1848 United States presidential election (An Honorable Retelling)

United States presidential election, 1848

November 7, 1848 (1848-11-07)
297 members of the Electoral College 294 electoral votes needed to win
Nominee Martin Van Buren (Won contingent election) John C. Calhoun Winfield Scott Party Free Soil Agrarian Whig Home state Tennessee South Carolina Virginia Running mate Charles F. Adams William Dunn Moseley Floris Adriaan van Hall Electoral vote 102 71 37 States carried 11 9 3 Popular vote 3,002,013 2,180,929 2,103,421 Percentage 22.27% 16.16% 15.61%   Nominee John J. Crittenden Gerrit Smith Lewis Cass Party Constitutional Union Liberty Democratic Home state Kentucky Ohio Michigan Running mate Edward Everett John P. Hale William O. Butler Electoral vote 24 23 21 States carried 2 1 3 Popular vote 1,890,342 1,800,065 1,305,297 Percentage 14.02% 13.36% 9.68%   Nominee Abbott Lawrence Party Independent Home state Massachusetts Running mate Millard Fillmore Electoral vote 16 States carried 2 Popular vote 1,200,130 Percentage 8.91%
Electoral College results
President before election George Bancroft Silas Wright Elected President Martin Van Buren Free Soil

The 1848 United States presidential election was the 16th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1848. In a seven-way contest which was sent to the United States House of Representatives, former vice president Martin Van Buren emerged victorious with a plurality in the popular and electoral vote with Charles F. Adams as his running mate, under the abolitionist Free Soil Party. With a refusal to include Van Buren and various other candidates on the ballot in southern states, the election was effectively predicted to be without a clear winner in the Electoral College. As a result, it served as the catalyst for the outbreak of the Second Columbian War almost two months later.

The increasing sectional divide in the United States was made apparent by a split in all major parties, most prominently in the 1846 midterm elections. The United States, despite having expanded territorially by occupying and annexing large quadrants of territory in Mexica, faced increased polarization over the divide between slave and free states. The conflict's cost had left the nation in debt, which it agreed to pay off towards France in order to sustain profits, with Congress unable to pass a budget without any partisan or nonpartisan opposition. The Democratic Party, splitting between Northern moderates and Southern aristocrats, nominated two separate candidates - John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and Lewis Cass of Michigan. Subsequently, moderates from the border states and the North fielded their own candidates, Abbott Lawrence, an industrialist from Massachusetts, and John J. Crittenden, a founder of the Constitutional Union Party from Kentucky. The Whigs, facing a deadlocked convention, nominated general Winfield Scott as their nominee, who adopted a "balanced-deck" campaign by adopting the platforms of the Constitutional Union Party and the Democratic Party, while criticizing Van Buren as "dangerous." The abolitionist Liberty Party nominated public intellectual and representative Gerrit Smith, with John P. Hale as his running mate.

The general election was tumultuous and saw the first use of mandatory voting laws among the general population to avoid the issue of a lower turnout, which would give any candidate more leverage among states with higher populations. To avoid this issue, Calhoun and southern democrats pressured state legislatures to avoid putting Smith, Cass, Lawrence, and Van Buren on their ballots. Northern Democrats instead wrote off Calhoun as a member of the "Agrarian Party", referring to his faction of the Democratic Party. On November 7, it became immediately clear that no candidate had won the election. Van Buren had won a plurality of the national and popular vote, but it was nowhere near enough to reach the required 294 electoral votes to win the election. The election then went to the United States House of Representatives, where the Northern moderates and abolitionist factions united around Van Buren, prompting him to win the contingent election. As a result, the Southern delegations left Congress, and multiple states in the South declared secession, beginning a period of civil war.

Nominations

Free Soil Party nomination

1848 Free Soil Party ticket
Martin Van Buren	Charles F. Adams
for President	for Vice President
9th Vice President of the United States (1829-1937)	Massachusetts State Assemblyman (1844-1845)

Consisting purely of abolitionists, the Free Soil Party had formed earlier that year to oppose the growing issue of slavery in the Columbian south. Formerly Federalist Vice President Martin Van Buren became the biggest exponent of the party, getting the nomination in a slightly contested race were he was put against Representative John P. Hale. Initially, Van Buren thought the Free Soilers had little chances of winning the election in comparison to the Whigs or Democrats, but as the year continued he became increasingly reluctant of collaborating with the prior and started to campaign more aggressively. The picking of Van Buren's running mate was also an important matter for the party; he originally intended to nominate Richard Rush, but then considered that it would be important to appeal to the Greater Acadia region, letting the convention pick Charles F. Adams.