| 1844 presidential election | |
  Nominees Polk and Dallas | |
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Date(s) | May 27–30, 1844 |
| City | Baltimore,Maryland |
| Venue | Odd Fellows Hall |
| Candidates | |
| Presidential nominee | James K. Polk ofTennessee |
| Vice-presidential nominee | George M. Dallas ofPennsylvania |
| ‹ 1840 · 1848 › | |
The1844 Democratic National Convention was apresidential nominating convention held inBaltimore, Maryland from May 27 through 30. The convention nominated formerGovernorJames K. Polk ofTennessee forpresident and former SenatorGeorge M. Dallas ofPennsylvania forvice president. The convention included three former vice presidents who sought the presidential nomination,John C. Calhoun, Van Buren andRichard Mentor Johnson.
Though his opposition to theannexation of Texas cost him support with expansionists andSoutherners, former PresidentMartin Van Buren entered the convention with the backing of a majority of the delegates. Before presidential balloting commenced, the convention voted to reinstate a rule requiring the presidential nominee to win two-thirds of the vote. On the first presidential ballot, Van Buren won a majority, but fell short of a two-thirds requirement. As the balloting continued, Van Buren continually lost support to Johnson, formerGovernorLewis Cass ofMichigan, and SenatorJames Buchanan of Pennsylvania.
Though he had entered the convention hoping to be nominated for vice president, Polk had the strong support of former PresidentAndrew Jackson and was acceptable to the different factions of the party. He won the nomination on the ninth presidential ballot, thus becoming the firstdark horse candidate to win a major party's presidential nomination. After SenatorSilas Wright ofNew York declined the vice presidential nomination, the convention selected Dallas as Polk's running mate. The Democratic ticket went on to win the1844 presidential election.
At the outset of the convention, the leading contender was former PresidentMartin Van Buren ofNew York, who had been defeated in the1840 election.[1] His principal opponent wasLewis Cass ofMichigan, who had served asUnited States Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson.[1] The annexation ofTexas was a major issue. Van Buren publicly opposed immediate annexation because it might lead to a sectional crisis over the status ofslavery in the West.[1] This position cost Van Buren the support of Southern and expansionist Democrats, but he believed that backing annexation would cost him the support of his fellow New Yorkers and otherNortheasterners.[1]
Van Buren's supporters arrived at the convention with a majority of the delegates pledged to support him on the first ballot.[2][3] Cass, meanwhile, had support from a handful of Southern states, but far fewer delegates pledged to him.[1] Atthe previous convention, in 1840, a majority of votes had been sufficient to secure the nomination, but this had been a departure from the party's previous rule requiring a two-thirds majority.[4]
Early in the proceedings, SenatorRobert J. Walker ofMississippi, in cooperation with Senator (and future president)James Buchanan ofPennsylvania called for reinstatement of the1832 and1835 convention rule requiring the nominee to win two-thirds of the votes. Following a historical pattern in which a minority faction of Northern Democrats delivered votes to produce southern wing victories for pro-slavery legislation, the Van Burenite delegates split over the pivotal vote. Fully one-third of the pro-Van Buren delegates (52 of 154) voted to reinstate the two-thirds rule, along with 90 of 104 anti-Van Buren delegates, producing a final vote of 148 to 116.[5] The rule would remain in place until the1936 Democratic National Convention, when it was revoked by supporters ofFranklin D. Roosevelt.[4]
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Van Buren supporters persisted in spite of the two-thirds rule setback, garnering 146 votes for their candidate on the first ballot, a 55% simple majority, but short of the now required 177 votes. Middle and Deep South pro-annexationists opposed Van Buren 75 to 3, depriving northern anti-annexationists the 31 votes needed for victory.
