Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1852. Democratic nominee Franklin Pierce defeated Whig nominee General Winfield Scott.
Incumbent Whig President Millard Fillmore had succeeded to the presidency in 1850 upon the death of President Zachary Taylor. Fillmore endorsed the Compromise of 1850 and enforced the Fugitive Slave Law. This earned Fillmore Southern voter support and Northern voter opposition. On the 53rd ballot of the sectionally divided 1852 Whig National Convention, Scott defeated Fillmore for the nomination. Democrats divided among four major candidates at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. On the 49th ballot, dark horse candidate Franklin Pierce won nomination by consensus compromise. The Free Soil Party, a third party opposed to the extension of slavery in the United States and into the territories, nominated New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale.
With few policy differences between the two major candidates, the election became a personality contest. Though Scott had commanded in the Mexican–American War, Pierce also served. Scott strained Whig Party unity as his anti-slavery reputation gravely damaged his campaign in the South. A group of Southern Whigs and a separate group of Southern Democrats each nominated insurgent tickets, but both efforts failed to attract support.
Pierce and running mate William R. King won a comfortable popular majority, carrying 27 of the 31 states. Pierce won the highest share of the electoral vote since James Monroe's uncontested 1820 re-election. The Free Soil Party regressed to less than five percent of the national popular vote, down from more than ten percent in 1848, while overwhelming defeat and disagreement about slavery soon drove the Whig Party to disintegrate. Anti-slavery Whigs and Free Soilers would ultimately coalesce into the new Republican Party, which would quickly become a formidable movement in the free states.
Not until 1876 would Democrats again win a majority of the popular vote for president, and not until 1932 would they win a majority in both the popular vote and the electoral college.
Nominations
Democratic Party nomination
The Democratic Party held its national convention in Baltimore, Maryland, in June 1852. Benjamin F. Hallett, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, limited the sizes of the delegations to their electoral votes and a vote to maintain the two-thirds requirement for the presidential and vice-presidential nomination was passed by a vote of 269 to 13.
James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, William L. Marcy, and Stephen A. Douglas were the main candidates for the nomination. All of the candidates led the ballot for the presidential nomination at one point, but all of them failed to meet the two-thirds requirement. Franklin Pierce was put up for the nomination by the Virginia delegation. Pierce won the nomination when the delegates switched their support to him after he had received the unanimous support of the delegates from New England. He won on the second day of balloting after forty-nine ballots.
The delegation from Maine proposed that the vice-presidential nomination should be given to somebody from the Southern United States with William R. King being specifically named. King led on the first ballot before winning on the second ballot.
Whig Party nomination
The Whig Party held its national convention in Baltimore, Maryland, in June 1852. The call for the convention had been made by Whig members of the United States Congress and thirty-one states were represented. A vote to have each state's vote be based on its electoral college strength was passed by a vote of 149 to 144, but it was rescinded due to disagreements from the Southern states and smaller Northern states.
The party had been divided by the Compromise of 1850 and was divided over the presidential nomination between incumbent president Millard Fillmore, who received support from the South, and Winfield Scott, who received his support from the North. William H. Seward, who had been the main opponent of the compromise in the United States Senate and advised President Zachary Taylor against it, supported Scott. Fillmore offered to give his delegates to Daniel Webster if he received the support of forty-one delegates on his own, but Webster was unsuccessful. Scott won the nomination on the 53rd ballot. William Alexander Graham won the vice-presidential nomination without a formal vote.
Nine southern Whig members of Congress, including Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs, refused to support Scott.
Free Soil Party nomination
The Free Soil Party was still the strongest third party in 1852. However, following the Compromise of 1850, most of the "Barnburners" who supported it in 1848 had returned to the Democratic Party while most of the Conscience Whigs rejoined the Whig Party. The second Free Soil National Convention assembled in the Masonic Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. New Hampshire senator John P. Hale was nominated for president with 192 delegate votes (sixteen votes were cast for a smattering of candidates). George W. Julian of Indiana was nominated for vice president over Samuel Lewis of Ohio and Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio.
Independent Whig nomination
A movement among disaffected Whigs to nominate Daniel Webster began in earnest following the Whig National Convention. As Webster made his way from Washington to his farm in Franklin, New Hampshire, many Whigs expressed their continued loyalty to him; some spoke of forming a new "Union" party with Webster as its presidential candidate. Webster received letters pressuring him to endorse the new party movement, hoping he'd allow his name to be used by an opposition convention. In Boston, the Webster movement was led by those who had opposed Scott's nomination, most notably George Ticknor Curtis, who had served controversially as a federal fugitive slave commissioner. These men had grown tired of military chieftains at the top of the Whig ticket and argued that the party had fallen under the control of dangerous foes of the Compromise. They lacked political experience and had little to lose.
When Webster reached Boston, the city held a huge celebration in his honor, which was "by far the most impressive and touching demonstration ever made by that people toward Mr. Webster." This outpouring of devotion, while helping to ease the sting of his defeat, alarmed some pro-Scott Whigs who feared it would lead to Webster's nomination by a "National Union Convention."
