ELECTION #15, 1844. The NASTY-METER is 2.

ELECTION #15, 1844.

QUOTE from Andrew Jackson: "Harrison's death after one month in office was "the the deed of a kind and over-ruling Providence."

As we can see from Jackson's quote he was not in mourning about Harrison's death. And neither was Poet William Cullen Bryant who said he regretted Harrison's death only because "he did not live long enough to prove his incapacity for the office of President." Tyler succeeded to the Presidency and became an "Encedrin headache" for members of his own WHIG Party. He started acting like a Jacksonian Democrat when he vetoed a new Whig bill for a new Bank of the U.S. He so upset his fellow Whigs that Henry Clay resigned his Senate seat to protest Tyler's action and all, but one, of his cabinet resigned. The chance of Tyler being the 1844 Whig candidate for president was less than zero. So who were the candidates?

The CANDIDATES in 1844.

DEMOCRAT: JAMES K. POLK.

Polk had been Speaker of the House and was considered a loyal Democrat. He was hated by the Whigs so much that on his last day in office Henry Clay shouted from the visitor's gallery, "Go Home, God damn you. Go home where you belong."

WHIG; HENRY CLAY.

The Whigs had assembled in Baltimore in April, 1844 and nominated Henry Clay for president. To balance the ticket they picked Theodore Frelinghuysen, a so-called Christian gentleman who was supposed to balance Clay's reputation for high living, boozing, and playing cards. Clay had run for president in 1824 and 1832 and he wanted to be president. He wanted it badly.


The CAMPAIGN of 1844.

The Whigs went after Polk for being an unknown. They cried, "Who is James K. Polk?" and "Good God, what a nomination!" And they claimed that the raccoons in Tennessee were singing, "Ha, ha, ha, what a nominee / Is Jimmy Polk of Tennessee!" A Whig newspaper claimed that Polk had branded his initials J.K.P onto the shoulders of forty of his slaves. It was such an outright lie that the paper later reprinted a retraction. It was hard to slander Polk because he was so thoroughly colorness that his nickname was "Polk the Plodder."

The Democrats fired back that Clay gambled, dueled, was a womanizer and swore profusely. The Democrats also wrote a pamphlet entitled, "Twenty-one Reasons Why Clay Should Not Be Elected." Reason number two said, "Clay spends his days at the gambling table and his nights in a brothel." A Protestant minister wrote a letter published in numerous Democratic papers claiming to have heard Clay curse extensively during a steamboat trip.


The WINNER was JAMES K. POLK.

Polk got 1,338,464 popular votes and 170 electoral votes.
Clay got 1,300,097 popular votes and 105 electoral votes.

The famous phrase "Manifest Destiny" originated during Polk's term. The phrase was coined by NY journalist John O'Sullivan in 1845. It refers to the idea that it was the destiny of the U.S. to expand westward to the Pacific.