Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Are we to assume then that none of the people associated with this deal will make the list?
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timschochet's thread- Mods, please move this thread to the Politics Subforum, thank you (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter timschochet
- Start date
timschochet
Footballguy
Theyre on s different list.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Tim, what kind of real estate do you broker?
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
It's like blue balls in your wallet.
icecat4270
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
Commercial- mostly retail shopping center. Sorry I whined yesterday. I'm over it; moving on.
timschochet
Footballguy
60. Joseph Smith
If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself.
Joseph Smith was born in Vermont and was raised during the Second Great Awakening, a time of great evangelical Christian enthusiasm in the United States, particularly in the northeast. (It was during this movement that abolitionism was also founded.) At the age of 15, Smith wrote that he was visited by God who told him that all of the existing organized religions had turned away from the Gospel. Then at the age of 18, he was visited by the angel Moroni, who revealed the secret location of a buried book made out of golden plates. It took him another 4 years to retrieve the plates (the angel prevented him at first) and then another 3 years to translate them. The translation became the Book of Mormon and Smith founded the Church of Latter Day Saints, which today has over 15 million members.
Ever since Christianity began as a religion, there have been many religious leaders who have attempted to transform it or add to it, but almost none have successfully managed to add their own book, given to them by God, to be regarded as holy Scripture. The only analogy I can make to Joseph Smith is to the prophet Muhammad, whose Qu'run was also written from memory based on the word given him by holy spirits. But although Muslims generally regard the Old and New Testament as sacred, they do not consider themselves Christian (indeed, they reject the notion of Jesus Christ as God or the son of God.) Joseph Smith accepted the basic tenets of Christianity and added to it.
Why was he successful? Why wasn't his new religion treated as a cult, as so many variations of Christianity were in this country, and relegated to the backwash of history? Apparently there are lots of reasons, partly his personality, partly the social upheaval of the times, the simplicity of his essential message, and of course, his murder. Martyrs are always important to the rise of any new religion.
Whatever the reasons, Joseph Smith's unique position in American history as the founder of one of the world's most significant religions cannot be overlooked. I actually struggled trying to figure out Smith's importance to the modern Mormon movement as compared to Brigham Young. Young is the Paul to Smith's Jesus, if that makes any sense (and I don't mean that to be offensive in any way, merely illustrative of their various roles.) Both men obviously belong on this list. But I decided that Smith had to be significantly higher because he did found the religion, and wrote (or translated) the Book of Mormon.
Next up: another religious leader, who was representative of the anger of his race...
If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself.
Joseph Smith was born in Vermont and was raised during the Second Great Awakening, a time of great evangelical Christian enthusiasm in the United States, particularly in the northeast. (It was during this movement that abolitionism was also founded.) At the age of 15, Smith wrote that he was visited by God who told him that all of the existing organized religions had turned away from the Gospel. Then at the age of 18, he was visited by the angel Moroni, who revealed the secret location of a buried book made out of golden plates. It took him another 4 years to retrieve the plates (the angel prevented him at first) and then another 3 years to translate them. The translation became the Book of Mormon and Smith founded the Church of Latter Day Saints, which today has over 15 million members.
Ever since Christianity began as a religion, there have been many religious leaders who have attempted to transform it or add to it, but almost none have successfully managed to add their own book, given to them by God, to be regarded as holy Scripture. The only analogy I can make to Joseph Smith is to the prophet Muhammad, whose Qu'run was also written from memory based on the word given him by holy spirits. But although Muslims generally regard the Old and New Testament as sacred, they do not consider themselves Christian (indeed, they reject the notion of Jesus Christ as God or the son of God.) Joseph Smith accepted the basic tenets of Christianity and added to it.
Why was he successful? Why wasn't his new religion treated as a cult, as so many variations of Christianity were in this country, and relegated to the backwash of history? Apparently there are lots of reasons, partly his personality, partly the social upheaval of the times, the simplicity of his essential message, and of course, his murder. Martyrs are always important to the rise of any new religion.
Whatever the reasons, Joseph Smith's unique position in American history as the founder of one of the world's most significant religions cannot be overlooked. I actually struggled trying to figure out Smith's importance to the modern Mormon movement as compared to Brigham Young. Young is the Paul to Smith's Jesus, if that makes any sense (and I don't mean that to be offensive in any way, merely illustrative of their various roles.) Both men obviously belong on this list. But I decided that Smith had to be significantly higher because he did found the religion, and wrote (or translated) the Book of Mormon.
Next up: another religious leader, who was representative of the anger of his race...
Instinctive
Footballguy
Elijah Muhammad coming next?
timschochet
Footballguy
Instinctive
Footballguy
Kinda figured. Given that it would be really tough to put EM on a "greatest" Americans list. Perhaps most influential, but in all the bios I've read on him and NoI, he never really seemed like a great guy.timschochet said:
The person I assume you're going with, on the other hand, had some issues but makes much more sense.
Sweet J
Footballguy
Instinctive
Footballguy
That's what I was implying, yeah. Wasn't sure of the etiquette in here of calling them out ahead of time so danced around it.
timschochet
Footballguy
It's bad etiquette! 
Now I have to change it. What other religious leader can I chose who represented the anger of his race?
I know!
59. Meir Kahane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahane
Now I have to change it. What other religious leader can I chose who represented the anger of his race?
I know!
59. Meir Kahane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahane
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
The Electoral College Part 2
1808
The election that gave James Madison the White House didn't start off as an easy one. Jefferson's policies were showing their true colors by the end of his term and there was some growing resentment within his own party along sectional lines about the true course the next President should take. Jefferson wanted Madison to get the nomination and though there was some minor struggle the party nominated Madison and as his second once again called on George Clinton, who was currently serving as Jefferson's Vice President. Without a formal caucus or convention the Federalists named Charles Pickney once again as their candidate with Rufus King from New York as their second. The media of the day began a torrid campaign accusing Madison or a parade of horribles while the Jeffersonian papers went after the Federalists collectively.
As the election wore on the DR's were becoming more and more tense with each other leading to many in the party seeking an alternative by the name of James Monroe. Jefferson fought hard to keep the party together in support of Madison. But in a true twist of comedy, George Clinton himself renounced the party's caucus and began trying to garner votes for himself as President. Given the weakness of the Federalists by this time though as they approached the voting it was clear that Madison was going to win and he did, convincingly. Madison took 122 electors to Picneys 47. Clinton only received 2 electors for President but he would serve as Madison's Vice President regardless. For a time. Clinton later died while in office leaving the office of Vice President vacant under Madison for a time.
1812
Just a few days after Madison asked Congress to declare war against Britian, which they did, it was time to nominate Madison again for the next election. With the country going up and down under Madison and now war, a third of the DR's boycotted their own caucus as they didn't support Madison. The rest did though and he was renominated. They tried to nominate a new Vice President, John Langdon from New Hampshire, who turned the party down refusing to serve with Madison. They party then turned to Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts who was a signor of the Declaration of Independenence.
The republicans who left the caucus were going to nominate their own candidate. With the federalists weakened throughout the country (they would suffer their final death under Monroe) they decided to try to form a coalition with the disgruntled republicans and join their ticket and power, limited as it was. They nominated New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton (a relative of the dead Vice President) for the office. The act of the federlists though angered one of their most powerful allies - John Quincy Adams. Adams renounced his party and supported for and ultimately campaigned for James Madison in Massachusetts. The New England states ended up voting for Clinton, by Madison took the entire south, Pennsylvania and Ohio and with it beat Clinton 128 to 89. By fusing their party with angry republicans the federalists signed their death warrant as a party, John Quincy Adams would be a supporter of Madison and Monroe and we were without a true second party for awhile in politics.
1816
James Monroe was the natural successor for Madison. There was some continued infighting in the party but Monroe took the nomination fairly easily. The federalists were all but destroyed and had no formal party structure at this point let alone enough pull amongst themselves to hold a caucus or convention. The old guard in the party managed to get together and threw their support to the tried and tested Rufus King. While there was some campaigning Monroe's popularity basically took the day and not even anti-republican newspapers attacked him too much. In the end Monroe killed King 183 to 34 only losing Massachusetts and Connecticut.
1820
Not only was Monroe's renomination a foregone conclusion, but his winning was as well. The federalists were gone, no longer a party, and even if they were, James Monroe still holds some of the best approval ratings and popularity scores in American history going into re-election. He won every state. The only funny bit of information on this election was that contrary to what we are taught in school he didn't win unanimously. He won 231 electoral votes, but there were 235 to be had. Three of the electors died between the election and the time to cast their ballot so their votes were never counted, leaving one. That one final electoral vote was for an elector in New Hampshire - Governor William Plummer. There are many stories in history about why he did what he did. He cast his vote for Secretary of State John Wuincy Adams - his close friend. Adams wasn't running (no one was, Monroe ran unopposed) but he got one electoral vote. Some stories say that Plummer just wanted to call attention to John Quincy on a national stage for the next election. Many say that he did it to make sure that Monroe wasn't unanimously chosen akin to George Washington so that Washington could continue to hold that perch to himself. Basically, he did the baseball hall of fame thing with the guys that can't get unanimous support because Babe Ruth didn't get unanimous support. You know, stupid.
Coming up - the second massively contested election in American History - John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
1808
The election that gave James Madison the White House didn't start off as an easy one. Jefferson's policies were showing their true colors by the end of his term and there was some growing resentment within his own party along sectional lines about the true course the next President should take. Jefferson wanted Madison to get the nomination and though there was some minor struggle the party nominated Madison and as his second once again called on George Clinton, who was currently serving as Jefferson's Vice President. Without a formal caucus or convention the Federalists named Charles Pickney once again as their candidate with Rufus King from New York as their second. The media of the day began a torrid campaign accusing Madison or a parade of horribles while the Jeffersonian papers went after the Federalists collectively.
As the election wore on the DR's were becoming more and more tense with each other leading to many in the party seeking an alternative by the name of James Monroe. Jefferson fought hard to keep the party together in support of Madison. But in a true twist of comedy, George Clinton himself renounced the party's caucus and began trying to garner votes for himself as President. Given the weakness of the Federalists by this time though as they approached the voting it was clear that Madison was going to win and he did, convincingly. Madison took 122 electors to Picneys 47. Clinton only received 2 electors for President but he would serve as Madison's Vice President regardless. For a time. Clinton later died while in office leaving the office of Vice President vacant under Madison for a time.