Those who had stuck with Webster throughout the nomination season knew that an independent bid was hopeless. They feared that his candidacy would damage the Whig Party and tarnish his legacy as the great "Defender of the Constitution." Although opposed to his nomination, Webster met Curtis in Marshfield and told him that he could not prevent anyone from voting for him. Privately, he was convinced that the Whig Party was disintegrating and that endorsing its ticket would be both futile and demeaning. In fact, he held a favorable view of Pierce and advised his assistant, Charles Lanman, along with Peter Harvey, to vote for him. Webster would never publicly comment on the nomination movement, which at this point had spread to New York and would shortly receive the endorsement of one faction of the Georgia Constitutional Union Party.
In North Carolina, a group of pro-Webster Whigs nominated electors pledged to Webster and Graham, the Whig nominee for vice president, prompting Graham to disavow the Webster movement.
In Massachusetts, encouraged by the actions of the Georgia Union Whigs, Curtis and his followers held a convention at Faneuil Hall in Boston on September 15 and endorsed the nominations made by the Georgia Unionist convention. However, in early September, Webster's health seriously declined. During his final days, his friends attempted to persuade him to denounce the independent movement. They abandoned their efforts after Abbot, who had initially favored a formal statement of party loyalty, concluded that it was unfair for them to pressure a dying man who had lost all interest in politics. Considering it useless to trouble him further, Curtis, on October 21, ordered the Webster Executive Committee in Boston to suspend activities. Webster died nine days before the election of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 24, 1852.
Constitutional Union Party nomination
The Constitutional Union Party was a political party organized in several slave states to support the Compromise of 1850. It was one of two major parties in the state of Georgia in the early 1850s, alongside the Southern Rights Party. The party formed as a merger of the local Democratic and Whig unionists. While former Whigs in the party were given important positions, such as senate seats, the party's executive committee was made up of mostly Democrats. Following the acquiescence of the Southern Rights leaders to the Compromise after 1851, the need for a dedicated Union party diminished. With a supermajority in the state legislature, the Union Party began its program of division of the political spoils, which eventually led to a split between the Democratic and Whig factions.
Party leaders adopted a wait-and-see attitude as the presidential election approached. In April, Union Democrats held a state convention that nominated delegates to attend the Democratic National Convention. Union Whigs held their own convention later that summer and appointed a delegation led by William C. Dawson to attend the Whig National Convention, instructing them to support the nomination of Millard Fillmore. These separate conventions laid the groundwork for the party's eventual collapse, providing Union Democrats with an excuse to return to the Democratic fold.
Although the Union Democrats supported Pierce as the national Democratic nominee, they refused to support the state Pierce ticket nominated by the Southern Rights Party. Instead, they ran their own ticket with the tacit consent of Governor Howell Cobb. At the subsequent Constitutional Union state convention on July 15, the Union Democrats were able to nominate an electoral ticket pledged to Pierce, causing Union Whigs to walk out of the convention. Fearing that Scott would repudiate the Compromise, they nominated Webster in a convention at Macon with Charles J. Jenkins as the candidate for vice president. Pro-Scott Whigs held a concurrent convention in Macon, but a fusion of the two groups failed to occur. Following these conventions, the Democratic majority on the Constitutional Union Party's executive committee declared the party dissolved and withdrew the independent Pierce ticket.
Native American Party nomination
Around the mid-1830s, nativists were present in New York politics, under the aegis of the American Republican Party. The American Republican party was formed in 1843 in major opposition to Catholicism and Catholic immigrants. In 1845, the party changed its name to the Native American Party. Their opponents nicknamed them the "Know Nothings". The party liked the name, and it became the official nickname of the party until it collapsed in 1860. In 1852, the original presidential nominee planned by the Native American Party was Daniel Webster, the presidential nominee of the Union Party. They nominated Webster without his permission, with George C. Washington (grandnephew of George Washington) as his vice presidential running mate. Webster died of natural causes nine days before the election, and the Know-Nothings quickly replaced Webster by nominating Jacob Broom for president and replaced Washington with Reynell Coates for vice president.
Southern Rights Party nomination
The Southern Rights Party was a political party organized in several slave states to oppose the Compromise of 1850, viewing it as inadequate protection for the South, and advocate for secession from the Union, though it later abandoned serious plans for secession. It was one of two major parties in the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi in the early 1850s, alongside the Union Party. The party was made up of mostly Democrats and State Rights Whigs. By 1851, most Southern Rights Democrats had acquiesced to the compromise, believing further opposition to it was hopeless.
It was unclear in early 1852 if the remnants of the party would contest the presidential election. When the Southern Rights Convention of Alabama in Montgomery was held in early March, only six counties were represented. The convention voted to keep the party alive throughout the southern states to oppose both the Democrats and Whigs, or cooperate with either based on the extent to which their doctrines aligned with the principles of the Southern Rights men. In most states, the party was too disorganized to nominate its own candidate and have an effect on the election. The South Carolinian Southern Standard argued that the Southern Rights parties should coordinate and attempt to influence the Democratic nomination, though not by joining the Democratic convention, as that might obligate them to support an unfavorable candidate. Instead, the paper proposed holding a parallel convention at the same time and place, so they could be "prepared to act as circumstances might require".
Southern Rights Party of Alabama nomination