Election of 1852

Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire secured victory in the presidential election of 1852 against his Whig opponent General Winfield Scott. The election marked the last national campaign for the Whigs and signaled the beginning of a realignment in American partisan politics. (By Matthew Pinsker)

Election of 1852 (Tindall, 1999)

Textbook
The Democrats, despite a fight over the nomination, has some success in papery over the division within their party. As their nominee for president they turned finally to Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. The platform pledged the Democrats to "abide by and adhere to the faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise measures." The candidates and the platform generated a surprising reconciliation of the party's factions...The Whigs were less fortunate. They repudiated the lackluster Fillmore, who had faithfully supported the compromise, and once again tried to exploit martial glory. It took fifty-three ballots, but the convention finally chose Winfield Scott, the hero of Mexico City, a native of Virginia backed mainly by northern Whigs...Scott, an able commander but politically inept, had a gained a reputation for antislvery and nativism, alienating German and Irish ethnic voters. In the end Scott carried only Tennessee, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Pierce overwhelmed him in the electoral college 254 to 42, although the popular vote was close 1.6 million to 1.4 million.
George Brown Tindall and David E. Shi, eds., America: A Narrative History, 5th ed., vol. 1 (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999), 690.
Date Event
William Rufus King sworn in as Vice President in Havana, Cuba
New Hampshire
Virginia
Mexico City, Mexico
Date Title
New York Herald, "The Boston Fugitive Case," June 3, 1854
New York Times, “Gen. Walker’s Letter,” September 23, 1857
Israel Washburn to James Shepard Pike, March 20, 1858
New York Herald, “Douglas for the Presidency,” November 7, 1858
New York Herald, “The Late Scattering Elections,” April 6, 1859
Chicago (IL) Tribune, "The Prime Cause," December 8, 1860
(Montpelier) Vermont Patriot, “A Presidential Election Without A Parallel,” December 22, 1860
Chicago Style Entry Link
Earle, Jonathan Halperin. Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. View Record
Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion. Vol. 1, Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. View Record
Gara, Larry. The Presidency of Franklin Pierce. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. View Record
Gienapp, William E. "The Whig Party, the Compromise of 1850, and the Nomination of Winfield Scott." Presidential Studies Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1984): 399-415. View Record
Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1983. View Record
Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. View Record
How to Cite This Page: "Election of 1852," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/9586.