1812
Just a few days after Madison asked Congress to declare war against Britian, which they did, it was time to nominate Madison again for the next election. With the country going up and down under Madison and now war, a third of the DR's boycotted their own caucus as they didn't support Madison. The rest did though and he was renominated. They tried to nominate a new Vice President, John Langdon from New Hampshire, who turned the party down refusing to serve with Madison. They party then turned to Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts who was a signor of the Declaration of Independenence.
The republicans who left the caucus were going to nominate their own candidate. With the federalists weakened throughout the country (they would suffer their final death under Monroe) they decided to try to form a coalition with the disgruntled republicans and join their ticket and power, limited as it was. They nominated New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton (a relative of the dead Vice President) for the office. The act of the federlists though angered one of their most powerful allies - John Quincy Adams. Adams renounced his party and supported for and ultimately campaigned for James Madison in Massachusetts. The New England states ended up voting for Clinton, by Madison took the entire south, Pennsylvania and Ohio and with it beat Clinton 128 to 89. By fusing their party with angry republicans the federalists signed their death warrant as a party, John Quincy Adams would be a supporter of Madison and Monroe and we were without a true second party for awhile in politics.
1816
James Monroe was the natural successor for Madison. There was some continued infighting in the party but Monroe took the nomination fairly easily. The federalists were all but destroyed and had no formal party structure at this point let alone enough pull amongst themselves to hold a caucus or convention. The old guard in the party managed to get together and threw their support to the tried and tested Rufus King. While there was some campaigning Monroe's popularity basically took the day and not even anti-republican newspapers attacked him too much. In the end Monroe killed King 183 to 34 only losing Massachusetts and Connecticut.
1820
Not only was Monroe's renomination a foregone conclusion, but his winning was as well. The federalists were gone, no longer a party, and even if they were, James Monroe still holds some of the best approval ratings and popularity scores in American history going into re-election. He won every state. The only funny bit of information on this election was that contrary to what we are taught in school he didn't win unanimously. He won 231 electoral votes, but there were 235 to be had. Three of the electors died between the election and the time to cast their ballot so their votes were never counted, leaving one. That one final electoral vote was for an elector in New Hampshire - Governor William Plummer. There are many stories in history about why he did what he did. He cast his vote for Secretary of State John Wuincy Adams - his close friend. Adams wasn't running (no one was, Monroe ran unopposed) but he got one electoral vote. Some stories say that Plummer just wanted to call attention to John Quincy on a national stage for the next election. Many say that he did it to make sure that Monroe wasn't unanimously chosen akin to George Washington so that Washington could continue to hold that perch to himself. Basically, he did the baseball hall of fame thing with the guys that can't get unanimous support because Babe Ruth didn't get unanimous support. You know, stupid.
Coming up - the second massively contested election in American History - John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
Sweet J
Footballguy
It's bad etiquette!
Now I have to change it. What other religious leader can I chose who represented the anger of his race?
I know!
59. Meir Kahane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahane
Noted on the etiquette.
timschochet
Footballguy
59. Malcolm X
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetary.
Of the 20 million or so blacks that lived in America during most of Malcolm X's life, less than 20,000 were ever members of the Nation of Islam, the group which Malcolm represented nearly until his assassination (likely at their hands.) But that didn't matter, because when Malcolm spoke he spoke not just for that cultish religious movement, or even for black seperatists in general, but also for millions of blacks who were angry and outraged at centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, and not willing to put up with the slow, patient, non-violent advances of Martin Luther King and the NAACP.
It is true that Malcolm espoused ideas which were almost the opposite of MLK- segregation, not integration (though on black terms)- separatism, black racial superiority, etc. These were, of course, not Malcolm's ideas per se, but those of his mentor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam. This mysterious crackpot, much like Joseph Smith, created a religion out of thin air, filled with knucklehead racist and anti-Semitic ideas and a strange history about some dude named Yakub who created the white devil race as an act of evil. The Nation of Islam still exists today, with 50,000 members, powerful in Chicago and a few other cities, led by a man who if anything is even more hate filled and crazy than Elijah Muhammad ever was.
But that being said, It is my sense having read Alex Haley's brilliant The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and having read about him in several other sources, that the young blacks who admired him really didn't pay too much attention to the specifics of his message, particularly the separatist or "white devil" stuff. What they liked was an angry black man speaking up in an angry fashion. In terms of popular culture Malcolm was the first to do so. He had predecessors, notably Marcus Garvey, but Garvey was not known to the media or general public during his life time. Black political leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois and Martin Luther King tended to be quiet, reasonable types- not scary. Black celebrities, prior to the introdiuction of another former member of the Nation of Islam whom I will get to later, were presented as servile: Joe Louis for one, a certain baseball player to be named later for another. Blacks were always presented to the public as non-threatening. Here was a young black man who was threatening, and who didn't care what white folks thought of him. And so he became the alternative to MLK, and voice to all the young blacks who were tired of listening to their parents, or to society, telling them to be patient.
Because Malcolm X, both during his lifetime and even more afterwards, was so popular, there have been revisionist atempts to make him seem more reasonable than he actually was. Most of this revisionism is centered around the end of his life, when he renounced the Nation of Islam. Supposedly Malcolm regretted some of his more outlandish statements, and became this good guy (which he really always had been.) This is a false narrative. If we're going to examine these people truthfully we have to examine their faults along with the good stuff. Malcolm X diid some good stuff unintentionally by mostivating black youth to get angry; this anger probably led to more social change and civil rights for blacks than did the more peaceful protests of MLK. (At least there's an argument to be made.) But Malcolm was not a good guy: he was a racist, a chauvinist of the worst kind (believing like many religious Muslims in a lesser role for women), an anti-Semite. He spewed hatred from his pulpit and did it as charismatically as no American since Father Coughlin. Yet because of his great influence, he gets a spot on this list nonetheless.
Next up: Probably the subject of more revisionism than anyone else in American history...
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetary.
Of the 20 million or so blacks that lived in America during most of Malcolm X's life, less than 20,000 were ever members of the Nation of Islam, the group which Malcolm represented nearly until his assassination (likely at their hands.) But that didn't matter, because when Malcolm spoke he spoke not just for that cultish religious movement, or even for black seperatists in general, but also for millions of blacks who were angry and outraged at centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, and not willing to put up with the slow, patient, non-violent advances of Martin Luther King and the NAACP.
It is true that Malcolm espoused ideas which were almost the opposite of MLK- segregation, not integration (though on black terms)- separatism, black racial superiority, etc. These were, of course, not Malcolm's ideas per se, but those of his mentor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam. This mysterious crackpot, much like Joseph Smith, created a religion out of thin air, filled with knucklehead racist and anti-Semitic ideas and a strange history about some dude named Yakub who created the white devil race as an act of evil. The Nation of Islam still exists today, with 50,000 members, powerful in Chicago and a few other cities, led by a man who if anything is even more hate filled and crazy than Elijah Muhammad ever was.
But that being said, It is my sense having read Alex Haley's brilliant The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and having read about him in several other sources, that the young blacks who admired him really didn't pay too much attention to the specifics of his message, particularly the separatist or "white devil" stuff. What they liked was an angry black man speaking up in an angry fashion. In terms of popular culture Malcolm was the first to do so. He had predecessors, notably Marcus Garvey, but Garvey was not known to the media or general public during his life time. Black political leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois and Martin Luther King tended to be quiet, reasonable types- not scary. Black celebrities, prior to the introdiuction of another former member of the Nation of Islam whom I will get to later, were presented as servile: Joe Louis for one, a certain baseball player to be named later for another. Blacks were always presented to the public as non-threatening. Here was a young black man who was threatening, and who didn't care what white folks thought of him. And so he became the alternative to MLK, and voice to all the young blacks who were tired of listening to their parents, or to society, telling them to be patient.
Because Malcolm X, both during his lifetime and even more afterwards, was so popular, there have been revisionist atempts to make him seem more reasonable than he actually was. Most of this revisionism is centered around the end of his life, when he renounced the Nation of Islam. Supposedly Malcolm regretted some of his more outlandish statements, and became this good guy (which he really always had been.) This is a false narrative. If we're going to examine these people truthfully we have to examine their faults along with the good stuff. Malcolm X diid some good stuff unintentionally by mostivating black youth to get angry; this anger probably led to more social change and civil rights for blacks than did the more peaceful protests of MLK. (At least there's an argument to be made.) But Malcolm was not a good guy: he was a racist, a chauvinist of the worst kind (believing like many religious Muslims in a lesser role for women), an anti-Semite. He spewed hatred from his pulpit and did it as charismatically as no American since Father Coughlin. Yet because of his great influence, he gets a spot on this list nonetheless.
Next up: Probably the subject of more revisionism than anyone else in American history...
Dan Lambskin
Footballguy
I assume Tom Brady will be #1?
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Malcolm X -------------------- Andrew Carnegie.
I renew my previous objection on the same grounds.
I renew my previous objection on the same grounds.
timschochet
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
After this list is over, I will be revising Andrew Carnegie upward. You have made a good point about him being too low and I agree.
Any other specific complaints?
Instinctive
Footballguy
In a perfect world, the OP would be edited to have a link to each post with a new person that you have ranked. That seems like a lot of work though, and too much to ask since this is pretty cool and fun to keep up with.
But: perhaps you could keep a running list in the OP? Just a simple one:
1.
2.
3.
...
...
59. Malcolm X
60. etc
100. woohoo!
But: perhaps you could keep a running list in the OP? Just a simple one:
1.
2.
3.
...
...
