Presidential election in the United States 1844

‹  1840  •   •  1848 ›
15. Presidential election
November 1 - December 4, 1844
			Democratic Party
			James K. Polk / George M. Dallas
			electors					170
			be right				1,339,494
									49.5%
			Whig
			Henry Clay / Theodore Frelinghuysen
			electors					105
			be right				1,300,004
									48.1%
Election results by state
15 states   Polk / Dallas						11 states   Clay / Frelinghuysen
President of the United States
Before the election John Tyler non-party						Elected James K. Polk Democratic Party

The 15th election of the President of the United States was held from November 1 to December 4, 1844 , depending on the state . The candidate of the Democratic Party, James K. Polk, was elected with a narrow majority . Henry Clay , who was a candidate for the Whig Party , also lost his third and final presidential candidacy after 1824 and 1832 .

This was the last presidential election held in the states on separate days. Starting with the 1848 election , all states held the election on the same day in November.

Starting position

The incumbent President in 1844 was John Tyler , who was elected Vice President alongside Whig William Henry Harrison in the previous election in the fall of 1840 . After the death of Harrison, who ruled for only a month and thus went down in history as the first US president to die in office, Tyler took over the presidency. During his tenure, however, the new president had created numerous political enemies because he disagreed with his party on many issues. After President Tyler blocked various Whigs' concerns with his veto , such as the establishment of a new national bank, he was formally expelled in the fall of 1841, after only six months in office . As a politician from Virginia and a former member of the Democratic Party, Tyler was run as a vice-presidential candidate in 1840 to make the Whigs eligible for the population from the southern states , where the Democrats traditionally had their strongholds. Tyler, who since then resided in the White House as a non-party , had little chance of being confirmed in office for the next regular election at the end of 1844. Although Tyler came closer and closer to the Democrats politically during his four years as head of government, he could not count on full support there either.

The 1844 presidential election was the first election in American history that did not reinstate an incumbent president who had only ruled for one term. Tyler initially ran for the National Democratic Republican Party , a splinter group of the Democrats, but withdrew his candidacy in August 1844 in order not to harm the Democratic candidate James K. Polk. As a candidate for a short-lived splinter party, he was given little chance of winning an election anyway. The former Democratic President Andrew Jackson , who was still influential in his party, had asked him to resign. In return, Jackson urged the Democrats to be friendly with Tyler. After his resignation, Tyler announced that he would vote for Polk in the election campaign.

Candidates

Democratic Party

Candidate:

• 

  Former House Speaker and Governor of Tennessee James K. Polk

Previously retired candidates:

• 

  Former President Martin Van Buren

• 

  Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan

• 

  Former Vice President Richard M. Johnson

• 

  Senator James Buchanan

• 

  Secretary of State John C. Calhoun

For a long time, the Democrats' favorite was former President Martin Van Buren , who had been defeated by William Henry Harrison four years earlier when he ran for a second term. The remaining candidates were more likely to have outsider opportunities. And although Van Buren received a majority of the delegates in the first ballots at the party congress, which was held at the end of May 1844, he was unable to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority . This rule, which remained in force until 1936, made the nomination process considerably more difficult. When it became apparent after eight rounds of elections that Van Buren could not expand his support beyond his traditional voters, James K. Polk was placed as a compromise candidate and nominated in the ninth round. Former President Andrew Jackson was one of Polk's foremost supporters. Van Buren, who served as Vice President and Secretary of State under Jackson, lost Jackson's support after speaking out against the annexation of Texas . The Democrats nominated George M. Dallas as the vice-presidential candidate after Silas Wright rejected the offer of such a candidacy.

Whig party

Candidate:

• 

  Senator Henry Clay

The Whigs entered the race again with their most prominent politician, Senator Henry Clay . Clay ran for the presidency in 1824 and 1832, and in 1840 he was defeated by the popular General William Henry Harrison at the nomination convention. In 1844, however, his application was unopposed from within his own ranks. Theodore Frelinghuysen , the mayor of Newark, New Jersey , was nominated as a candidate for the office of vice president .

