French presidential election, 1848

French presidential election, 1848
7,497,000 (74.8%)
	Bonaparte's voters map
	Elected President; Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte ; Bonapartist

Last updated April 02, 2019

The French presidential election of 1848 was the first ever held. It elected the first and only president of the Second Republic. The election was held on 10 December 1848 and led to the surprise victory of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte with 74% of the vote.

Presidential elections in France determine who will serve as the President of France for the next several years.

The French Second Republic was a short-lived republican government of France under President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. It lasted from the 1848 Revolution to the 1851 coup by which the president made himself Emperor Napoleon III and initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto of the First Republic, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. The Second Republic witnessed the tension between the "Social and Democratic Republic" and a liberal form of republicanism, which exploded during the June Days uprising of 1848.

Election

The constitution only included provision for one round, and in the absence of a majority for any candidate, the National Assembly would have decided the victor.^[1] Louis-Eugène Cavaignac seemed certain to win, and the Assembly would have most certainly elected him in the absence of an absolute majority.

Louis-Eugène Cavaignac was a French general who put down a massive rebellion in Paris in 1848, known as the June Days Uprising. This was a 4-day riot against the Provisional Government, in which Cavaignac was the newly appointed Minister of War, but soon had to be granted dictatorial powers in order to suppress the revolt. By adopting ruthless methods, he achieved his objective, though some have claimed that he spent too long preparing for the operation, allowing the mob to strengthen their defences. He received the thanks of parliament, but failed to be elected president, losing heavily to Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.

Bonaparte had no long political career behind him and was able to depict himself as "all things to some men". The Monarchist right (supporters of either the Legitimist or Orléanist royal households) and much of the upper class supported him as the "least worst" candidate, as a man who would restore order, end the instability in France which had continued since the overthrow of the monarchy during the February Revolution earlier that year, and prevent a proto-communist revolution (in the vein of Friedrich Engels). A good proportion of the industrial working class, on the other hand, were won over by Louis-Napoleon's vague indications of progressive economic views. His overwhelming victory was above all due to the support of the non-politicized rural masses, to whom the name of Bonaparte meant something, as opposed to the other, little-known contenders.^[2]

Monarchism advocacy of a monarch or monarchical rule

Monarchism is the advocacy of a monarch or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government, independent of any specific monarch; one who espouses a particular monarch is a royalist. Conversely, the opposition to monarchical rule is sometimes referred to as republicanism.

The Legitimists are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of the July Monarchy of 1830–1848 which placed Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans head of the Orléans cadet branch of the Bourbon dynasty on the throne until he too was dethroned and driven with his family into exile.

The Orléanists were a French political faction supporting a constitutional monarchy for France led by the House of Orléans as opposed to Legitimists who supported the main line of the House of Bourbon. The Orléanist faction governed France from 1830 to 1848 in the July Monarchy of King Louis Philippe I. The faction took its name from the Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon. The faction comprised many liberals and intellectuals who wanted to restore the monarchy as a constitutional monarchy with limited powers for the king and most power in the hands of parliament.

Results

Presidential Election of 10 December 1848
Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte	Bonapartist	5,434,226	74.3%
	Louis-Eugène Cavaignac	"Blue" Republican	1,448,107	19.8%
	Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin	"Red" Republican	370,119	5.1%
	François-Vincent Raspail	Socialist	36,920	0.5%
	Alphonse de Lamartine	Liberal	17,210	0.2%
	Nicolas Changarnier	Royalist	4,790	0.1%
Total			7,497,000	100%

Bonaparte received a plurality or majority in all departments except the Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Morbihan, and Finistère, all four of which were won by Cavaignac. Thus did Bonaparte become the second president in Europe (after Jonas Furrer of Switzerland) and the first French president to be elected by a popular vote.

Var is a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. It takes its name from the river Var, which flowed along its eastern boundary, until the boundary was moved in 1860. The Var department is bordered on the east by the department of Alpes-Maritimes, to the west by Bouches-du-Rhône, to the north of the river Verdon by the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea.

Bouches-du-Rhône is a department in Southern France named after the mouth of the river Rhône. It is the most populous department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region with 2,019,717 inhabitants in 2016; it has an area of 5,087 km² (1,964 sq mi). Its INSEE and postal code is 13. Marseille is Bouches-du-Rhône's largest city and prefecture.

Morbihan is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan, the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline. It is noted for its Carnac stones. These predate and are more extensive than the ancient Stonehenge monument in Wiltshire, England that is more familiar to English speakers.

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References

↑ Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs (chap. XI), Robert Laffont, Paris, 1986, pp. 831-834.
↑ http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/frpres.htm

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[Souvenirs_XI-1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs (chap. XI), Robert Laffont, Paris, 1986, pp. 831-834.

[2] ttp://www.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/frpres.htm

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French presidential election, 1848

Contents

Election

Results

Related Research Articles

References