59. Malcolm X
60. etc
100. woohoo!
timschochet
Footballguy
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Malcolm X is overrated in history clinging to more myth than reality, but that myth is fairly powerful. He's more Thomas Jefferson than John Adams. Hence my opinion. But it's not a hill I would fight over. Just, again, against the backdrop of who has been on the list already.......
timschochet
Footballguy
58. Robert E. Lee
It is well that war is so terrible...otherwise we might grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee was a military genius, responsible for the great Confederate victories during the Seven Days Campaign, Fredericksburg, and Chanchellorsville. These victories prolonged the American Civil War by about 2 years. Lee is also responsible for saving the Army of Northern Virginia from the strategic defeat at Antietam, and for creating a stalemate situation after Gettysburg which led to bloody seiges (St. Petersburg, Cold Mountain, the Wilderness) which also prolonged the war and predicted the bloody battles of World War I, in which, until the tank was finally created, static defenses were extremely hard to penetrate. It should be noted that, as James B. MacPherson points out, had Lee not won these victories and stalemates, the Confederacy would have been destroyed much earlier, likely in 1862, and the South would have been far better off- no starvation, Sherman's march, or destruction of their economic system. Probably slavery would have survived for the time being with a slower, more peaceful emancipatiion process.
But during the most pivotal battle of the eastern war, Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was more responsible than any other man for the Confederate defeat, by insisting upon Pickett's charge against all odds. Because Lee is so important to the Southern "Lost Cause" movement, this great error in judgment, somewhat analogous to Napoleon's failure in Moscow and Hitler's at Stalingrad, often gets overlooked. Robert E. Lee was a soft-spoken, chivalrous gentleman, the essence of the "noble southerner", and perhaps for this reason, he is honored by the Lost Cause as the greatest example of the antebellum South, over Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson and every other Confederate hero. Therefore it's very important that Lee did no wrong during the war; thus Gettysburg is typically blamed on Longstreet, or Ebell, or other subordinates. Lee blamed himself, however. He knew it was a great gamble,
In making this list I considered several Confederate figures: as argued previously in this thread, I do not regard them as traitors, and many were great Americans. Ultimately, I ended up with two: Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, mainy because they were such brilliant military minds. I thought long and hard about Jefferson Davis because of what he represented, but ultimately he was a mediocre man and his actions as President did not contribute greatly to the Confederate caiuse. Lee both exemplified and prolonged that cause; thus he is it's most important figure.
Next up: he rose from the depths of slavery to become one of America's greatest inventors...
It is well that war is so terrible...otherwise we might grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee was a military genius, responsible for the great Confederate victories during the Seven Days Campaign, Fredericksburg, and Chanchellorsville. These victories prolonged the American Civil War by about 2 years. Lee is also responsible for saving the Army of Northern Virginia from the strategic defeat at Antietam, and for creating a stalemate situation after Gettysburg which led to bloody seiges (St. Petersburg, Cold Mountain, the Wilderness) which also prolonged the war and predicted the bloody battles of World War I, in which, until the tank was finally created, static defenses were extremely hard to penetrate. It should be noted that, as James B. MacPherson points out, had Lee not won these victories and stalemates, the Confederacy would have been destroyed much earlier, likely in 1862, and the South would have been far better off- no starvation, Sherman's march, or destruction of their economic system. Probably slavery would have survived for the time being with a slower, more peaceful emancipatiion process.
But during the most pivotal battle of the eastern war, Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was more responsible than any other man for the Confederate defeat, by insisting upon Pickett's charge against all odds. Because Lee is so important to the Southern "Lost Cause" movement, this great error in judgment, somewhat analogous to Napoleon's failure in Moscow and Hitler's at Stalingrad, often gets overlooked. Robert E. Lee was a soft-spoken, chivalrous gentleman, the essence of the "noble southerner", and perhaps for this reason, he is honored by the Lost Cause as the greatest example of the antebellum South, over Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson and every other Confederate hero. Therefore it's very important that Lee did no wrong during the war; thus Gettysburg is typically blamed on Longstreet, or Ebell, or other subordinates. Lee blamed himself, however. He knew it was a great gamble,
In making this list I considered several Confederate figures: as argued previously in this thread, I do not regard them as traitors, and many were great Americans. Ultimately, I ended up with two: Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, mainy because they were such brilliant military minds. I thought long and hard about Jefferson Davis because of what he represented, but ultimately he was a mediocre man and his actions as President did not contribute greatly to the Confederate caiuse. Lee both exemplified and prolonged that cause; thus he is it's most important figure.
Next up: he rose from the depths of slavery to become one of America's greatest inventors...
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
The Electoral College Part 3
1824
John Quincy Adams should have been the heir apparent to the presidency as James Monroe's secretary of state, the year 1824 was a political turning point in which none of the old rules applied. Four other men also wanted to be President, each with substantial regional backing. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, William H. Crawford of Georgia, House Speaker Henry Clay and General Andrew Jackson from Tennessee.
Although Adams was a centrist politician of sorts—a Jeffersonian-Federalist, to coin a new term—many Americans still identified him as a New Englander and as the son of the old Federalist leader John Adams. Additionally, many staunch Democratic-Republicans blamed Adams and his supporters for having transformed the party of Jefferson into a disguised form of Federalism under the rubric of "National Republicans." Southerners, moreover, objected to Adams because of his moral opposition to slavery. They remembered his criticism of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 as a proslavery conspiracy, and they suspiciously recalled Adams's efforts to include language opposed to the international slave trade in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.
In the summer of 1824, an unofficial caucus of less than a third of the congressmen eligible to attend nominated Crawford for President. Supporters for Adams denounced the caucus bid, and the Massachusetts legislature nominated Adams as their favorite-son candidate. The Kentucky legislature did the same for Clay. Both nominations followed the pattern set by the Tennessee legislature, which had nominated Andrew Jackson in 1822. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina dropped out of the presidential race by announcing his bid for the vice presidency, a move that both Adams and Crawford endorsed. Because all four candidates were nominal Democratic-Republicans—the Federalist Party had disintegrated by this point—the election would be decided without reference to party affiliation.
As the campaign progressed, Jackson emerged as the man to beat. The size of his rallies in key swing states—Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and New Jersey—far surpassed or rivaled those for Clay and Adams. In this first election in American history in which the popular vote mattered—because eighteen states chose presidential electors by popular vote in 1824 (six states still left the choice up to their state legislatures) —Jackson's popularity foretold a new era in the making. When the final votes were tallied in those eighteen states, Jackson polled 152,901 popular votes to Adams's 114,023; Clay won 47,217, and Crawford won 46,979. The electoral college returns, however, gave Jackson only 99 votes, 32 fewer than he needed for a majority of the total votes cast. Adams won 84 electoral votes followed by 41 for Crawford and 37 for Clay. Jackson was the only candidate to attract significant support beyond his regional base. He carried the majority of electoral votes in eleven states: Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Adams won all six of the New England states plus New York. Crawford and Clay carried only three states each—Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia for Crawford and Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio for Clay.
Acting under the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution, the House of Representatives met to select the President from among the top three candidates. Henry Clay, as the candidate with the fewest electoral votes, was eliminated from the deliberation. As Speaker of the House, however, Clay was still the most important player in determining the outcome of the election. The election in the House took place in February 1825. With each state having one vote, as determined by the wishes of the majority of each state's congressional representatives, Adams emerged as the winner with a one-vote margin of victory. Most of Clay's supporters, joined by several old Federalists, switched their votes to Adams in enough states to give him the election. Soon after his inauguration as President, Adams appointed Henry Clay as his secretary of state.
Jackson could barely contain his fury at having lost the election in what he claimed was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay to overturn the will of the people. To most Jackson supporters, it looked as if congressional leaders had conspired to revive the caucus system, whereby Congress greatly influenced—if not determined—the selection of the President. Jackson laid the blame on Clay, telling anyone who would listen that the Speaker had approached him with the offer of a deal: Clay would support Jackson in return for Jackson's appointment of Clay as secretary of state. When Jackson refused, Clay purportedly made the deal with Adams instead. In Jackson's words, Clay had sold his influence in a "corrupt bargain." Clay denied the charges, and while there certainly had been some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Clay to push the vote to Adams, it most likely reflected Clay's genuine doubts about Jackson's qualifications for the office. In assessing the odds of successfully forwarding his own political agenda, Clay questioned Jackson's commitment to the "American System" of internal improvements. On the other hand, Clay knew that Adams had supported it consistently over the years. Also, the loss of three states that Jackson had won in the popular vote—Illinois, Maryland, and Louisiana—due to the defection of congressmen who supported Adams suggests that more was involved in the outcome than the political maneuvering of one man. Enraged, Jackson resigned his seat in the Senate and vowed to win the presidency in 1828 as an outsider to Washington politics.
1828
Within months of Adams's inauguration in 1825, the Tennessee legislature nominated Andrew Jackson for President. Over the next three years, Jackson put together a highly disciplined grassroots campaign with one goal: to defeat John Quincy Adams in a rematch that would pit "the people" against Adams. Jackson issued so-called memorandums (a misuse of the word that endeared him to his growing western constituency) in which he outlined the erosion of representative power over the last decades at the hands of "gamesters" like Clay and Adams. In Jackson's mind, the "corrupt bargain" was just one of a number of such schemes. Jackson claimed that the Panic of 1819, a devastating economic collapse, had resulted from (1) a conspiracy of disreputable creditors and the Bank of the United States, (2) the unpaid national debt, (3) the political swindlers in office from Madison through Adams—schemers who would be turned out with a Jackson victory—and (4) the backstairs dealings of "King Caucus" to select a President in defiance of popular opinion.
While Jackson and Van Buren organized, Adams diligently carried out the duties of the presidency, refusing to prepare himself or his supporters for the coming contest. Adams did not remove even his loudest opponents from appointive office and hewed to the old-fashioned notion that a candidate should "stand" for office, not "run." When the election campaign officially began, Adams's supporters formally adopted the name National Republicans in contrast to Democrats, trying thereby to identify themselves accurately with the link between old-style federalism and a new nationalistic republicanism. Jacksonians, on the other hand, argued for a new revolutionary movement that rested on a firm faith in majoritarian democracy and states' rights—ideas that were not always compatible.
The campaign turned out more than twice the number of voters who had cast ballots in 1824—approximately 57 percent of the electorate. Jackson won the election in a landslide, and by a wide margin of 95 electoral votes. Adams carried New England, Delaware, part of Maryland, New Jersey, and sixteen of New York's electoral votes—nine states in all. Jackson carried the remaining fifteen states of the South, Northwest, mid-Atlantic, and West. Incumbent Vice President John C. Calhoun won 171 electoral votes to 83 for Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Adams's running mate.
