Senate has exercised this power.[9]

1837 Contingent United States vice presidential election
February 8, 1837
Party Candidate Votes  %
Democratic Richard M. Johnson 33 63.46%
Whig Francis Granger 16 30.77%
    Not voting 3 5.77%
Total membership 52 100
Votes necessary 27 >50
Members voting for:
Johnson Granger

 Thomas H. Benton of Missouri
 John Black of Mississippi
 Bedford Brown of North Carolina
 James Buchanan of Pennsylvania
 Alfred Cuthbert of Georgia
 Judah Dana of Maine
 William Lee D. Ewing of Illinois
 William S. Fulton of Arkansas
 Felix Grundy of Tennessee
 William Hendricks of Indiana
 Henry Hubbard of New Hampshire
 William R. King of Alabama
 John P. King of Georgia
 Lewis F. Linn of Missouri
 Lucius Lyon of Michigan
 Samuel McKean of Pennsylvania
 Gabriel Moore of Alabama
 Thomas Morris of Ohio
 Alexandre Mouton of Louisiana
 Robert C. Nicholas of Louisiana
 John M. Niles of Connecticut
 John Norvell of Michigan
 John Page of New Hampshire
 Richard E. Parker of Virginia
 William C. Rives of Virginia
 John M. Robinson of Illinois
 John Ruggles of Maine
 Ambrose H. Sevier of Arkansas
 Robert Strange of North Carolina
 Nathaniel P. Tallmadge of New York
 John Tipton of Indiana
 Robert J. Walker of Mississippi
 Silas Wright of New York

 Richard H. Bayard of Delaware
 Henry Clay of Kentucky
 Thomas Clayton of Delaware
 John J. Crittenden of Kentucky
 John Davis of Massachusetts
 Thomas Ewing of Ohio
 Joseph Kent of Maryland
 Nehemiah R. Knight of Rhode Island
 Samuel Prentiss of Vermont
 Asher Robbins of Rhode Island
 Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey
 John Selby Spence of Maryland
 Benjamin Swift of Vermont
 Gideon Tomlinson of Connecticut
 Garret D. Wall of New Jersey
 Daniel Webster of Massachusetts

Members not voting:

 John C. Calhoun of South Carolina
 William C. Preston of South Carolina
 Hugh L. White of Tennessee

Sources: [10][11]

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)

See also

References

  1. "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press.
  2. Cole, Donald B. (1984). Martin Van Buren and the American Political System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 279. ISBN 0-691-04715-4. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  3. National Party Conventions, 1831-1976. Congressional Quarterly. 1979.
  4. Deskins, Donald Richard; Walton, Hanes; Puckett, Sherman (2010). Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan Press. pp. 106–107.
  5. United States Congress (1837). Senate Journal. 24th Congress, 2nd Session, February 4. pp. 203–204. Archived from the original on April 4, 2015. Retrieved August 20, 2006.
  6. Murse, Tom (December 16, 2020). "Last Time Consecutive Democratic Presidents Were Elected". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
  7. Burke, Window To The Past
  8. Norton, Mary Beth (2015). A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (10th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing. p. 344.
  9. "The Senate Elects a Vice President". Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of the Senate. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  10. "Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 2nd Sess. 166(1837)". A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  11. "24th Congress Senate Vote 334 (1837)". voteview.com. Los Angeles, California: UCLA Department of Political Science and Social Science Computing. Retrieved August 8, 2019.

Further reading

  • Brown, Thomas. "The miscegenation of Richard Mentor Johnson as an issue in the national election campaign of 1835-1836." Civil War History 39.1 (1993): 5-30. online
  • Cheathem, Mark. R. The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018)
  • Ershkowitz, Herbert B. "The Election of 1836." in American Presidential Campaigns and Elections;; (Routledge, 2020) pp. 270-288.
  • Hoffmann, William S. "The Election of 1836 in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 32.1 (1955): 31–51. online
  • McCormick, Richard P. "Was There a" Whig Strategy" in 1836?." Journal of the Early Republic 4.1 (1984): 47-70. online
  • Shade, William G. "'The Most Delicate and Exciting Topics': Martin Van Buren, Slavery, and the Election of 1836." Journal of the Early Republic 18.3 (1998): 459-484 online.
  • Silbey, Joel H. "Election of 1836," in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred L. Israel, eds. History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971), I, 577–64, history plus primary sources
  • Towers, Frank. "The Rise of the Whig Party." in A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson (2013): 328–347.
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