United States presidential election, 1844

The United States presidential election of 1844 was the first election to see an incumbent President seek nomination and fail to receive it. John Tyler achieved this dubious distinction, abandoned by his native Democratic party and despised by his adopted Whigs.

Democratic nominee James K. Polk ran on a party platform that embraced American territorial expansionism, an idea soon to be called Manifest Destiny. At their convention, the Democrats called for the annexation of Texas and asserted that the United States had a "clear and unquestionable" claim to "the whole" of Oregon. By informally tying the Oregon boundary dispute to the more controversial Texas debate, the Democrats appealed to both Northern expansionists (who were more adamant about the Oregon boundary) and Southern expansionists (who were more focused on annexing Texas). Polk went on to win a narrow victory over Whig candidate Henry Clay, in part because Clay had taken a stand against expansion, although economic issues were also of great importance. (The slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" is often incorrectly associated with this election, although it did appear more than a year later.)

This was the last presidential election to be held on different days in different states, as starting with the presidential election of 1848 all states held the election on the same date in November.

Background

The incumbent President in 1844 was John Tyler, who had ascended to the office of President upon the death of William Henry Harrison. Although Tyler had been nominated on a Whig ticket, his policies had alienated the Whigs and they actually kicked him out of the party on September 13, 1841. Without a home in either of the two major parties, Tyler sought an issue that could create a viable third party to support his bid for the presidency in 1844.

Tyler found that issue in the annexation of Texas. When Texas had achieved its independence in 1836, it had initially sought to be annexed by the United States. Opposition from the northern states had prevented the United States from acting favorably on this request, and so in 1838 Texas had withdrawn its offer. There the issue lay until 1843, when Tyler and his newly minted Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur, took the issue up again and started negotiations on annexation. When Upshur was killed in an accident on February 28, 1844, the treaty was almost complete. Tyler appointed John C. Calhoun Secretary of State as Upshur's replacement, and Calhoun completed the treaty, presenting it to the Senate on April 22. However, Calhoun had also sent a letter to British Minister Richard Pakenham which charged the British with attempting to coerce Texas into abolishing slavery and which justified the annexation as a defensive move to preserve southern slavery, and Calhoun presented the letter to Senate as well. Thus, going into the presidential campaign season, Texas annexation explicitly tied to southern slavery had suddenly emerged as the top issue.

The two front runners for the nominations were Henry Clay for the Whigs and Martin Van Buren for the Democrats. Both tried to straddle the issue by making statements opposing the immediate annexation of Texas without the consent of Mexico.

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

The Democrats met in Baltimore. Van Buren's public stand against immediate annexation proved to be enough of a drag to derail his nomination. Instead the Democrats nominated Polk, their first "dark horse" candidate, on the ninth ballot. The Democrats chose Silas Wright as Polk's running mate, but Wright refused the nomination. George Mifflin Dallas, who had finished a close second to Wright in the balloting, was then offered a spot on the ticket, and he accepted.

When advised of his nomination via letter, Polk replied: "It has been well observed that the office of President of the United States should neither be sought nor declined. I have never sought it, nor should I feel at liberty to decline it, if conferred upon me by the voluntary suffrages of my fellow citizens."

Whig Party nomination

The Whigs chose Clay, the party's greatest congressional leader, despite his having lost two prior presidential elections: in 1824 to John Quincy Adams as a Democrat-Republican, then in 1832 to Andrew Jackson as a National Republican. Theodore Frelinghuysen was nominated as Clay's running mate.

The Whigs played on Polk's comparative obscurity, asking "Who is James K. Polk?" as part of their campaign to get Clay elected.

Other nominations

Another candidate in the 1844 campaign was Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who intended to run with Sidney Rigdon as his running mate. The effort was aborted when Smith was murdered on June 27, 1844. James Birney ran as the anti-slavery Liberty Party candidate, garnering a fair amount of the vote (for a third-party candidate), but no electoral votes.

General election

Campaign

Polk was committed to territorial expansion and favored the annexation of Texas. To deflect charges of pro-slavery bias in the Texas annexation issue, Polk combined the Texas annexation issue with a demand for the acquisition of the entire Oregon Territory, which was at the time jointly administered by the United States and Great Britain. This proved to be an immensely popular message, especially compared to the Whigs' economic program. It even forced Clay to move on the issue of Texas annexation, saying that he would support annexation after all if it could be accomplished without war and upon "just and fair" terms.

Results

The election was very close run. The Liberty Party may well have played the role of spoiler: in New York state, Birney received 15,800 votes, while Clay lost New York by a mere 5,100 votes, and if New York had been won by Clay he would have won the Electoral College 141–134. It is probable that many of Birney's supporters would have voted for Clay, but it is impossible to determine if enough would have voted for Clay to have overturned the results of the election.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

^(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

Consequences

Polk's election confirmed the American public's desire for westward expansion. The annexation of Texas was formalized on March 1, 1845 before Polk even took office. As feared, Mexico refused to accept the annexation and the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846. Meanwhile, the United States and Great Britain negotiated the Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty, which divided up the Oregon Territory between the two countries.

Notes

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