1832
This is the election that began the process of using conventions instead of a caucus in the states to get a nominee. Jackson's popularity was immense and he was easily renominated and he would face a familiar foe in Henry Clay. And the result was similar to the last election with Jackson easily defeating Clay by taking the entire south, New York and Pennsylvania.
1836
Martin Van Buren was the heir apparent and the Democrats nominated him with little strife as a continuation of the political power that Van Buren helped to create under Jackson. The Federalists were dead and smaller parties like the Anti-Mason's had no singular leader, platform or policy to merge around. A growing new party, the Whigs, were beginning to make themselves known but without a strong central political organization and their inability to hold a convention they ended up supporting three different people for President under their banner - Tennessee Senatore Hugh White covering the south, Daniel Webster covering New England and Ohio's William Henry Harrison covering the west. The result isn't hard to see from that. Van Buren won easily. But the election signaled that the Whigs would be a new power for if they had run under one banner, Van Buren wouldn't have had that easy of an election.
1840
And of course, it came to a boiling point by the time Van Buren was up for election again. His first term did not go well and it resulted in the Whig party growing exponentially in the face of the Jacksonian democrats. Learning from their mistakes four years earlier the party united behind William Henry Harrison to run against Van Buren. Where Van Buren lead Jacksons party in changing the nature of politics and using grassroots programs to get the vote out, the Whige went one step further as a new national party and covered the country with banners, slogans, pennants, cigar boxes and all manner of things that we take for granted now almost 200 years later. 80% of eligible voters went to the polls and while Van Buren did well in the popular vote, Harrison destroyed him in the electoral college - even taking Van Buren's home state of New York from the Democrat. The Whigs were poised to be a long standing national party.
1844
President Harrison died a month into office leaving Vice President John Tyler to run the country. Almost immediately he was considered not a true President and fought that attack his entire time in office. The chaos that it caused resulted in him basically being thrown out of the Whig Party and a man with no support. As the election season was approaching the Whigs nominated Henry Clay for President a long standing enemy of Jacksonians. Tyler tried to win the nomination of the Democrats to run under their ticket, but the party was split between him and ultimately James K. Polk. Jackson still the party leader confronted Tyler about the election and told him that if he continued to try to run for President, he and Polk could split the Democrat vote enough to allow Henry Clay to win, but if Tyler backed down and let Polk lead the party then Tyler could help get rid of Henry Clay once and for all. Tyler agreed and withdrew his name and supported Polk. The Democrats also had to deal with former President Martin Van Buren trying to make a run as well so the party was not without its own chaos - and it's the reason that Polk did emerge from the convention as the nominee.
Polk promised to do four things in office and not run again. He would face, once again, Henry Clay because the Whigs were incapable of learning their lesson just yet. The Texas Annexation issue was the primary issue of the day and the men were so opposed to each other's positions that it made it clear for the electorate where they stood on that issue. Clay tried to ease up his position a little to try to grab some votes in the south but it didn't work. Once the ballots were counted, Polk beat Clay by only 38,000 votes with the college going 170-107 to Polk. But there is one more part to the story - the Whigs ignored the abolitionist wing of their party and they broke off and created the Liberty Party and nominted their own man for office, Michigan Democrat James Birney. They should have paid attention. Birney took a lot of votes away from Clay in New York and it was enough to give Polk the state. Had Clay won New York he would have won the popular vote and the electoral vote.
1824
John Quincy Adams should have been the heir apparent to the presidency as James Monroe's secretary of state, the year 1824 was a political turning point in which none of the old rules applied. Four other men also wanted to be President, each with substantial regional backing. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, William H. Crawford of Georgia, House Speaker Henry Clay and General Andrew Jackson from Tennessee.
Although Adams was a centrist politician of sorts—a Jeffersonian-Federalist, to coin a new term—many Americans still identified him as a New Englander and as the son of the old Federalist leader John Adams. Additionally, many staunch Democratic-Republicans blamed Adams and his supporters for having transformed the party of Jefferson into a disguised form of Federalism under the rubric of "National Republicans." Southerners, moreover, objected to Adams because of his moral opposition to slavery. They remembered his criticism of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 as a proslavery conspiracy, and they suspiciously recalled Adams's efforts to include language opposed to the international slave trade in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.
In the summer of 1824, an unofficial caucus of less than a third of the congressmen eligible to attend nominated Crawford for President. Supporters for Adams denounced the caucus bid, and the Massachusetts legislature nominated Adams as their favorite-son candidate. The Kentucky legislature did the same for Clay. Both nominations followed the pattern set by the Tennessee legislature, which had nominated Andrew Jackson in 1822. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina dropped out of the presidential race by announcing his bid for the vice presidency, a move that both Adams and Crawford endorsed. Because all four candidates were nominal Democratic-Republicans—the Federalist Party had disintegrated by this point—the election would be decided without reference to party affiliation.
As the campaign progressed, Jackson emerged as the man to beat. The size of his rallies in key swing states—Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and New Jersey—far surpassed or rivaled those for Clay and Adams. In this first election in American history in which the popular vote mattered—because eighteen states chose presidential electors by popular vote in 1824 (six states still left the choice up to their state legislatures) —Jackson's popularity foretold a new era in the making. When the final votes were tallied in those eighteen states, Jackson polled 152,901 popular votes to Adams's 114,023; Clay won 47,217, and Crawford won 46,979. The electoral college returns, however, gave Jackson only 99 votes, 32 fewer than he needed for a majority of the total votes cast. Adams won 84 electoral votes followed by 41 for Crawford and 37 for Clay. Jackson was the only candidate to attract significant support beyond his regional base. He carried the majority of electoral votes in eleven states: Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Adams won all six of the New England states plus New York. Crawford and Clay carried only three states each—Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia for Crawford and Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio for Clay.
Acting under the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution, the House of Representatives met to select the President from among the top three candidates. Henry Clay, as the candidate with the fewest electoral votes, was eliminated from the deliberation. As Speaker of the House, however, Clay was still the most important player in determining the outcome of the election. The election in the House took place in February 1825. With each state having one vote, as determined by the wishes of the majority of each state's congressional representatives, Adams emerged as the winner with a one-vote margin of victory. Most of Clay's supporters, joined by several old Federalists, switched their votes to Adams in enough states to give him the election. Soon after his inauguration as President, Adams appointed Henry Clay as his secretary of state.
Jackson could barely contain his fury at having lost the election in what he claimed was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay to overturn the will of the people. To most Jackson supporters, it looked as if congressional leaders had conspired to revive the caucus system, whereby Congress greatly influenced—if not determined—the selection of the President. Jackson laid the blame on Clay, telling anyone who would listen that the Speaker had approached him with the offer of a deal: Clay would support Jackson in return for Jackson's appointment of Clay as secretary of state. When Jackson refused, Clay purportedly made the deal with Adams instead. In Jackson's words, Clay had sold his influence in a "corrupt bargain." Clay denied the charges, and while there certainly had been some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Clay to push the vote to Adams, it most likely reflected Clay's genuine doubts about Jackson's qualifications for the office. In assessing the odds of successfully forwarding his own political agenda, Clay questioned Jackson's commitment to the "American System" of internal improvements. On the other hand, Clay knew that Adams had supported it consistently over the years. Also, the loss of three states that Jackson had won in the popular vote—Illinois, Maryland, and Louisiana—due to the defection of congressmen who supported Adams suggests that more was involved in the outcome than the political maneuvering of one man. Enraged, Jackson resigned his seat in the Senate and vowed to win the presidency in 1828 as an outsider to Washington politics.
1828
Within months of Adams's inauguration in 1825, the Tennessee legislature nominated Andrew Jackson for President. Over the next three years, Jackson put together a highly disciplined grassroots campaign with one goal: to defeat John Quincy Adams in a rematch that would pit "the people" against Adams. Jackson issued so-called memorandums (a misuse of the word that endeared him to his growing western constituency) in which he outlined the erosion of representative power over the last decades at the hands of "gamesters" like Clay and Adams. In Jackson's mind, the "corrupt bargain" was just one of a number of such schemes. Jackson claimed that the Panic of 1819, a devastating economic collapse, had resulted from (1) a conspiracy of disreputable creditors and the Bank of the United States, (2) the unpaid national debt, (3) the political swindlers in office from Madison through Adams—schemers who would be turned out with a Jackson victory—and (4) the backstairs dealings of "King Caucus" to select a President in defiance of popular opinion.
While Jackson and Van Buren organized, Adams diligently carried out the duties of the presidency, refusing to prepare himself or his supporters for the coming contest. Adams did not remove even his loudest opponents from appointive office and hewed to the old-fashioned notion that a candidate should "stand" for office, not "run." When the election campaign officially began, Adams's supporters formally adopted the name National Republicans in contrast to Democrats, trying thereby to identify themselves accurately with the link between old-style federalism and a new nationalistic republicanism. Jacksonians, on the other hand, argued for a new revolutionary movement that rested on a firm faith in majoritarian democracy and states' rights—ideas that were not always compatible.
The campaign turned out more than twice the number of voters who had cast ballots in 1824—approximately 57 percent of the electorate. Jackson won the election in a landslide, and by a wide margin of 95 electoral votes. Adams carried New England, Delaware, part of Maryland, New Jersey, and sixteen of New York's electoral votes—nine states in all. Jackson carried the remaining fifteen states of the South, Northwest, mid-Atlantic, and West. Incumbent Vice President John C. Calhoun won 171 electoral votes to 83 for Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Adams's running mate.
1832
This is the election that began the process of using conventions instead of a caucus in the states to get a nominee. Jackson's popularity was immense and he was easily renominated and he would face a familiar foe in Henry Clay. And the result was similar to the last election with Jackson easily defeating Clay by taking the entire south, New York and Pennsylvania.
1836
Martin Van Buren was the heir apparent and the Democrats nominated him with little strife as a continuation of the political power that Van Buren helped to create under Jackson. The Federalists were dead and smaller parties like the Anti-Mason's had no singular leader, platform or policy to merge around. A growing new party, the Whigs, were beginning to make themselves known but without a strong central political organization and their inability to hold a convention they ended up supporting three different people for President under their banner - Tennessee Senatore Hugh White covering the south, Daniel Webster covering New England and Ohio's William Henry Harrison covering the west. The result isn't hard to see from that. Van Buren won easily. But the election signaled that the Whigs would be a new power for if they had run under one banner, Van Buren wouldn't have had that easy of an election.
