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| Elections in Georgia |
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The 1851 Georgia gubernatorial election was held on October 6, 1851, to elect the governor of Georgia. Howell Cobb, nominee for the newly formed Constitutional Union Party, defeated the Southern Rights Candidate, Charles McDonald. [2] [3]
Until 1840 Georgian politics were dominated by two local parties, the Union Party and the State Rights Party. The Union party was the product of the forces of liberal democracy that brought white manhood suffrage and popular elections in the 1800s. The State Rights Party, on the other hand, was the successor to the Troup Party, a political anomaly whose conservative politics and organization were more closely related to those of the late 1800s. [3]
After the 1836 presidential election the Union and State Rights parties slowly began to merge with the Democratic and Whig parties respectively. By the 1840 presidential election, the national Whig and Democratic parties had crystallized in Georgia, creating a strong two-party system that would last in the state for the next decade and a half. [3] [4]
The Mexican-American War greatly intensified the national debate over slavery and created disruptions within the previously stable party lines. This rift occurred at the General Assembly of 1847 over the issue of the Wilmot Proviso. The Whigs presented resolutions denying that Congress had the power to restrict slavery in the territories. The Democrats were opposed to this and argued for an endorsement of the war and seizer of Mexican land. The debate dragged on for awhile as each side attempted to get the other to contradict the aims of their respective national party. [3]
In the 1848 presidential election, Georgia Whigs endorsed the unpopular Zachary Taylor for president. Many Whigs revolted against the decision of the party, denouncing Taylor and criticizing Alexander Stephens for not supporting the Clayton Compromise. The only thing that saved the Whigs from breaking up entirely was when Stephens was gravely injured by a knife-wielding man twice his size. Ultimately, Taylor won the Georgia vote but only thanks to Democratic dissidents who found Democratic nominee Lewis Cass as the least satisfactory on the issue of slavery. However, the divisions within the Whig party would cost them more than they could handle. [3]
The state of Georgia was once again absorbed into sectional debates during 1849 and 1850 that resulted in the Compromise of 1850. Both sides had come to see the Wilmot Proviso, admission of California, abolishment of slavery in Washington DC, and refusal of the North to follow the fugitive slave act as a threat to the South. The democrats passed an act forcing the governor to call a state convention to meet in the event of any of these. The Whigs were opposed to this as state convention would most likely make them the minority. [3]
Around the same time, Alexander Stephens and Robert Toombs, leading members of the Georgia Whigs, had departed its ranks and entered into negotiations with Speaker Howell Cobb and other Democratic members to support compromise measures. Many political leaders discussed the need for a compromise spirt to preserve the union and save the South from "the miserable free soil policy of General Taylor." A movement to create a Union of the parties began at Macon and rapidly spread throughout the state. [3] [4]
An anti-union or "Resistance" group, also originating from Macon, led by prominent Democrats, old State Rights Whigs, and fire-eaters was formed. [3]
In response to the admission of California as a state and his mistaken belief that white Georgians supported the radical cause, Governor Towns scheduled elections for a December 1850 state convention in the hopes of launching the state toward secession. The resulting vote was essentially a referendum on the Compromise of 1850 and saw the pro-Unionists win with a nine-to-one majority. [3] [4]
In three caucuses from December 11-13, the Democratic and Whig state parties merged into the Constitutional Union Party. [3]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constitutional Union Party (Georgia) | Howell Cobb | 57,417 | 59.66% | ||
| Southern Rights | Charles McDonald | 40,824 | 40.34% | ||
The Whig Party was a conservative political party that existed in the United States during the mid-19th century. Alongside the slightly larger Democratic Party, it was one of the two major parties in the United States between the late 1830s and the early 1850s as part of the Second Party System. Four presidents were affiliated with the Whig Party for at least part of their terms. Other prominent members of the Whig Party include Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, William Seward, John J. Crittenden, and John Quincy Adams. The Whig base of support was centered among entrepreneurs, professionals, planters, social reformers, devout Protestants, and the emerging urban middle class. It had much less backing from poor farmers and unskilled workers.
The 1848 United States presidential election was the 16th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1848. In the aftermath of the Mexican–American War, General Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Senator Lewis Cass of the Democratic Party.
The 1852 United States presidential election was the 17th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. Democrat Franklin Pierce defeated Whig nominee General Winfield Scott. A third party candidate from the Free Soil party, John P. Hale, also ran and came in third place, but got no electoral votes.
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designed by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of President Millard Fillmore, the compromise centered on how to handle slavery in recently acquired territories from the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War.
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the first and only vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives before and after the Civil War.