Liberty Party

Candidate:

• 

  James G. Birney

James G. Birney competed for the abolitionist Liberty Party founded in 1839 .

National Democratic-Republican Party

Candidate withdrawn:

• 

  President John Tyler

The National Democratic-Republican Party was a short-lived Democratic breakaway. At their party congress in April 1844 they nominated the incumbent, now non-party, President John Tyler . In its election manifesto, the party, like the Democrats, spoke out in favor of annexing Texas . The motto was simply "Tyler and Texas". Because Tylers had no chance as the third applicant, he withdrew his candidacy in August of that year and spoke out in favor of the Democratic candidate James K. Polk, who also called for Texas to be incorporated into the United States. It was feared that if the incumbent took part in the election, the Democrats would lose the decisive vote, which could ultimately have led to a Whigs triumph.

More independent

Candidate died:

• 

  Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith , Mayor of Nauvoo and founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , ran for Independent . He was arrested after calling for an attack on the freedom of the press and was murdered by an angry crowd on June 27, 1844 while on remand in a Carthage prison .

Election campaign

Democratic election banner of 1844 showing the eventual winners :
Presidential candidate James K. Polk (left) and Vice-presidential candidate George M. Dallas (right)

The Democratic nominee James K. Polk wrote down the territorial expansion of America, an idea that was soon called Manifest Destiny . At their convention , the Democrats called for the annexation of Texas and claimed that the US had a clear and unquestionable claim to all of Oregon . Through both calls, the Democrats were addressing expansionists in the north (who insisted on Oregon claim) and south (who were more interested in annexing Texas). Clay spoke out firmly against the annexation of Texas. Economic issues also played a major role in the election campaign.

Result

Polk was mostly victorious in the south and west of the country, while Clay found support in the northeast, although as a slave owner he was not a convincing opponent of slavery . Polk, also a slave owner, therefore narrowly lost his home state of Tennessee, but also narrowly won the state of New York, which was decisive with 36 electoral votes, where Clay lost many votes to Birney.

Polk finally won with 170 to 105 electoral votes in the Electoral College , while he only won the popular vote with a slight margin of 38,175 votes . His lead in votes was less than one and a half percentage points. In fact, the only 62,300 votes for Birney had probably cost the Whig candidate Clay the decisive electors from New York and Michigan and thus decided the election. Polk was sworn in on March 4, 1845.

candidate	Political party	be right		electors
		number	percent
James K. Polk	democrat	1,339,494	49.5%	170
Henry Clay	Whig	1,300,004	48.1%	105
James G. Birney	Liberty	62.103	2.3%	0
total		2,703,659	99.9% *	275

* 100% missing percent: invalid votes / other candidates

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 125-134 (= Chapter 17: James K. Polk's Election. ).

Web links

Commons : US Presidential Election 1844  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christof Mauch (ed.): The American Presidents. 44 historical portraits from George Washington to Barack Obama. 6th, continued and updated edition. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-58742-9 , p. 143 ff.
2. ↑ American President: John Tyler - Campaigns and elections ( Memento of March 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Eng.)
3. ↑ Christof Mauch (ed.): The American Presidents. 44 historical portraits from George Washington to Barack Obama. 6th, continued and updated edition. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-58742-9 , p. 147 ff.
4. ↑ Andrew Jenson: Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Salt Lake City 1901, p. 698; Mervin B. Hogan: Freemasonry and the Lynching at Carthage Jail. Salt Lake City, pp. 10f .; Times & Seasons. July 15, 1844 (5: 585); Orson Whitney: Life of Heber C. Kimball. Salt Lake City 1888, p. 26; Cecil McGavin: Mormonism & Masonry. Salt Lake City 1956, p. 17
5. ↑ The individual results can be found on The American Presidency Project. Election of 1844 (engl.)