1840
And of course, it came to a boiling point by the time Van Buren was up for election again. His first term did not go well and it resulted in the Whig party growing exponentially in the face of the Jacksonian democrats. Learning from their mistakes four years earlier the party united behind William Henry Harrison to run against Van Buren. Where Van Buren lead Jacksons party in changing the nature of politics and using grassroots programs to get the vote out, the Whige went one step further as a new national party and covered the country with banners, slogans, pennants, cigar boxes and all manner of things that we take for granted now almost 200 years later. 80% of eligible voters went to the polls and while Van Buren did well in the popular vote, Harrison destroyed him in the electoral college - even taking Van Buren's home state of New York from the Democrat. The Whigs were poised to be a long standing national party.
1844
President Harrison died a month into office leaving Vice President John Tyler to run the country. Almost immediately he was considered not a true President and fought that attack his entire time in office. The chaos that it caused resulted in him basically being thrown out of the Whig Party and a man with no support. As the election season was approaching the Whigs nominated Henry Clay for President a long standing enemy of Jacksonians. Tyler tried to win the nomination of the Democrats to run under their ticket, but the party was split between him and ultimately James K. Polk. Jackson still the party leader confronted Tyler about the election and told him that if he continued to try to run for President, he and Polk could split the Democrat vote enough to allow Henry Clay to win, but if Tyler backed down and let Polk lead the party then Tyler could help get rid of Henry Clay once and for all. Tyler agreed and withdrew his name and supported Polk. The Democrats also had to deal with former President Martin Van Buren trying to make a run as well so the party was not without its own chaos - and it's the reason that Polk did emerge from the convention as the nominee.
Polk promised to do four things in office and not run again. He would face, once again, Henry Clay because the Whigs were incapable of learning their lesson just yet. The Texas Annexation issue was the primary issue of the day and the men were so opposed to each other's positions that it made it clear for the electorate where they stood on that issue. Clay tried to ease up his position a little to try to grab some votes in the south but it didn't work. Once the ballots were counted, Polk beat Clay by only 38,000 votes with the college going 170-107 to Polk. But there is one more part to the story - the Whigs ignored the abolitionist wing of their party and they broke off and created the Liberty Party and nominted their own man for office, Michigan Democrat James Birney. They should have paid attention. Birney took a lot of votes away from Clay in New York and it was enough to give Polk the state. Had Clay won New York he would have won the popular vote and the electoral vote.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
The Electoral College Part 4
1848
Pols kept to his promise completing one of the more amazing terms in office of any President. When the next election rolled around, the seat was wide open. General Zachary Taylor was a war hero and looked to by both the Democrats and Whigs to run for office under their banner. He let it be known that he would not veto the Wilmont Proviso which angered the Democratic party and resulted in him accepting the nomination from the Whigs - who nominated him with no platform hoping to just ride his war hero credentials into the White House. The Democrats nominated Lewis Cass. Former President Martin Van Buren joined the Free Soil Party and ran hoping to be a better alternative than Cass. He wasn't. Taylor won the election 163 to 127 over Cass in the college and grabbed a plurality of votes because of Van Buren's ticket which didn't capture a single elector.
1852
Civil War was coming. The Whig Party practically denounced President Fillmore and refused to renominate him. They turned instead to General Winfield Scott after 40 ballots at the convention as a compromise - and Scott was also the commanding officer of the Democrats eventual nominee - Franklin Pierce. Pierce was a dark horse like Polk. At the time of the convention there were four top players in the party for the nomination - James Buchanan, Lewis Cass again, Stephen Douglas and William Marcy. The convention was split amongst all of them. After 34 ballots there was no end in sight. Pierce's soldiers from New Hampshire had been working the convention since it was clear that a deadlock was not going to be broken. On the 35th ballot, Pierce got Virginia to fall his way and soon almost everyone did giving him the nomination. The election between Pierce and Scott was solely personal. Almost no issues were discussed to keep the ire of slavery off of everybody. Scott wasn't a politician and had no idea how to campaign or lead the party to do it while Pierce was very effective. Pierce overwhelmed Scott in the election taking 254 electoral votes while Scott only took 4 states and 52 votes. The Free Soil Party ran again but only got a half of the total votes from last time and again, no electors.
1856
The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed Franklin Pierce politically as it should have. He wasn't seriously considered a contender for re-election. The Democrats instead turned to James Buchanan. But his election wasn't going to be easy as sectional problems were now getting bloody. The Whigs were almost destroyed as a party, but managed to hold a convention as Whig-Americans nominating former President Milliard Fillmore. They are better known in history as the "Know-Nothings.". The new national party on the scene which devoured most of the old Whigs and Free Soil party was the Republicans. Their first nominee would be John Fremont.
The election was solely fought over slavery. The repubican platform fought against it which meant that Buchanan would take the entire south which he did. With the entire south he only needed pockets of support from the north and border states which he got as well. In the final voting, the Know Nothings split the anti-Democrat vote enough to give Buchanan a plurality adn 174 electoral votes. Fremont took the Northeast and Ohio but only managed 114 electors. And Millard Fillmore actually won 8 electors, winning the border state of Maryland. At the end of the day, the results of this election made it clear that war was coming. It was just a question of when thanks to Franklin Pierce and the ultimate uselessness that was James Buchanan.
1860
The election of 1860 changed the nation - and not just because we got Abraham Lincoln in office. It changed the nature of the major parties in the country pretty much once and for all. With shots fired in the Civil War and the country spiraling into chaos the Democrats and Republicans needed to get their man in the White House so that they could direct the nature of the battle. The Democrats were split almost immediately. Coming off of his debates with Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas was hated by the democrats in the deep south. The split fractured the party when it came time to nominate a candidate. As a result, the Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas but the deep south bolted the convention and nominated their own person, John Breckinridge. The republican convention, on the other hand, was even worse with names that wwere capable of leading the nation. The two primary contenders were Lincoln and Seward and Seward led on the first ballot but not by enough to take the nomination. By the third ballot Lincoln would take the nomination.
However, former old guard Whigs who did not support the radical anti-slavery ideals of the Republican Party formed their party instead of supporting Abraham Lincoln. That party, the Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell for President. It would be a 4-headed race. And because the democrats were split, the result is now seen as a formality. The republicans didn't even run in the southern states and Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in those states for someone to vote for. But it didn't matter. Lincoln took the entire north and California and with it 40% of the vote and 180 electors. The deep south led by Breckenridge took all the deep south states, 18% of the vote and 72 electors. Stephen Douglas only managed to win the state of Missouri and with it 12 electors but because of the way the ballots were all over the place he ended up with 30% of the popular vote. Finally, Bell and his party won support on the border states and Virginia taking 39 electors. Lincoln would be President and the war would be fought.
1864
The fact that we actually had an election in 1864 in the midst of civil war is amazing. But with the civil war being fought, the results of the election were never going to be in doubt. The southern states in rebellion did not take part in the election. Lincoln was obviously chosen to run again, and the reamining democrats in the states nominated George McClellan. Lincoln won 212-21 in the college and got 51% of the popular vote - but again, there were no southern states that took part in the election. But again - the fact that the election took place was remarkable. The next few elections would have a different country to navigate through.
1848
Pols kept to his promise completing one of the more amazing terms in office of any President. When the next election rolled around, the seat was wide open. General Zachary Taylor was a war hero and looked to by both the Democrats and Whigs to run for office under their banner. He let it be known that he would not veto the Wilmont Proviso which angered the Democratic party and resulted in him accepting the nomination from the Whigs - who nominated him with no platform hoping to just ride his war hero credentials into the White House. The Democrats nominated Lewis Cass. Former President Martin Van Buren joined the Free Soil Party and ran hoping to be a better alternative than Cass. He wasn't. Taylor won the election 163 to 127 over Cass in the college and grabbed a plurality of votes because of Van Buren's ticket which didn't capture a single elector.
1852
Civil War was coming. The Whig Party practically denounced President Fillmore and refused to renominate him. They turned instead to General Winfield Scott after 40 ballots at the convention as a compromise - and Scott was also the commanding officer of the Democrats eventual nominee - Franklin Pierce. Pierce was a dark horse like Polk. At the time of the convention there were four top players in the party for the nomination - James Buchanan, Lewis Cass again, Stephen Douglas and William Marcy. The convention was split amongst all of them. After 34 ballots there was no end in sight. Pierce's soldiers from New Hampshire had been working the convention since it was clear that a deadlock was not going to be broken. On the 35th ballot, Pierce got Virginia to fall his way and soon almost everyone did giving him the nomination. The election between Pierce and Scott was solely personal. Almost no issues were discussed to keep the ire of slavery off of everybody. Scott wasn't a politician and had no idea how to campaign or lead the party to do it while Pierce was very effective. Pierce overwhelmed Scott in the election taking 254 electoral votes while Scott only took 4 states and 52 votes. The Free Soil Party ran again but only got a half of the total votes from last time and again, no electors.
1856
The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed Franklin Pierce politically as it should have. He wasn't seriously considered a contender for re-election. The Democrats instead turned to James Buchanan. But his election wasn't going to be easy as sectional problems were now getting bloody. The Whigs were almost destroyed as a party, but managed to hold a convention as Whig-Americans nominating former President Milliard Fillmore. They are better known in history as the "Know-Nothings.". The new national party on the scene which devoured most of the old Whigs and Free Soil party was the Republicans. Their first nominee would be John Fremont.
The election was solely fought over slavery. The repubican platform fought against it which meant that Buchanan would take the entire south which he did. With the entire south he only needed pockets of support from the north and border states which he got as well. In the final voting, the Know Nothings split the anti-Democrat vote enough to give Buchanan a plurality adn 174 electoral votes. Fremont took the Northeast and Ohio but only managed 114 electors. And Millard Fillmore actually won 8 electors, winning the border state of Maryland. At the end of the day, the results of this election made it clear that war was coming. It was just a question of when thanks to Franklin Pierce and the ultimate uselessness that was James Buchanan.
