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| Presidential election results map. Red denotes those won by McKinley/Hobart, Blue denotes states won by Bryan/Sewall OR the Populist ticket of Bryan/Watson. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The United States presidential election held on November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by political scientists to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history.
The 1896 campaign is often considered to be a realigning election that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.[1] McKinley forged a coalition in which businessmen, professionals, skilled factory workers, and prosperous farmers were heavily represented. He was strongest in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. Bryan was the nominee of the Democrats, the Populist Party, and the Silver Republicans. He was strongest in the South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states.
Economic issues, including bimetallism, the gold standard, free silver, and tariffs, were of primary importance. Republican campaign manager Mark Hanna pioneered many modern campaign techniques, facilitated by a $3.5 million budget. He outspent Bryan by a factor of five. The Democratic Party's repudiation of the Bourbon Democrats (their pro-business wing, represented by incumbent President Grover Cleveland), set the stage for 36 years of Republican control of the White House, interrupted only by the two terms of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Although Bryan lost the election, his coalition of "outsiders" would dominate the Democratic Party well into the twentieth century and would play a crucial role in promoting the liberal economic programs of Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. For the time being, McKinley's Republican approach was triumphant, and his policies regarding pluralism, industrial growth, and the gold standard determined national policies until Woodrow Wilson became president in 1913.
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Republican candidates:
As they did in 1876 and 1880, the Republicans dipped into the talent pool of the Governor's office of Ohio to nominate William McKinley for president and New Jersey's Garret Hobart for vice-president. With the platform calling for strong support for the gold standard, many Western Republicans walked out of the Republican Convention held St. Louis, Missouri on June 16-18, 1896, to form the National Silver Party in support of the Democratic ticket. Among them was Utah delegate Thomas Kearns, a silver mining magnate and eventual U.S. Senator.
McKinley's campaign manager, a wealthy and talented Ohio businessman named Mark Hanna, visited the leaders of large corporations and major banks after the Republican Convention to raise funds for the campaign. Given that many businessmen and bankers were terrified of Bryan's populist rhetoric and support for ending the gold standard, Hanna had few problems in raising record amounts of money. In the end, Hanna raised a staggering $3.5 million for the campaign, outspending the Democrats by an estimated 5-to-1 margin. As a percentage of GDP, this is equivalent to $3 billion today.[2] McKinley was the last veteran of the American Civil War to be nominated for President by either major party.
| Vice Presidential Ballot | |
| Garret A. Hobart | 523.5 |
|---|---|
| H. Clay Evans | 287.5 |
| Morgan Bulkeley | 39 |
| James A. Walker | 24 |
| Charles W. Lippitt | 8 |
| Thomas Brackett Reed | 3 |
| Chauncey Depew | 3 |
| John Mellen Thurston | 2 |
| Frederick Dent Grant | 2 |
| Levi P. Morton | 1 |
Democratic candidates:
One month after McKinley’s nomination, the silverites took control of the Democratic convention held in Chicago on July 7-11. Most of the Southern and Western delegates were committed to implementing the free silver ideas of the Populist Party. The convention repudiated President Cleveland's gold standard policies and then repudiated Cleveland himself. This, however, left the convention wide open: there was no obvious successor to Cleveland.
An attorney, former congressman, and unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate named William Jennings Bryan filled the void. A superb orator, Bryan hailed from Nebraska and was widely regarded as a prominent spokesman for millions of rural Americans who were suffering from the economic depression following the Panic of 1893. At the Democratic Convention, Bryan delivered what many historians regard as one of the greatest political speeches in American history, the "Cross of Gold" Speech. In this speech, Bryan presented a passionate defense of farmers and factory workers struggling to survive the economic depression, and he attacked big-city business owners and leaders as the cause of much of the economic suffering. He called for reform of the monetary system, an end to the gold standard, and promised government relief efforts for farmers and others hurt by the economic depression. Bryan's speech was so dramatic that after he had finished many delegates carried him on their shoulders around the convention hall. The speech also united the convention delegates and earned Bryan their presidential nomination; he defeated his closest competitor, former Senator Richard "Silver Dick" Bland by a 3-to-1 margin. Arthur Sewall, a wealthy shipbuilder from Maine, was chosen as the vice- presidential nominee. It was felt that Sewall's wealth might encourage him to help pay some campaign expenses. At just 36 years of age, Bryan was only a year older than the minimum age required by the Constitution to be president. Bryan remains the youngest man ever nominated by a major party for president.
| Presidential Ballot | |||||
| Ballot | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Jennings Bryan | 137 | 197 | 219 | 280 | 652 |
| Richard P. Bland | 235 | 281 | 291 | 241 | 11 |
| Robert E. Pattison | 97 | 100 | 97 | 97 | 95 |
| Joseph Clay Styles Blackburn | 82 | 41 | 27 | 27 | 0 |
| Horace Boies | 67 | 37 | 36 | 33 | 0 |
| John Roll McLean | 54 | 53 | 54 | 46 | 0 |
| Claude Matthews | 37 | 34 | 34 | 36 | 0 |
| Scattering | 43 | 27 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
Source: US President - D Convention. Our Campaigns. (March 10, 2011).
