OPINION:
With a crowd of candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, it brings to mind the election of 1836. Then the Republican forbear party, the Whigs, had so many White House hopefuls that they actually put four candidates into the race against the Democratic nominee, Martin Van Buren, the vice president under Andrew Jackson. But more about that candidate-filled election later, the details of which have an eerie similarity to Washington in the 2016 race.
First, a little history: Recall that after the Federalist Party of presidents George Washington and John Adams faded, the only real candidates for the White House were all members of the Democratic Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson and cemented by Andrew Jackson, whose two power-grabbing terms in office (1829-1837) gave rise to the Whig party.
Jackson was dubbed a king in terms of his abuse of presidential power; his followers were designated Tories. His new-party opponents called themselves Whigs, adopting the name of the opponents to the English monarchy.
The only issue on which the Whigs could agree was that they absolutely, positively despised Jackson. The president was infamous to the Whigs because he made war on the Bank of the United States, in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court had declared the institution constitutional. Jackson removed all government funds and placed the money in state banks, many of which were financially unstable. “I have read the opinion of [Chief Justice John] Marshall,” Jackson said, “and could not agree with him.”
When the Whigs in 1834 were successful in getting the Senate to pass a bill censuring Jackson for taking powers “not conferred by the Constitution and the laws,” no matter. The president’s Senate followers three years later got the whole resolution and debate expunged from the record.
Jackson also made war on Native Americans, forcing them to remove to lands west of the Mississippi River. Although the Supreme Court invalidated the action, Jackson refused to enforce the decision.
The president was so powerful that he handpicked his vice president, Van Buren, as the next Democratic presidential nominee for the election of 1836, even calling the party convention for May 1835, a full 18 months before the general balloting. Not surprisingly, Van Buren received a unanimous convention vote.
As the election of 1836 neared, Jackson and his minions were smart. They identified the Whigs as the party of the wealthy that cared little about the average person although, in actuality, the Whigs were so diverse that they captured several state governorships and legislatures. And the increasingly numerous evangelical religious denominations found a political home in the Whig party, to say nothing of individuals concerned about reform — from schools to prisons to government. Note that Abraham Lincoln, the first GOP president, was a leader of the Whigs in the Illinois legislature.
So what about the multi-candidate strategy of the Whigs in 1836?
Simple.
Unlike the Democrats with their well-oiled convention system, the Whigs decided to run four candidates, one for each section of the nation, to exploit Democratic weaknesses, thereby denying Van Buren the requisite electoral votes. A lack of a majority of electoral votes would throw the selection to the House of Representatives where Whigs had more clout because, according to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, each state had one vote.
That strategy wasn’t unprecedented: The 1824 election with four come-up-short candidates was thrown into the House, with John Quincy Adams getting the legislative nod over Andrew Jackson, even though Jackson received the most popular and electoral votes.
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts would appeal to New Englanders, distraught over the bank’s demise; Gen. William Henry Harrison of Ohio looked to capitalize on the Native American situation and failure of the Jacksonians to move quickly on building roads and other internal improvements in the West. Then Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee and Willie Person Mangum of North Carolina were chosen to appeal to Southerners unhappy with their conditions.
The popular vote count was close between Van Buren (762,678) and Harrison (735,651), but not in the electoral count, which Van Buren won handily, 170 to 73. Webster, White and Mangum picked up 14, 26 and 11 electoral votes, respectively.
But the Whigs learned their lesson: In 1840, only Harrison ran and won, denying Van Buren a second term.
• Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University.
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