1860
The election of 1860 changed the nation - and not just because we got Abraham Lincoln in office. It changed the nature of the major parties in the country pretty much once and for all. With shots fired in the Civil War and the country spiraling into chaos the Democrats and Republicans needed to get their man in the White House so that they could direct the nature of the battle. The Democrats were split almost immediately. Coming off of his debates with Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas was hated by the democrats in the deep south. The split fractured the party when it came time to nominate a candidate. As a result, the Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas but the deep south bolted the convention and nominated their own person, John Breckinridge. The republican convention, on the other hand, was even worse with names that wwere capable of leading the nation. The two primary contenders were Lincoln and Seward and Seward led on the first ballot but not by enough to take the nomination. By the third ballot Lincoln would take the nomination.
However, former old guard Whigs who did not support the radical anti-slavery ideals of the Republican Party formed their party instead of supporting Abraham Lincoln. That party, the Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell for President. It would be a 4-headed race. And because the democrats were split, the result is now seen as a formality. The republicans didn't even run in the southern states and Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in those states for someone to vote for. But it didn't matter. Lincoln took the entire north and California and with it 40% of the vote and 180 electors. The deep south led by Breckenridge took all the deep south states, 18% of the vote and 72 electors. Stephen Douglas only managed to win the state of Missouri and with it 12 electors but because of the way the ballots were all over the place he ended up with 30% of the popular vote. Finally, Bell and his party won support on the border states and Virginia taking 39 electors. Lincoln would be President and the war would be fought.
1864
The fact that we actually had an election in 1864 in the midst of civil war is amazing. But with the civil war being fought, the results of the election were never going to be in doubt. The southern states in rebellion did not take part in the election. Lincoln was obviously chosen to run again, and the reamining democrats in the states nominated George McClellan. Lincoln won 212-21 in the college and got 51% of the popular vote - but again, there were no southern states that took part in the election. But again - the fact that the election took place was remarkable. The next few elections would have a different country to navigate through.
timschochet
Footballguy
57. George Washington Carver
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
His story would likely be astonishing in any era, but in the years following emancipation and the onset of Jim Crow, Carver truly was able to achieve extremely unlikely results. Born into slavery, penniless and illiterate, he walked 10 miles each day to get an education from the only school in Missouri that would teach black children. Rejected from more than one university because of his race, he finally managed to enroll in a small college in Iowa, and then Iowa State becoming the first black student there. At Iowa State, Carver excelled in botany and became a teacher, again the first black teacher on campus. Then he was invited to teach at Tuskegee Institute.
At Tuskegee, Carver began experimenting with crops, especially peanuts. His goal was to improve southern soil that had been depleted by the growth of cotton over the years. He determined that the lack of nitrogen was the cause of the soil problems, and urged southern farmers to rotate their crops with peanuts, soybeans, and cowpeas. At the same time, Carver's experiments with peanuts led to hundreds of new applications for them. That made his the most famous black man of his time.
Many historians believe that George Washington Carver's contributions to botany, and to the peanut in particular, contributed greatly to saving southern agriculture from economic ruin. But this made no difference to southern racists; Carver was treated everywhere in the south with ridicule and discrimination. When he was invited to address Congress, southern congressman openly mocked him, as they did at several conventions. They, and the United States in general, simply could not accept the fact of a brilliant black scientist. Carver expressed humbleness and humility, accepting the adage of Booker T. Washington that the negro would advance by "showing" his value. As a result of this humility, Carver is not looked on as a hero in modern black studies, which prefers angrier and more rebellious men to admire (such as the separatist Marcus Garvey.)
Yet Carver's extraordinary life and achievements have been extolled over the years as the embodiment of the American dream, and he certainly belongs on this list, as much as Marcus Garvey does not.
Next up: The greatest native American...
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
His story would likely be astonishing in any era, but in the years following emancipation and the onset of Jim Crow, Carver truly was able to achieve extremely unlikely results. Born into slavery, penniless and illiterate, he walked 10 miles each day to get an education from the only school in Missouri that would teach black children. Rejected from more than one university because of his race, he finally managed to enroll in a small college in Iowa, and then Iowa State becoming the first black student there. At Iowa State, Carver excelled in botany and became a teacher, again the first black teacher on campus. Then he was invited to teach at Tuskegee Institute.
At Tuskegee, Carver began experimenting with crops, especially peanuts. His goal was to improve southern soil that had been depleted by the growth of cotton over the years. He determined that the lack of nitrogen was the cause of the soil problems, and urged southern farmers to rotate their crops with peanuts, soybeans, and cowpeas. At the same time, Carver's experiments with peanuts led to hundreds of new applications for them. That made his the most famous black man of his time.
Many historians believe that George Washington Carver's contributions to botany, and to the peanut in particular, contributed greatly to saving southern agriculture from economic ruin. But this made no difference to southern racists; Carver was treated everywhere in the south with ridicule and discrimination. When he was invited to address Congress, southern congressman openly mocked him, as they did at several conventions. They, and the United States in general, simply could not accept the fact of a brilliant black scientist. Carver expressed humbleness and humility, accepting the adage of Booker T. Washington that the negro would advance by "showing" his value. As a result of this humility, Carver is not looked on as a hero in modern black studies, which prefers angrier and more rebellious men to admire (such as the separatist Marcus Garvey.)
Yet Carver's extraordinary life and achievements have been extolled over the years as the embodiment of the American dream, and he certainly belongs on this list, as much as Marcus Garvey does not.
Next up: The greatest native American...
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Yank, I'm not easily impressed. I'm impressed.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Tim, I haven't been following, but your picks are getting better by the looks of it.
So... rather than clutter up the Hillary thread, I'm curious regarding your thoughts on this Friedman article you posted.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/thomas-friedman-walls-borders-a-dome-and-refugees.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&referrer=
What do you agree with? What do you not?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/thomas-friedman-walls-borders-a-dome-and-refugees.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&referrer=
What do you agree with? What do you not?
timschochet
Footballguy
Truthfully, I'm not sure yet.
I was struck mostly by the idea that the world has moved beyond the ability of authoritarian regimes to control it. I've had that feeling since Arab Spring somewhat. I don't know if ultimately it's a good thing or a bad thing for us. I feel like both.
The main point that I got out of it is that the world is growing incredibly complicated. Prior solutions and schemes, even including ones that I've always been for, may no longer be applicable. I truly believe that the nuanced approach of Obama (and to some extent Hillary) is significantly preferable to that of every Republican I have heard- most of them pushing for some sort of return to neocon approach, with Rand Paul arguing for isolationism.
timschochet
Footballguy
The list is posted on the OP. Glad you're starting to approve! Actually, most of my more controversial picks are going to be in the bottom 50- though there still may be a few left...
I'm not convinced that isolationism isn't the right answer, to be honest.
Regardless, I'm curious on your thoughts about this section.
Seems like that's against everything you believe in, no?
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timschochet
Footballguy
Yeah. I think he's being overly simplistic here. It surprised me quite a bit, too, because Freidman has always been a free trade, open borders type.
There are plenty of alternatives to his "two solutions".
There are plenty of alternatives to his "two solutions".
timschochet
Footballguy
As far as isolationism goes, we're far too dependent on trade with other countries. And we need to grow that trade or we'll never be able to pay off our debt. Which means we can't afford for civil wars to create too much instability around the world, especially in areas that affect our energy supply (or that of the western world.) We have no choice but to be involved.
Bottomfeeder Sports
Footballguy
Tim,
Based on your posts in the other thread(s) about opposing tariffs, do you think that switching to a consumption tax like many advocate is also a stealth form of implementing such tariffs?
Based on your posts in the other thread(s) about opposing tariffs, do you think that switching to a consumption tax like many advocate is also a stealth form of implementing such tariffs?
timschochet
Footballguy
I hadn't really thought about it. Maybe. I've never believed in a consumption tax, but I've also never given it too much thought because it would require a constitutional amendment to do away with income tax and I don't see that happening.
Sweet J
Footballguy
Unfortunately, he ultimately went crazy after trying to make a phonograph needle out of a peanut.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
I don't see why a consumption tax would be a stealth tariff. It would apply equally to domestic and foreign goods, no?Also, no amendment is needed. The 16th says Congress can levy an income tax, not that it has to.
timschochet
Footballguy
We're all reading it. It's excellent.
timschochet
Footballguy
Ive heard both liberal and conservative experts say that it would, so that's what I was going on. I don't know enough to respond to your point.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
The Electoral College Part 5
1868
The country was back in one piece - kinda. Andrew Johnson, having assumed the office upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was despised by the republicans who tried to impeach him. He had no chance of obtaining the nomination from that party and so he turned to the democrats to try to get their nomination. He advised the party leaders that only a unified democratic party could stop another republican president. And he promised to stop the drive to get equal rights for blacks following the war. But Andrew Johnson was not a leader. At the democratic convention he came in second on the first ballot. The democrats allowed him to gracefully leave the convention and ultimately nominated Horacio Seymor. The republican convention was a foregone conclusion - General Grant would be the nominee after his struggles with Presdient Johnson showed him to be a republican in policy outlook. The campaign was never really in doubt. Grant received 53% of the popular vote and won the electoral college on a 3-1 margin. He also won several of the former confederate states only losing Georgia and Louisiana. But the win wasn't so much for policy as it was the overwhelming public support that Grant had as a hero of the war.
1872
Liberal republicans broke from Grant in his re-election campaign over policy issues. Grant was easily renominated but this splinter nominated Horace Greeley for President. The Democrats were still a mess from the war and chose to hitch their star to Greeley as well gving him their nomination. Technically running as a democrat Greeley was no match for Grant or his popularity and only won 6 states while Grant once again grabbed several southern states and a massive win in the college, also garnering 56% of the popular vote. The 286 to 66 college win also swept even more republicans into Congress where they would enjoy a massive majority.
However the 66 elector votes that Greeley won didn't go to Greeley. He died after the election but before the college votes were cast. His votes were split between four people in the college with his chosen Vice President, Benjamin Brown getting the majority of them. And even in states that he lost, Grant never got below 45% of the popular vote. The democratic party platform was renounced loudly.
