Hello and welcome back to another edition of Lace ‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series for today we will be going over the Election of 1836. Martin Van Buren is looking to become the new President of the United States, but there’s a new political party who are looking to stop Van Buren and the Democrats this time around.

Martin Van Buren

Following two terms as commander-in-chief, Andrew Jackson decided to step down in order for his friend and Vice President Martin Van Buren to continue where he left off.

Van Buren has a very accomplished political career as his a great political organizer and one of the founders of the Democratic Party alongside Andrew Jackson. He is also a former Senator and Governor of New York, a former Secretary of State and of course, the Vice President in the Jackson Administration and he ends up getting the party’s nomination unanimously.

Van Buren’s running mate in this election was Richard Mentor Johnson, a U.S. Representative from Kentucky and allegedly the person who killed the Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh in the Battle of Thames during the War of 1812.

Johnson was disliked by many Democrats due to his habit of having affairs with his female slaves with one of these slaves, Julie Chinn being described as Johnson’s wife by the man himself although it’s unknown how consensual these relationships were from the slave’s perspectives.

Nevertheless, no serious competition was made to change Johnson for the VP slot and with the backing of Andrew Jackson, Johnson gets the position.

The Rise Of The Whig Party

Following their defeats to Andrew Jackson in 1828 and 1832, the National Republican Party would cease to exist thus allowing a new political party to form; This group consisted of former Federalists, National Republicans, members of the Anti-Masonic Party and even Democrats who disagreed with Andrew Jackson.

Known as ‘The Whig Party’ and founded by former Speaker of the House Henry Clay, the Whig idealogy centred around restoring the national bank, supporting high tariffs for industrial goods and a bigger focus on infrastructure projects. Following their success in the 1834 midterms where they won seats in the House of Representatives, the party thought in 1836 they had what it would take to beat the Democrats.

When the time came to choose a candidate to represent them, the Whigs decided to use a unique strategy where instead of having one candidate go up against Martin Van Buren. They ran four candidates in different parts of the country, hoping these candidates would eat away at Van Buren’s chances of winning the presidency.

The four Whig Candidates running in the 1836 Election were:

• Hugh Lawson White- Senator from Tennessee
• Willie Person Magnum- Senator from North Carolina
• Daniel Webster- Senator from Massachusetts
• William Henry Harrison- Former Senator and Governor from Ohio

The Whigs chose two different people to be the running mates for their candidate with Francis Granger who was a U.S. Representative of New York being the VP pick for Harrison and Webster, while John Tyler who was a Senator from Virginia became the VP pick for Magnum and White.

The overall plan for the Whigs in this election was to deadlock the electoral college, so that Van Buren couldn’t win and instead throw the results into the House of Representatives where the Whigs believed they could be able to decide the winner.

The Election of 1836: The Results

Before I go over the results, it’s important to mention that the areas of land that would become Arkansas and Michigan officially became states thereby making the electoral votes needed to win in this election being 148 or more. However, Michigan became an official state in 1837 so a compromise was made in which the votes would be counted twice: one with Michigan’s votes included and one without.

But as you can see from looking at the map, this didn’t make much of a difference as Martin Van Buren came out on top with 170 electoral votes and 50.8% of the popular vote making him the 8th President in U.S. history.

The Whigs strategy of divide and conquer backfired in this election as Van Buren was able to secure more than enough votes to win the presidency due to multiple candidates spliting up the vote in places that the Whigs could’ve won.

As a result of their plan: William Henry Harrison got 73 electoral votes and 36.6% of the popular vote, Hugh Lawson White got 26 electoral votes and 9.7% of the popular vote, Daniel Webster won 14 electoral votes plus 2.7% of the popular vote and finally Willie Magnum got 11 electoral votes but no popular votes due to South Carolina still not having a popular vote.

Now you’d think that would be the end of this election but we’re not done yet, as we have some controversy regarding the Vice Presidency and for that we will have to send this to the Senate.

The Battle of The Vice Presidents

Despite the fact Martin Van Buren won the Presidency, Richard Mentor Johnson had some problems with his bid for the Vice Presidency as electors in the state of Virginia threw their support behind the Senator from South Carolina William Smith as they didn’t like Johnson thanks to his history with female slaves.

This decision left Johnson short of the electoral votes needed to win and so the race for Vice Presidency was thrown into the Senate where they had to choose who would win between Johnson and Granger (who had more votes than Tyler but was also short).

Due to the fact that the Democrats had a majority of support in the Senate, they voted for Johnson who became the 9th Vice President in U.S. History and to date the only VP to win their position by way of the Senate.

Be sure to leave your thoughts down below in the comment section and be sure to follow Lace ‘Em Up on Twitter @laceemupoffice you can follow me also on Twitter @hakeemfullerton and I’ll see you in the next article.