The American Presidential Election of 1844

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The 15th episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1844, Manifest Destiny and a dark horse show up to shake up Whig dominance.

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The 15th Presidential election in American history took place from Friday, November 1, to Wednesday, December 4, 1844. This was the last presidential election to be held on different days in different states. All future presidential elections would be held on a single day.

President John Tyler had taken over after William Henry Harrison died, but he remained at odds with the Whig Party. The Whig Party actually stopped supporting him, and so did the Democratic Party, his old party. At odds with both of the major political parties in the country, he tried to start a third party movement for re-election, hoping that many who agreed with him on the annexation of Texas would support him.

The Texas annexation issue would divide not only the country but the Democratic Party. Martin Van Buren, originally a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination in 1844, was against the annexation of Texas. However, many influential southern Democrats, like John Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, wanted Texas. At the Democratic National Convention, three nominees were discussed at first- Van Buren, James Buchanan, a Senator from Pennsylvania, and Lewis Cass, the Ambassador to France. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came James Polk, a former governor of Tennessee and former Speaker of the House. Though Polk had originally entered the convention hoping to be the Vice President nominee, by the end of the convention he was the most popular guy in the room, getting the nomination unanimously. Polk famously became the first well known “dark horse” candidate, meaning before the election he was not well known. George Dallas, a former Senator from Pennsylvania, was nominated as Polk’s running mate. The fact that the city of Dallas, Texas was named after him might be a hint as to who would win the election.

The Whig Party was firmly against Texas annexation. After abandoning John Tyler, the party went back to the original Whig- Henry Clay, who was pretty much the leading Whig ever since the party began. Though Clay had run before for President and lost, uh- he lost three times actually, things seemed to be going more his way this time, as he could appeal to both Southern slave owners who didn’t want to annex Texas because it might make their land less valuable and slaves more expensive, and Northerners who didn’t want slavery to expand further west. In 1840, the Whigs did quite well with Harrison, and with Clay, they just assumed it would be a another blowout. The Whigs nominated Theodore Frelinghuysen, a former Senator from New Jersey, as Clay’s running mate.

Things got a little more complicated when John Tyler dropped out of the running for re-election and threw his support to Polk. Also, the abolitionist Liberty Party ran James Birney again. His support had grown since 1840, and some worried that Northern Whigs might vote for him instead of Clay.

So though Clay was confident he would win at first, as the election drew nearer, Polk’s support had grown. Polk was all about Manifest Destiny, or the belief that it was the United States’ destiny to expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Polk wanted to expand the country’s border whenever and wherever possible, and more and more Americans seemed to agree with him. Polk called for not only adding Texas, but also California and Oregon territory. The northern boundary of Oregon, which Britain claimed as well, was the latitude line of 54 degrees, 50 minutes. Many of his extremist supporters used the slogan “54 40 or Fight!” in hopes that a Polk presidency meant getting all of Oregon.