Historians who address the origins of the American Civil War agree that the preservation of the institution of slavery was the principal aim of the 11 Southern states that declared their secession from the United States and united to form the Confederate States of America. However, while historians in the 21st century agree on the centrality of the conflict over slavery—it was not just "a cause" of the war but "the cause" according to Civil War historian Chris Mackowski—they disagree sharply on which aspects of this conflict were most important, and on the North’s reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. Proponents of the pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology have denied that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view that has been disproven by the overwhelming historical evidence against it, notably the seceding states' own secession documents.
The Constitutional Union Party was a United States third party active during the 1860 elections. It consisted of conservative former Whigs, largely from the Southern United States, who wanted to avoid secession over the slavery issue and refused to join either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The Constitutional Union Party campaigned on a simple platform "to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws".
John Bell was an American politician, attorney, and planter who was a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1860.
David Wilmot was an American politician and judge. He served as Representative and a Senator for Pennsylvania and as a judge of the Court of Claims. He is best known for being the prime sponsor and eponym of the Wilmot Proviso, a failed proposal to ban the expansion of slavery to western lands gained in the Mexican Cession. A notable member of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party, Wilmot later was instrumental in establishing the Republican Party in Pennsylvania.
The history of the United States from 1849 to 1865 was dominated by the tensions that led to the American Civil War between North and South, and the bloody fighting in 1861-1865 that produced Northern victory in the war and ended slavery. At the same time industrialization and the transportation revolution changed the economics of the Northern United States and the Western United States. Heavy immigration from Western Europe shifted the center of population further to the North.
The 1852 Whig National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held from June 16 to June 21, in Baltimore, Maryland. It nominated the Whig Party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1852 election. The convention selected General-in-Chief Winfield Scott for president and U.S. secretary of the navy William A. Graham for vice president.
The Clayton Compromise was a plan drawn up in 1848 by a bipartisan United States Senate committee headed by John M. Clayton for organizing the Oregon Territory and the Southwest. Clayton first attempted to form a special committee of eight members, equally divided by region and party, two northern and two Southern men from each of the two great parties, with Clayton of Delaware himself acting as chairman, to consider the questions relating to the extension of slavery. It recognized the validity of Oregon's existing antislavery laws, prohibited the territorial legislatures of New Mexico and California from acting on slavery, and provided for appeal of all slavery cases from the territorial courts to the Supreme Court of the United States. It passed the Senate July 27, 1848, but it was tabled in the United States House of Representatives by a coalition of Southern Whigs led by future Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens. Stephens believed that the compromise would completely surrender Constitutional rights in the territories, as he was certain that the Supreme Court would rule against slavery in the territories.
The Nashville Convention was a political meeting held in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 3–11, 1850. Delegates from nine slave states met to consider secession, if the United States Congress decided to ban slavery in the new territories being added to the country as a result of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican–American War. The compromises worked out in Nashville paved the way for the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and for a time, preserved the union of the United States.
The Georgia Platform was a statement executed by a Georgia Convention in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 10, 1850, in response to the Compromise of 1850. Supported by Unionists, the document affirmed the acceptance of the Compromise as a final resolution of the sectional slavery issues while declaring that no further assaults on Southern rights by the North would be acceptable. The Platform had political significance throughout the South. In the short term it was an effective antidote to secession, but in the long run it contributed to sectional solidarity and the demise of the Second Party System in the South. Much of the document was written by Charles J. Jenkins, a Whig lawyer and state legislator from Augusta.
The presidency of Millard Fillmore began on July 9, 1850, when Millard Fillmore became President of the United States upon the death of Zachary Taylor, and ended on March 4, 1853. Fillmore had been Vice President of the United States for 1 year, 4 months when he became the 13th United States president. Fillmore was the second president to succeed to the office without being elected to it, after John Tyler. He was the last Whig president. His presidency ended after losing the Whig nomination at the 1852 Whig National Convention. Fillmore was succeeded by Democrat Franklin Pierce.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the pivotal Lincoln–Douglas debates. He was one of the brokers of the Compromise of 1850 which sought to avert a sectional crisis; to further deal with the volatile issue of extending slavery into the territories, Douglas became the foremost advocate of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. This attempt to address the issue was rejected by both pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
The history of the United States Whig Party lasted from the establishment of the Whig Party early in President Andrew Jackson's second term (1833–1837) to the collapse of the party during the term of President Franklin Pierce (1853–1857). This article covers the party in national politics. For state politics see Whig Party.
The 1853 Georgia gubernatorial election was held on 3 October 1853 in order to elect the Governor of Georgia. Democratic nominee and former United States Senator from Georgia Herschel V. Johnson defeated Constitutional Unionist nominee and former Attorney General of Georgia Charles J. Jenkins by a slim margin.