1876
And then we had Hayes v. Tilden. Consider it the Bush v. Gore of the late 19th century. The election proved to be the longest, closest, most hostile, and most controversial - up to that time—in the history of the United States. Hayes knew it would be close and predicted that if he were defeated it would be "by crime—by bribery, & repeating" in the North and by "violence and intimidation" in the South. Early returns on the telegraph from both Ohio and New York showed Tilden in the lead, and Hayes went to bed convinced he had lost.
The next day, however, Hayes learned that he had carried the Pacific Slope and that both parties claimed to have carried Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Tilden had a plurality of 250,000 in the popular vote and was one electoral vote shy of the majority needed to win the presidency. But if Hayes carried Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, whose official votes would be determined by Republican controlled returning or canvassing boards, he would win the presidency by one electoral vote. In those states, as well as in the rest of the South, intimidation kept black voters from the polls. Republicans asserted that had their votes been counted, Hayes would have carried the three disputed states as well as other southern states. Citing intimidation, the returning election boards in the disputed states invalidated enough Democratic votes for Hayes and the Republican party to emerge victorious. A further complication arose in Oregon: Hayes carried the state, but one of his electors was a federal office holder and could not be an elector. He resigned his job after the election, but the Democratic governor of that state certified a Democratic elector in his place.
When electors met in state capitals to vote for president on December 6, 1876, both Republican and Democratic electors met in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon, and cast conflicting votes. These were forwarded to Washington to be counted by the presiding officer of the Senate, Thomas W. Ferry, in the presence of both houses of Congress. Ardent Republicans claimed that Ferry had the right to decide which votes to count, but Democrats insisted that the joint session with its Democratic majority must decide. Congress resolved this impasse in the compromise (incidentally, the only important compromise in the disputed election) Electoral Commission Act passed in January 1877. It established a commission of five senators (three Republicans, two Democrats), five representatives (three Democrats, two Republicans), and five Supreme Court justices (two Republicans, two Democrats, and one political independent, Justice David Davis) which would decide what votes to count and thus resolve the election. Initially, Hayes did not like the Electoral Commission bill since it meant giving up on electoral "certainty." But when it passed, he realized it would enhance the legitimacy of the ultimate victor. Davis, however, disqualified himself after a monumental miscalculation by Tilden's corrupt nephew, Colonel William T. Pelton, who assumed that electing Davis as senator from Illinois with Democratic votes would purchase his support for Tilden on the Electoral Commission. Davis was replaced by a Republican, Joseph P. Bradley, giving Hayes's party an 8:7 edge. Bradley did have an independent streak, but in strict party votes Hayes was awarded the disputed states.
After the Electoral Commission awarded Louisiana to Hayes (which Tilden unofficially carried by 6,300 votes and where the Republican returning board threw out 15,000 votes of which 13,000 were Democratic), the Democrats knew that Hayes would win. Combining frustration and calculation, they then delayed the counting of electoral votes with frequent adjournments which threatened to plunge the nation into chaos by leaving it with no President on March 4. Those who calculated (as distinct from those who were irrationally angry) hoped to secure concessions from politicians close to Hayes. Among their objectives were the removal of the handful of troops that protected the remaining Republican state governments in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Columbia, South Carolina; a federal subsidy for the Texas & Pacific Railroad; and cabinet appointments for prewar Whigs accompanied with hints that if so rewarded, white southerners would be attracted to the Republican party. That southern Democrats and Hayes's friends negotiated is a virtual certainty, but that they struck any "deal," "bargain," or compromise that offered anything beyond what Hayes promised to do in his letter of acceptance is very doubtful. Hayes and his representatives insisted that the troops would be withdrawn only when the civil and voting rights of black and white Republicans were respected. It is also clear that the southern negotiators had little or no control over the irrational filibusterers that prolonged the count. Samuel J. Randall, the Democratic Speaker of the House, realizing that creating chaos would backfire on the Democrats, ruled the filibusterers out of order and forced the completion of the count in the early hours of March 2, 1877. With 185 votes to Tilden's 184, Hayes was declared the winner two days before he became President.
It was, to say the least, a distasteful victory that left widespread hard feelings. Tilden had actually received a quarter million more popular votes than Hayes; this fact, coupled with the partisan work of the Commission, convinced Democrats that the recent political disgraces in Washington were far from over. The sneering Democratic press dubbed Hayes "Rutherfraud" and "His Fraudulency."
1880
The election that once again gave us a red state blue state breakdown along the lines of the Civil War. Hayes promised to stay with one term and he followed through - he wasn't going to be nominated again anyway. And the republican party was in a bind. The contenders for the nomination were former President Grant and Maine Senator James Blaine. a compromise candidate, Treasurey Secretary John Sherman of Ohio was championed by a political leader from the same state, James Garfield. Garfield believed that Sherman would be a good compromise between the Grant wing and the Blaine wing. On the first ballot Grant lead Blaine and Sherman but not by enough. By the 36th ballot the results were the same. Interestingly though, because he was the leader of the Ohio delegation, Garfield himself was receiving 1 or 2 complimentary votes on each of these ballots. On the 37th ballot, Wisconsin threw their entire delegation to Garfield. On the next ballot he received over 50 votes. The movement of the votes seen by both Blaine and Sherman as the only way to defeat Grant and on the next ballot, Blaine and Sherman rallied their supporters to Garfield. With their support, on the next and final ballot, James Garfield defeated President Grant and won the nomination. However, behind Garfield's back the convention nominated Chester Aurthur as Vice President, something Garfiled did not approve of, but he went along with it to shore up support from the party.
On the democrat side, Tilden was given the opportunity to run again given that he won the popular vote the last time but he declined. The party then approached Winfield Hancock, one of the hero's of Gettysburgh to be their nominee. The election brought back the democratic party on a national stage in the south and Hancock carried the entire south while Garfiled carried the north. The total popular vote was only different by 7,000 votes but Garfield won a large majority of the electoral college. Garfield's political maneuvers in New York won him the election because if Hancock had grabbed New York he would have won one of the closest elections in history.
1884
Chester Aurthur wasn't really seeking to run again given his medical condition but he did allow his name to come forward. But the party didn't support him and he couldn't bring it together the way Garfield had. They instead turned again to one of their most powerful members, James Blaine on the 4th and final ballot. The democrats had an opening to finally grab the White House for the first time since Buchanan. They chose Grover Cleveland to lead the charge because while a good Democrat many in the republican party respected Cleveland for his anti-corruption streak and his national popularity. The election would be even closer than the last one. Cleveland won the college by 219-182 over Blaine and hung on and won New York by only 2,000 votes out of the million plus counted. Had Cleveland lost New York Blaine would have won (it's a common thread in many elections).
1888
The electoral map wasn't changing. This and the previous few elections showed the same red-blue breakdown and the candidates had to win the margins to grab the victory. Cleveland ran again and this time the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison. By every historical account, the campaign was focused entirely on issues of the day and was conducted by both men with the utmost respect for each other. Cleveland would win the popular vote but Harrison took the college because - once again - New York controlled the election giving its votes to Harrison this time instead of Cleveland. Republicans spent a fortune on the ground in the race and took a ton of seats in Congress as well. For all the respect and issues that the main guys focused on, this is the election that started the grassroots campaign spending that would come to define our electoral process.
1892
Rematch. But with a twist. The republicans had to run on their record for the past four years and the Democrats had the advantage. Cleveland and Harrison were again chapioned by their respective parties. But a new third party, the Populist Party, ran its own candidate, James Weaver of Iowa. It's likely that they cost Harrison the election. At the final tally, the republicans lost western states to the Populists where Weaver took 22 electoral votes and over a million popular votes. Cleveland took the normal democrat states, added New York and California and beat Harrison 277-145. Cleveland would be the first and only President to serve non-consecutive terms.
The 20th Century is coming next....
1868
The country was back in one piece - kinda. Andrew Johnson, having assumed the office upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was despised by the republicans who tried to impeach him. He had no chance of obtaining the nomination from that party and so he turned to the democrats to try to get their nomination. He advised the party leaders that only a unified democratic party could stop another republican president. And he promised to stop the drive to get equal rights for blacks following the war. But Andrew Johnson was not a leader. At the democratic convention he came in second on the first ballot. The democrats allowed him to gracefully leave the convention and ultimately nominated Horacio Seymor. The republican convention was a foregone conclusion - General Grant would be the nominee after his struggles with Presdient Johnson showed him to be a republican in policy outlook. The campaign was never really in doubt. Grant received 53% of the popular vote and won the electoral college on a 3-1 margin. He also won several of the former confederate states only losing Georgia and Louisiana. But the win wasn't so much for policy as it was the overwhelming public support that Grant had as a hero of the war.
1872
Liberal republicans broke from Grant in his re-election campaign over policy issues. Grant was easily renominated but this splinter nominated Horace Greeley for President. The Democrats were still a mess from the war and chose to hitch their star to Greeley as well gving him their nomination. Technically running as a democrat Greeley was no match for Grant or his popularity and only won 6 states while Grant once again grabbed several southern states and a massive win in the college, also garnering 56% of the popular vote. The 286 to 66 college win also swept even more republicans into Congress where they would enjoy a massive majority.
However the 66 elector votes that Greeley won didn't go to Greeley. He died after the election but before the college votes were cast. His votes were split between four people in the college with his chosen Vice President, Benjamin Brown getting the majority of them. And even in states that he lost, Grant never got below 45% of the popular vote. The democratic party platform was renounced loudly.
1876
And then we had Hayes v. Tilden. Consider it the Bush v. Gore of the late 19th century. The election proved to be the longest, closest, most hostile, and most controversial - up to that time—in the history of the United States. Hayes knew it would be close and predicted that if he were defeated it would be "by crime—by bribery, & repeating" in the North and by "violence and intimidation" in the South. Early returns on the telegraph from both Ohio and New York showed Tilden in the lead, and Hayes went to bed convinced he had lost.
The next day, however, Hayes learned that he had carried the Pacific Slope and that both parties claimed to have carried Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Tilden had a plurality of 250,000 in the popular vote and was one electoral vote shy of the majority needed to win the presidency. But if Hayes carried Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, whose official votes would be determined by Republican controlled returning or canvassing boards, he would win the presidency by one electoral vote. In those states, as well as in the rest of the South, intimidation kept black voters from the polls. Republicans asserted that had their votes been counted, Hayes would have carried the three disputed states as well as other southern states. Citing intimidation, the returning election boards in the disputed states invalidated enough Democratic votes for Hayes and the Republican party to emerge victorious. A further complication arose in Oregon: Hayes carried the state, but one of his electors was a federal office holder and could not be an elector. He resigned his job after the election, but the Democratic governor of that state certified a Democratic elector in his place.
