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 1844. Henry Clay is looking to finally win the Presidency that’s alluded him for so long, but first he has to go through a little known Democrat from Tennessee named James Knox Polk.

President Tyler and the Annexation of Texas

As we discussed in the previous article, John Tyler became the 10th President of the United States following the death of his predecessor William Henry Harrison just a little over a month into his Presidency.

Since then, President Tyler’s time in office has been problematic with him alienating most of everyone within the Whig Party over his decisions regarding the banking crisis, tariffs and other important pieces of legislation. This led to members of the Harrison administration (who were still working under Tyler) to quit in protest and Tyler himself would soon be expelled from the Whig Party, making him the second and last Independent President in U.S. History.

By the mid-1840s, John Tyler decided to run for re-election as a third party candidate on the platform of Annexing the Republic of Texas as many Americans were interested in the idea of expanding the amount of land the U.S. had control of.

Texas by this point was under the control of Mexico and many politicians were uncertain about adding the future Lone Star State to the Union as it could not only lead to war with Mexico, but it also could cause divisions between the amount of free and slave states within the country with many rightfully believing that Texas would become a slave state if it joined the Union.

The Return of Henry Clay

With William Henry Harrison gone and John Tyler kicked out of the party, the Whigs went with Henry Clay as their candidate after Clay resigned from his position as Senator to run for the nomination.

Despite losing the elections of 1824 and 1832 while also failing to get his party’s nomination in 1840, Clay was in a much better position to win especially with the Whigs having success in the early to mid-1840s when it came to getting seats in Congress.

Clay and his running mate, Theodore Frelinghuysen looked poised to win the upcoming election at first, however the Annexation of Texas was a major talking point going into the race and many within the Whig Party were divided on the issue. Some were against it as it would hurt their chances of winning any free states with a lot of electoral votes like New York, while Southerners within the party supported the idea of annexation.  

Clay soon published a series of letters like ‘The Raleigh Letter’ where he mentions how the Annexation of Texas would cause a sectional divide within the country, so it’s best to avoid it. In ‘The Alabama Letter’, Clay mentions that he isn’t personally against the Annexation of Texas but felt that the issue should best be ignored for the time being.

Unfortunately for Clay, this indecisiveness is going to hurt him when it comes to keeping unity within the Whig Party, but it will also be used as fuel against him by the Democrats.

Deciding the Democratic Nominee

Despite his overwhelming defeat in the previous election, Martin Van Buren was determined to get back into the White House; After an extensive touring schedule throughout the West and South, Van Buren met with Henry Clay in Kentucky and rumors persist that both men secretly agreed to make the annexation issue a non factor in the election with everyone believing these two would face off in the election of 1844.

When it came time to decide on the Democrats candidate for president there were a few names that stood out at first: Lewis Cass the U.S. Minister of France, James Buchanan the Senator from Pennsylvania, Richard Mentor Johnson the former Vice President and finally the aforementioned Martin Van Buren.

The Texas issue was brought up during the convention and with Van Buren living in New York, if he supported annexation he would not only lose his home state but other Northern states which were strongly against the expansion of slavery.

On the other hand, Southern Democrats like John Calhoun and Andrew Jackson were firmly in support of acquiring Texas and this led to none of the candidates having enough votes to get the nomination. In response, a compromise candidate was needed in order to break up the deadlock.

James Polk & Manifest Destiny

The Democrats would soon find a Dark Horse Candidate in the form of James Knox Polk, a little-known former Speaker of the House and Governor of Tennessee who initially planned to run for the Vice-Presidency in this election. Polk was also a good friend of Andrew Jackson, so much so that Polk was given the nickname “Young Hickory”.

By the time Polk’s name was added into the mix, most of the Democrats threw their support to him and his running mate George Dallas; Instead of waffling on the issue of Texas, Polk decided to embrace the idea of adding Texas to the Union which led to John Tyler officially dropping out of the race and giving his support to Polk.

Polk, like so many others around this time believed in the idea of ‘Manifest Destiny’ aka the belief of expanding the size of the U.S. from sea to shining sea. In order to calm down the Northerners who were against Texas annexation, Polk proposed the idea of bringing in the Oregon territories as free states thereby keeping the balance when it came to the number of free and slave states in the U.S. 

Many of the Whigs attempted to run a campaign similar to that of 1840 by degrading the unknown Democratic candidate with the phrase: “Who Is James K. Polk?”, However Clay’s waffling on the Texas issue was too strong for him and the Whigs to overcome.

The Democrats responded by portraying Henry Clay as someone who wasn’t fit to run for office and being a supporter of African Americans, which doesn’t make sense as Clay was a slaveholder. This combined with Polk’s pledge to serve only a single term as President made things look like the Democrats would regain the White House.

The Liberty Party

A third party worth mentioning in this election is the ‘Liberty Party’, a small group of Northerners who were against the expansion of slavery throughout the Western territories.

While the Liberty Party ran in 1840 on similar issues, the party only got .3% of the popular vote as the nation wasn’t too concerned about slavery. In 1844, all this talk of including Texas as a slave state has gotten the Liberty Party all fired up.

They ran with the same candidate that they had in 1840 in James Birney, a lawyer and abolitionist from Kentucky; With the Liberty Party’s support mainly coming from the North, many believed that they might steal away some voters that would’ve gone for Clay…But was that the case?

The Election of 1844: The Results

As you can see from the electoral map, James Polk decisively beat Henry Clay to become the eleventh President of the United States; Polk received 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105 electoral votes.

In terms of the popular vote, the race was much closer with Polk getting 49.5% to Clay’s 48.1%.

The state of New York ended up being the deciding factor in this election with Polk winning the state albeit with around 5,000 more votes. Had Clay gotten New York, he would’ve won the election with 141 electoral votes to Polk’s 134 (as you needed 138 votes or more to win). Sadly the factor that was the Liberty Party, who criticized Clay for his muddled stances on the annexation issue is what ultimately cost him.

Speaking of the Liberty Party, James Birney still received no electoral votes but did receive 2.3% of the popular vote which was a much better showing for the party compared to 1840.

Polk became the youngest man to ever become president at the time at just 49 years old and he immediately went headfirst into tackling the major issues he ran on including the annexation of Texas and Oregon.

Be sure to follow Lace ‘Em Up on Twitter @laceemupoffice and you can follow me also on Twitter @hakeemfullerton and I’ll see you in the next article.