The Election of 1852

The presidential election of 1852 was the last time the Whig Party nominated a candidate; the party collapsed shortly thereafter.

Learning Objective

Examine how the election of 1852 reshaped political parties

Key Points

The Democratic Party nominated politically obscure Franklin Pierce from New Hampshire, a “Northern man with Southern principles,” because he supported individual state sovereignty on the slavery issue.
Southern Democrats were convinced that Pierce's administration would secure the future of slavery in the territories, while Northern Democrats were relieved to nominate a candidate who did not espouse radical proslavery or antislavery principles.
Pierce won the 1852 election, serving as a testament to the sectional and organizational weaknesses in the Whig Party and leading to its collapse.
Pierce's support of the Compromise of 1850—particularly his rigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act—appalled and alienated many Northerners, including factions of the Democratic Party.

Terms

Whig Party
A political organization of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.
Southern Democrats
Members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the American South. In the nineteenth century, they were the definitive proslavery wing of the party, opposed to both the antislavery Republicans (GOP) and the more liberal Northern Democrats.
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786–May 29, 1866) was a U.S. Army general and unsuccessful presidential candidate for the Whig Party in 1852.

Full Text

The election of 1852 was the last election in which the Whig Party nominated a candidate before the party collapsed following Winfield Scott’s loss to Franklin Pierce. It was an election cycle characterized by high degrees of polarization along sectional rather than political lines.

Conventions

The 1852 Whig National Convention held in Baltimore was bitterly divided. Supporters of President Millard Fillmore, who had succeeded to the presidency after the death of President Taylor, counted the Compromise of 1850 as a success on Fillmore's record. However, Northern Whigs resented the Compromise of 1850, believing that the bill favored the slaveholding South. As a result, Northern Whigs threw their support behind Mexican-American War hero General Winfield Scott of Virginia, who went on to win the party’s nomination.

Scott-Graham poster

A campaign poster for Winfield Scott and William A. Graham.

The Democrats also met in Baltimore in June 1852 and selected Franklin Pierce—a rather obscure public figure at the time—as their candidate. Although Pierce hailed from the Northern state of New Hampshire, he defended the supremacy of states' rights as integral to maintaining a united nation and firmly supported the Compromise of 1850. Arguing that Pierce was a “Northern man with Southern principles,” Democrats were able to make a case for his nomination that appealed to both Northern and Southern party members. Southern Democrats were convinced that Pierce's administration would secure the future of slavery in the territories, while Northern Democrats were relieved to nominate a candidate who did not espouse radical proslavery or antislavery principles. Hence, the slavery issue split the party from the outset, which would continue to cause conflict among Democrats for much of Pierce's administration.

Result

Pierce and running mate William R. King won what was at the time one of the nation's largest electoral victories, trouncing Scott by 254 electoral votes to 42. The outcome was a testament to the sectional and organizational weaknesses within the Whig Party. During his years in office, Pierce’s support of the Compromise of 1850—particularly his rigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act—appalled and alienated many Northerners, including factions of the Democratic Party. With the demise of the Whig Party, many Northerners, bitterly resenting the heavy enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act under Pierce, began to loosely coalesce with the emerging antislavery Republican Party.

Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce, Democratic Party candidate.

[ edit ]

Prev Concept

The Ostend Manifesto and Cuba

The Rise of the Republican Party

Next Concept