| Vice Presidential Ballot | |||||
| Ballot | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arthur Sewall | 100 | 37 | 97 | 261 | 602 |
| Joseph C. Sibley | 163 | 113 | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| John Roll McLean | 111 | 158 | 210 | 298 | 32 |
| George F. Williams | 76 | 16 | 15 | 9 | 9 |
| Richard P. Bland | 62 | 294 | 255 | 0 | 0 |
| Walter Clark | 50 | 22 | 22 | 46 | 22 |
| John W. Daniel | 11 | 1 | 6 | 54 | 36 |
| Scattering | 97 | 35 | 20 | 12 | 32 |
National Democratic candidates
The pro-gold Democrats reacted to Bryan's nomination with a mixture of anger, desperation, and confusion. A number of pro-gold Democrats urged a “bolt” and the formation of a third party. In response, a hastily arranged assembly on July 24 organized the National Democratic Party. A follow-up meeting in August scheduled a nominating convention for September in Indianapolis and issued an appeal to fellow Democrats. In this document, the National Democratic Party portrayed itself as the legitimate heir to Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland.
Delegates from forty-one states gathered at the National Democratic Party’s national nominating convention in Indianapolis on September 2. Some delegates planned to nominate Cleveland, but they relented after a telegram arrived stating that he would not accept. Senator William Freeman Vilas, the main drafter of the National Democratic Party's platform, was a favorite of the delegates. However, Vilas refused to run as the party's sacrificial lamb. At this point, nearly everyone in attendance wanted John M. Palmer, a Senator from Illinois, nominated for president.[3] In a decisive first-ballot victory, Palmer defeated former Representative Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin for the nomination. Simon Bolivar Buckner, a former governor of Kentucky, was nominated unanimously by acclamation for vice-president. Cleveland supported Palmer, rather than Bryan,[4] and sent a letter of encouragement to the delegates that gave them an important psychological boost: “I am delighted with the outcome of the Indianapolis Convention and as a Democrat I feel very grateful to those who have relieved the bad political atmosphere with such a delicious infusion of fresh air”.
Palmer seemed the ideal candidate except for one critical flaw: at seventy-nine, he was far too old to persuade voters to take the campaign seriously. The same liability attached to Buckner, his seventy-three-year-old running mate. In other respects, the pair complemented each other nicely: having fought in the Civil War on opposite sides, they formed a team that emphasized sectional unity. As state governors, each had achieved a solid reputation for independence and strenuous use of the veto pen.
Despite their advanced ages, Palmer and Buckner embarked on a busy speaking tour. This won them considerable respect from the party faithful, although some found it hard to take the geriatric campaigning seriously. “You would laugh yourself sick could you see old Palmer,” wrote Kenesaw Mountain Landis to Secretary of War Daniel S. Lamont. “He has actually gotten it into his head he is running for office.”
On one extreme of the National Democratic Party were those who regarded the Palmer ticket as little more than a vehicle to elect McKinley. Gold Democrats who subscribed to this point of view included William Collins Whitney and Abram Hewitt, the treasurer of the National Democratic Party. To Hewitt, the election of McKinley, and thus protection of the gold standard, overrode all other issues. He had initially opposed a third ticket, but had come to the conclusion that it would help defeat Bryan. Palmer himself said at a campaign stop that if “this vast crowd casts its vote for William McKinley next Tuesday, I shall charge them with no sin”.
There was even some cooperation with the Republican Party, especially in finances. The Republicans hoped that Palmer could draw enough Democratic votes from Bryan to tip marginal Midwestern and border states into McKinley's column. In a private letter, Hewitt underscored the “entire harmony of action” between both parties in standing against Bryan. To this end, the Republicans contributed one-half to an National Democratic Party fund of $100,000 in the battleground states of Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. The two parties joined forces in the distribution of “sound money” literature, and in some areas the Republicans gave direct aid to the National Democratic Party. Although it brought obvious financial benefits, the alliance with the GOP did tremendous damage to the National Democratic Party's credibility.