Support for Van Buren dwindled in subsequent ballots from 146 to 99, at which point Van Burenites were reduced to blocking nominations of numerous candidates, among them James Buchanan, Lewis Cass of Michigan, John C. Calhoun, andLevi Woodbury of New Hampshire.[6][7] Incumbent PresidentJohn Tyler, a former Democrat who was elected to the vice presidency on the 1840Whig Party ticket, also hoped to win the support of delegates, but he was unable to find any backers.[8] Southern intransigence had succeeded in eliminating Van Buren and his stand on Texas annexation.[9] If the Democratic Party was to avoid dissolution at a national level, an acceptable nominee, fully committed to immediate annexation would be required, yet capable of unifying the party in the general election.[10][11] Van Buren was open to deferring to Senator Silas Wright of New York, but Wright was a major supporter of Van Buren for president and had already declined to be considered.[8]
On the eighth ballot, the historianGeorge Bancroft, a delegate from Massachusetts, proposed formerSpeaker of the House of Representatives James K. Polk as a compromise candidate. Polk, who had also served as Governor of Tennessee, had entered the convention in hopes of becoming the vice presidential nominee.[8] However, former PresidentAndrew Jackson, who remained popular in the party, believed Polk was just the man to head the Democratic ticket.[8] Although a slaveholder himself, Polk never enunciated a slavery expansionist position with respect to Texas annexation, as had John C. Calhoun and the southern extremists.[12] Despite Polk's fervent advocacy for annexation, he had remained loyal to Van Buren throughout the Texas controversy, and anti-annexationist Van Burenites were willing to accept Polk, with reservations, having already recognized him as a suitable vice-presidential choice to have complemented a Van Buren ticket.[13][14] Southern Democrats benefited from the Tyler-Calhoun machinations in eliminating Martin Van Buren as a presidential candidate, and clearing the way for the pro-annexation nationalist Polk.[15] On the ninth ballot, Van Buren instructed his delegates to support Polk, beginning a stampede to Polk that ended with him winning the nomination unanimously.[8] Consequently, Polk became the first dark horse, or little-known, presidential nominee. Van Buren complied with his party's decision to unite under a pro-annexation candidate, and worked to win New York state for Polk.[16][17][18]
Despite Whig efforts to cast Polk as an unknown – "Who is James K. Polk?" they asked rhetorically – he was respected as an effective political operator.[19] His sobriquet "The Young Hickory" contained a dual reference, one to his mentor Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson, and one to the termYoung America, a reference to an international movements struggling to establish republican forms of government and the overthrow of monarchies and ascribed toManifest Destiny Democrats.[20] As a national imperialist, he exhibited an unwavering support for Manifest Destiny, perceived as a non-sectional devotion to expansionism, whether slave-soil Texas or free-soilOregon Territory.[21] Polk argued that Texas and Oregon had always belonged to the United States by right. He called for "the immediate reannexation of Texas" and for the "reoccupation" of thedisputed Oregon territory. Polk's political reputation was expected to diffuse northern Democratic resentment towards the Slavepower, while delivering Texas to the Deep South.
| Presidential Ballot | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th[a] | 9th[b] |
| Polk | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 44 | 231 | 266 |
| Van Buren | 146 | 127 | 121 | 111 | 103 | 101 | 99 | 104 | 2 | 0 |
| Cass | 83 | 94 | 92 | 105 | 107 | 116 | 123 | 114 | 29 | 0 |
| Johnson | 24 | 33 | 38 | 32 | 29 | 23 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Buchanan | 4 | 9 | 11 | 17 | 26 | 25 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Calhoun | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Woodbury | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Stewart | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Morton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Not Voting | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Not Represented | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
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Polk andRichard Mentor Johnson had both campaigned for the vice presidency prior to the convention, but with Polk's nomination for president, the party looked to the northern states for a running mate.[8]
The anti-annexationist Silas Wright, US Senator from New York, was nominated almost unanimously on the first ballot, but when he was informed by telegraph at theUS Capitol, Wright declined: this was partly out of refusal to support a ticket backing the annexation of Texas, and partly because he did not want to be accused of intriguing against Van Buren to benefit himself. Wright refused to reconsider despite Democratic Party attempts to convince him to do so.
On the second ballot,John Fairfield attracted significant support, but this was not even close to the 184 votes required for nomination: on the third ballot, the convention settled on George M. Dallas, a conservative from Pennsylvania.[22]
| Vice Presidential Ballot | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
| Dallas | 0 | 13 | 220 |
| Wright | 258 | 0 | 0 |
| Fairfield | 0 | 93 | 30 |
| Woodbury | 8 | 56 | 6 |
| Cass | 0 | 39 | 0 |
| Johnson | 0 | 26 | 0 |
| Stewart | 0 | 23 | 0 |
| Marcy | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Not Voting | 0 | 11 | 10 |
| Not Represented | 9 | 9 | 9 |
The basic events of the convention are outlined in the song"James K. Polk" by the rock bandThey Might Be Giants.[23]
| Preceded by 1840 Baltimore, Maryland | Democratic National Conventions | Succeeded by 1848 Baltimore, Maryland |
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