ELECTION #18, 1856. The NASTY-METER IS 3.

QUOTE from President Pierce after he had been rejected by his own Democratic Party to run for reelection in 1856: "There's nothing left but to get drunk."

By 1856 the nation was so deeply divided over slavery that whoever became president was going to have a hell of a time.

The CANDIDATES IN 1856.

DEMOCRAT: JAMES BUCHANAN.

Buchanan was looked as the most available and least objectionable. In 1856 the Democratic Party was split over the issue of slavery. At their convention in Cincinnati in June of 1856 they settled in on a compromise candidate. They needed someone acceptable to the pro-slavery Southern wing, as well as the anti-slavery Northern wing. Buchanan was a perfect fit. He was a Northerner who personally opposed slavery but believed that the institution of slavery was constitutional. For VP they chose Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge.

REPUBLICAN: JOHN C. FREMONT.

In Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854 a new political party was organized. The Whig Party had disintegrated because of election losses and the party's inability to take a firm stance against slavery. So, in February of 1854, dissident Whigs and antislavery Democrats met in Ripon to form a new political party known as the Republican Party, named in honor of Thomas Jefferson's old party. They gained strength over the next two years with more former Whigs from the North and West joining them. As a result they held a convention in Philadelphia in June of 1856. They nominated John C. Fremont as their candidate for president and William Dayton of New Jersey as VP. Fremont was pretty famous for being the hero of Western exploration and was nicknamed "The Pathfinder."

The CAMPAIGN of 1856.

The campaign of 1856 revolved around the issue of slavery and outbursts of violence were common. A civil war nearly broke out in Kansas between proslavery and antislavery supporters.

Republicans held mass meetings and marched through the streets. They were joined by Northen thinkers and writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And Abraham Lincoln,who had been possible candidate for VP, beat the drums for the new party. The made fun of Buchanan because his head tilted slighted to the left due to congenital palsy. Fremont supporters claimed the tilt was really a result of Buchanan's bungled attempt to hang himself - and a man who couldn't even do away with himself could not not be president, could he?

The Democrats responded by hurling insults at Fremont. They said he was a drunkard, guilty of brutal treatment of California Indians, and that he had exaggerated and lied about some of his discoveries in the West. They also said that Fremont was "a secret Catholic." That was a pretty serious charge in the 1800s and hurt him in the election with certain political groups. But the one thing they said about Fremont that stuck with the voters was that he was too radically antislavery and his election would cause the South to secede from the Union.

The WINNER was JAMES BUCHANAN - the 15th president.

Buchanan got 1,832,955 popular votes and 174 electoral.
Fremont got 1,339,932 popular votes and 114 electoral.

Buchanan won easily with the backing of all the Southern states. Almost 80% of the elgible voters participated in this election. Remember, elgible means "white men only."

Buchanan was our only bachelor president. When he was in the Senate he shared living quarters with Senator William Rufus King of Alabama. There was speculation that they were gay and some people called Buchanan and King "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy." But there is no proof that there was any truth to this.

Buchanan was nicknamed "Ten-Cent Jimmy" when he said that he thought ten cents a day was an adequate wage for manual laborers.