However, the National Democratic Party was not, as one historian put it, merely “an adjunct to the Republican campaign”. Although party leaders preferred that McKinley rather than Bryan be elected, a more important goal was to nurture a loyal remnant for future victory. Repeatedly they depicted Bryan’s prospective defeat, and a credible showing for Palmer, as paving the way for ultimate recapture of the Democratic Party. For Bragg, it was critical to “keep the vestal fires burning” of old Democratic traditions. Palmer hoped to create a “nucleus around which the true Democrats . . . can rally once more, and to preserve a place for our erring brothers, if the time comes when they repent . . . we will be ready to receive them with open arms! Come back to the party of your fathers”.
| Presidential Ballot | ||
| Ballot | 1st Before Shifts | 1st After Shifts |
|---|---|---|
| John M. Palmer | 757.5 | 769.5 |
| Edward S. Bragg | 130.5 | 118.5 |
Several third parties were active in 1896. By far the most prominent was the Populist Party. Formed in 1892, the Populists represented agrarian interests in the South, West, and rural Midwest. In the 1892 presidential election Populist candidate James B. Weaver had carried four states, and in 1894 the Populists had scored victories in congressional and state legislature races in a number of Southern and Western states. In the Southern states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, the wins were obtained by electoral fusion with the Republicans against the dominant Bourbon Democrats, whereas in the rest of the country, fusion, if practiced, was typically undertaken with the Democrats, as in the state of Washington.[5][6] By 1896 some Populists believed that they could replace the Democrats as the main opposition party to the Republicans. However, the Democrats' nomination of Bryan—who supported many Populist goals and ideas—placed the party in a dilemma. Torn between choosing their own presidential candidate or supporting Bryan, the party leadership decided that nominating their own candidate would simply divide the forces of reform and hand the election to the more conservative Republicans. At their national convention in 1896, the Populists chose Bryan as their presidential nominee. However, to demonstrate that they were still independent from the Democrats, the Populists also chose Georgia Senator Thomas E. Watson as their vice-presidential candidate instead of Arthur Sewall. Bryan eagerly accepted the Populist nomination, but was vague as to whether, if elected, he would choose Watson as his vice-president instead of Sewall. With this election, the Populists began to be absorbed into the Democratic Party; within a few elections the party would disappear completely. The 1896 election was particularly detrimental to the Populist Party in the South, dividing the party between members who favored cooperation with the Democrats to achieve results at the national level and members who favored cooperation with the Republicans to achieve reform at a state level.
As a result of the double nomination, in many states both the Bryan-Sewall Democratic ticket and the Bryan-Watson Populist ticket appeared on the ballot. Although the Populist ticket did not win the popular vote in any state, 27 electors for Bryan cast their vice-presidential vote for Watson instead of Sewall. (The votes came from the following states: Arkansas 3, Louisiana 4, Missouri 4, Montana 1, Nebraska 4, North Carolina 5, South Dakota 2, Utah 1, Washington 2, Wyoming 1.)
The Socialist Labor Convention was held in New York on July 9, 1896. The convention nominated Charles Matchett of New York and Matthew Maguire of New Jersey. Its platform favored reduction in hours of labor, possession by the United States government of mines, railroads, canals, telegraphs, and telephones; possession by municipalities of water-works, gas-works, and electric plants; the issue of money by the United States alone; the employment of the unemployed by the public authorities; abolition of the veto power; abolition of the United States Senate; women's suffrage; and uniform criminal law throughout the Union.[7]
Other notable third-party efforts were presented by the Prohibition, National Prohibition and National Democratic parties each offering tickets for president and vice-president. The Democratic ticket was also endorsed by Nevada's Silver Party.[8]
The primary issue of the 1896 campaign involved this economic question: would America remain on the gold standard, as McKinley and the Republicans wished, or would the nation's economy switch to the free silver theories espoused by Bryan and the Populists?
Bryan argued that by abandoning the gold standard and having paper money backed by silver instead of gold, it would allow more paper currency to enter the national economy (a popular Bryan slogan was "16-to-1", based on the claim that 16 silver-backed dollars could be printed for every one dollar backed by gold). Bryan and his supporters argued that this "easy money" would allow impoverished farmers in the South and West to get out of debt and pay their bills, and that having more paper money circulating in the economy would help lift the nation out of the economic depression which had started in 1893.
McKinley and the Republicans responded that the gold standard was vital to the American economy, and that if the nation went off the gold standard, paper currency would lose its value by half and inflation would soar. To ridicule what they believed were Bryan's radical and unwise economic policies, the Republicans printed fake dollar bills which had Bryan's face and which read "IN GOD WE TRUST...FOR THE OTHER 53 CENTS", thus illustrating their claim that a dollar bill would be worth only 47 cents if it was backed by silver instead of gold.
The Republican Party had amassed an unprecedented war chest at all levels—national, state and local—which amounted to about $16 million as contrasted with about $1 million for the poorer Democrats (roughly "16 to 1").[9] Since he was being outspent, Bryan decided his best chance to win the election was to conduct a vigorous national speaking tour by train; in that way he could speak to the voters directly. He was the first presidential candidate to travel across the nation and meet voters in person; prior to 1896 it was considered undignified for presidential candidates to widely travel before an election.