When electors met in state capitals to vote for president on December 6, 1876, both Republican and Democratic electors met in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon, and cast conflicting votes. These were forwarded to Washington to be counted by the presiding officer of the Senate, Thomas W. Ferry, in the presence of both houses of Congress. Ardent Republicans claimed that Ferry had the right to decide which votes to count, but Democrats insisted that the joint session with its Democratic majority must decide. Congress resolved this impasse in the compromise (incidentally, the only important compromise in the disputed election) Electoral Commission Act passed in January 1877. It established a commission of five senators (three Republicans, two Democrats), five representatives (three Democrats, two Republicans), and five Supreme Court justices (two Republicans, two Democrats, and one political independent, Justice David Davis) which would decide what votes to count and thus resolve the election. Initially, Hayes did not like the Electoral Commission bill since it meant giving up on electoral "certainty." But when it passed, he realized it would enhance the legitimacy of the ultimate victor. Davis, however, disqualified himself after a monumental miscalculation by Tilden's corrupt nephew, Colonel William T. Pelton, who assumed that electing Davis as senator from Illinois with Democratic votes would purchase his support for Tilden on the Electoral Commission. Davis was replaced by a Republican, Joseph P. Bradley, giving Hayes's party an 8:7 edge. Bradley did have an independent streak, but in strict party votes Hayes was awarded the disputed states.
After the Electoral Commission awarded Louisiana to Hayes (which Tilden unofficially carried by 6,300 votes and where the Republican returning board threw out 15,000 votes of which 13,000 were Democratic), the Democrats knew that Hayes would win. Combining frustration and calculation, they then delayed the counting of electoral votes with frequent adjournments which threatened to plunge the nation into chaos by leaving it with no President on March 4. Those who calculated (as distinct from those who were irrationally angry) hoped to secure concessions from politicians close to Hayes. Among their objectives were the removal of the handful of troops that protected the remaining Republican state governments in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Columbia, South Carolina; a federal subsidy for the Texas & Pacific Railroad; and cabinet appointments for prewar Whigs accompanied with hints that if so rewarded, white southerners would be attracted to the Republican party. That southern Democrats and Hayes's friends negotiated is a virtual certainty, but that they struck any "deal," "bargain," or compromise that offered anything beyond what Hayes promised to do in his letter of acceptance is very doubtful. Hayes and his representatives insisted that the troops would be withdrawn only when the civil and voting rights of black and white Republicans were respected. It is also clear that the southern negotiators had little or no control over the irrational filibusterers that prolonged the count. Samuel J. Randall, the Democratic Speaker of the House, realizing that creating chaos would backfire on the Democrats, ruled the filibusterers out of order and forced the completion of the count in the early hours of March 2, 1877. With 185 votes to Tilden's 184, Hayes was declared the winner two days before he became President.
It was, to say the least, a distasteful victory that left widespread hard feelings. Tilden had actually received a quarter million more popular votes than Hayes; this fact, coupled with the partisan work of the Commission, convinced Democrats that the recent political disgraces in Washington were far from over. The sneering Democratic press dubbed Hayes "Rutherfraud" and "His Fraudulency."
1880
The election that once again gave us a red state blue state breakdown along the lines of the Civil War. Hayes promised to stay with one term and he followed through - he wasn't going to be nominated again anyway. And the republican party was in a bind. The contenders for the nomination were former President Grant and Maine Senator James Blaine. a compromise candidate, Treasurey Secretary John Sherman of Ohio was championed by a political leader from the same state, James Garfield. Garfield believed that Sherman would be a good compromise between the Grant wing and the Blaine wing. On the first ballot Grant lead Blaine and Sherman but not by enough. By the 36th ballot the results were the same. Interestingly though, because he was the leader of the Ohio delegation, Garfield himself was receiving 1 or 2 complimentary votes on each of these ballots. On the 37th ballot, Wisconsin threw their entire delegation to Garfield. On the next ballot he received over 50 votes. The movement of the votes seen by both Blaine and Sherman as the only way to defeat Grant and on the next ballot, Blaine and Sherman rallied their supporters to Garfield. With their support, on the next and final ballot, James Garfield defeated President Grant and won the nomination. However, behind Garfield's back the convention nominated Chester Aurthur as Vice President, something Garfiled did not approve of, but he went along with it to shore up support from the party.
On the democrat side, Tilden was given the opportunity to run again given that he won the popular vote the last time but he declined. The party then approached Winfield Hancock, one of the hero's of Gettysburgh to be their nominee. The election brought back the democratic party on a national stage in the south and Hancock carried the entire south while Garfiled carried the north. The total popular vote was only different by 7,000 votes but Garfield won a large majority of the electoral college. Garfield's political maneuvers in New York won him the election because if Hancock had grabbed New York he would have won one of the closest elections in history.
1884
Chester Aurthur wasn't really seeking to run again given his medical condition but he did allow his name to come forward. But the party didn't support him and he couldn't bring it together the way Garfield had. They instead turned again to one of their most powerful members, James Blaine on the 4th and final ballot. The democrats had an opening to finally grab the White House for the first time since Buchanan. They chose Grover Cleveland to lead the charge because while a good Democrat many in the republican party respected Cleveland for his anti-corruption streak and his national popularity. The election would be even closer than the last one. Cleveland won the college by 219-182 over Blaine and hung on and won New York by only 2,000 votes out of the million plus counted. Had Cleveland lost New York Blaine would have won (it's a common thread in many elections).
1888
The electoral map wasn't changing. This and the previous few elections showed the same red-blue breakdown and the candidates had to win the margins to grab the victory. Cleveland ran again and this time the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison. By every historical account, the campaign was focused entirely on issues of the day and was conducted by both men with the utmost respect for each other. Cleveland would win the popular vote but Harrison took the college because - once again - New York controlled the election giving its votes to Harrison this time instead of Cleveland. Republicans spent a fortune on the ground in the race and took a ton of seats in Congress as well. For all the respect and issues that the main guys focused on, this is the election that started the grassroots campaign spending that would come to define our electoral process.
1892
Rematch. But with a twist. The republicans had to run on their record for the past four years and the Democrats had the advantage. Cleveland and Harrison were again chapioned by their respective parties. But a new third party, the Populist Party, ran its own candidate, James Weaver of Iowa. It's likely that they cost Harrison the election. At the final tally, the republicans lost western states to the Populists where Weaver took 22 electoral votes and over a million popular votes. Cleveland took the normal democrat states, added New York and California and beat Harrison 277-145. Cleveland would be the first and only President to serve non-consecutive terms.
The 20th Century is coming next....
timschochet
Footballguy
George Will's latest assault on Donald Trump (here:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-a-malleable-mess/2015/09/09/05873b94-5652-11e5-8bb1-b488d231bba2_story.html)contains an interesting passage with regard to trade, which is relevant to the discussion we've been having in the Hillary thread and this one over the last few days:
Trump cited, as evidence that “our country is being killed on trade,” this: “They have in Japan the biggest ships you’ve ever seen pouring cars into Los Angeles, pouring them in. I’ve never seen anything like it. We send them beef, and they don’t even want it. It’s going to end, and they’re going to like us.”
Well. Leaving aside Japan’s strange willingness to purchase unwanted beef, most Japanese vehicles that pour into the United States do so from plants in the United States. The vehicles are assembled by Americans using mostly American parts.
...South Carolinians can evaluate his America-can’t-compete, trade-is-killing-us campaign. There, his woe-is-us narrative will collide with cheerful realities that Republican Gov. Nikki Haley recently described in a Washington speech:
Flat-screen TVs are made in Winnsboro, bicycles are made in Manning (the New Jersey company moved its manufacturing there from China), and five foreign-owned tire companies (Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, Giti Tire and Trelleborg) manufacture in the state. So do Mercedes and, starting in 2018, Volvo. South Carolina has what Germany does not have — the world’s largest BMW plant, from which vehicles pour at a rate of one every minute.
Thoughts?
Trump cited, as evidence that “our country is being killed on trade,” this: “They have in Japan the biggest ships you’ve ever seen pouring cars into Los Angeles, pouring them in. I’ve never seen anything like it. We send them beef, and they don’t even want it. It’s going to end, and they’re going to like us.”
Well. Leaving aside Japan’s strange willingness to purchase unwanted beef, most Japanese vehicles that pour into the United States do so from plants in the United States. The vehicles are assembled by Americans using mostly American parts.
...South Carolinians can evaluate his America-can’t-compete, trade-is-killing-us campaign. There, his woe-is-us narrative will collide with cheerful realities that Republican Gov. Nikki Haley recently described in a Washington speech:
Flat-screen TVs are made in Winnsboro, bicycles are made in Manning (the New Jersey company moved its manufacturing there from China), and five foreign-owned tire companies (Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, Giti Tire and Trelleborg) manufacture in the state. So do Mercedes and, starting in 2018, Volvo. South Carolina has what Germany does not have — the world’s largest BMW plant, from which vehicles pour at a rate of one every minute.
Thoughts?
dparker713
Footballguy
Donald Trump is a buffoon. Income and wealth imbalance is not at these levels due to trade.
msommer
Footballguy
He (Trump) is speaking to his audience who don't understand better. Maybe he doesn't himself either, but he seems to be hitting a lot of complex issues with statements the uninformed will accept and get behind. To me it seems like a well thought out strategy.
However, the best strategies in the world fail when execution fails.
However, the best strategies in the world fail when execution fails.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
On Will or Trump? Will is knowledgeable and insightful.
Trump is pleine de merde.
And from the wilderness there was a voice. [HAWSCREECH].
Bobby J. delivers, dare I say it [no, yes, ok I must] a GREAT speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3wC3Qn13lQ
I can't and won't ever vote for Jindal, but it's time someone punches Trump in the mouth.
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SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
That's not a good answer, because that presumes Trump will be president when that happens.
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