The novelty of such an event, combined with Bryan's spellbinding oratory and the passion of his beliefs, led to huge crowds. In many parts of the South and West, Bryan supporters welcomed him with parades, speeches, and wild demonstrations of support. Although Bryan traveled to most sections of the nation, he focused his efforts on the Midwest, which he believed would be the decisive battleground in the election. In just 100 days, Bryan gave over 500 speeches to several million people, a remarkable feat at the time. Relying on just a few hours of sleep a night, he traveled 18,000 miles in three months to address an estimated five million people.
In contrast to Bryan's dramatic efforts, McKinley conducted a traditional "front porch" campaign from his home in Canton, Ohio. Instead of having McKinley travel to see the voters, Mark Hanna brought thousands of voters by train to McKinley's home. Once there, McKinley would greet the groups of voters and give a speech to them from his porch. McKinley labeled Bryan's proposed social and economic reforms as a serious threat to the national economy. With the depression following the Panic of 1893 coming to an end, support for McKinley's more conservative economic policies increased, while Bryan's more radical policies began to lose support among Midwestern farmers and factory workers.
To ensure victory, Hanna paid large numbers of Republican orators (including Theodore Roosevelt) to travel around the nation denouncing Bryan as a dangerous radical. There were also reports that some potentially Democratic voters were intimidated into voting for McKinley. For example, some factory owners posted signs the day before the election announcing that, if Bryan won the election, the factory would be closed and the workers would lose their jobs. McKinley gained a narrow, but solid victory, carrying the core of the East and Northeast, while Bryan did well among the farmers of the South, West, and rural Midwest. The large German-American voting bloc supported McKinley, who gained large majorities among the middle class, skilled factory workers, railroad workers, and large-scale farmers. However, the national popular vote was close, as McKinley took 51% to Bryan's 47%. In the electoral college McKinley received 271 electoral votes to Bryan's 176 (224 were needed to win).
Mayor Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio, summed up the campaign as the "first great protest of the American people against monopoly - the first great struggle of the masses in our country against the privileged classes."
McKinley received a little more than seven million votes, Bryan a little less than six and a half million. The vote was close enough that any one of a dozen factors could have changed the result: if the Gold Democrats had not abandoned Bryan; if Bryan had talked less and stuck to sound issues; if the church and the school had been kept out of politics; a legal limit set on the amount of libel and abuse in the press; a legal limit on the extent of campaign expenditures; and if the Republicans had a less thorough and scientific campaign manager.[10]
The National Democrats did not carry any states, but they did divide the Democratic vote in some states and helped the Republicans to carry the state of Kentucky. Gold Democrats made much of the fact that Palmer’s small vote in Kentucky was higher than McKinley’s thin margin in that state. From this, they concluded that Palmer had drained off needed Democratic votes and thrown the state to McKinley. However, McKinley would have won the election even if he had lost in Kentucky. If Palmer's support had gone to Bryan in California, McKinley's margin of victory would have been reduced from 1,922 votes to only 192.
After the election of McKinley, some Gold Democratic partisans tried to portray the election as a stunning victory for their party. They confidently predicted that the defeat of the despised Bryan would open the door for the recapture of the Democratic Party. In a post-election editorial, Henry Watterson claimed that “Palmer and Buckner have saved the country from shame and have saved the party from destruction”.
Political scientists widely regard the 1896 election as a realigning election. An often forgotten facet of that realignment was the disappearance of the old Democratic Party, which had upheld free trade, hard money, and minimalist government.
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote |
Running mate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Pct | Vice-presidential candidate | Home state | Elect. vote | ||||
| William McKinley | Republican | Ohio | 7,102,246 | 51.0% | 271 | Garret A. Hobart | New Jersey | 271 |
| William Jennings Bryan | Democratic/ Populist |
Nebraska | 6,492,559 | 46.7% | 176 | Arthur Sewall(a) | Maine | 149 |
| Thomas E. Watson(b) | Georgia | 27 | ||||||
| John M. Palmer | National Democratic | Illinois | 133,537 | 0.96% | 0 | Simon Bolivar Buckner | Kentucky | 0 |
| Joshua Levering | Prohibition | Maryland | 124,896 | 0.90% | 0 | Hale Johnson | Illinois | 0 |
| Charles Matchett | Socialist Labor | New York | 36,359 | 0.26% | 0 | Matthew Maguire | New Jersey | 0 |
| Charles Eugene Bentley | National Prohibition | Nebraska | 19,367 | 0.14% | 0 | James Southgate | North Carolina | 0 |
| Other | 1,570 | 0.0% | — | Other | — | |||
| Total | 13,905,691 | 100% | 447 | 447 | ||||
| Needed to win | 224 | 224 | ||||||
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1896 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (August 5, 2005).Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).(a) Sewall was Bryan's Democratic running mate.
(b) Watson was Bryan's Populist running mate.
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