Elected Presidents, Popular Vote, Less than 50%

Year President Electoral Popular
-------------------------------------------------
1824 John Q. Adams 31.8% - 29.8%
1844 James K. Polk (D) 61.8 - 49.3
1848 Zachary Taylor (W) 56.2 - 47.3
1856 James Buchanan (D) 58.7 - 45.3
1860 Abraham Lincoln (R) 59.4 - 39.9
1876 Rutherford B. Hayes(R) 50.1 - 47.9
1880 James A. Garfield (R) 57.9 - 48.3
1884 Grover Cleveland (D) 54.6 - 48.8
1888 Benjamin Harrison (R) 58.1 - 47.8
1892 Grover Cleveland (D) 62.4 - 46.0
1912 Woodrow Wilson (D) 81.9 - 41.8
1916 Woodrow Wilson (D) 52.1 - 49.3
1948 Harry S. Truman (D) 57.1 - 49.5
1960 John F. Kennedy (D) 56.4 - 49.7
1968 Richard M. Nixon (R) 56.1 - 43.4
1992 William J. Clinton (D) 68.8 - 43.0
1996 William J. Clinton (D) 70.4 - 49.0
2000 George W. Bush (R) 50.3 - 47.8

These are the Presidents who have been elected with less than 50% of the popular vote (the last number on the line). While we hear a lot about Lincoln being elected without the majority of the country behind him, as you can see this is really a pretty common condition for Presidents.

While Lincoln is one of only two below 40%, that is not too surprising. He ran against three strong opponents, Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. John Q. Adams in 1824 is really the only other President to face that kind of opposition, and he did worse than Lincoln did. Generally, it looks like there is a good chance anyone who garnered much less than 49% while winning had a strong thrid-party candidate in the mix. (i.e., Nixon in 1968, Wilson in 1912, etc.)

Tim

Yes, but Lincoln was the only one to ever get a Vote of No Confidence, as some have stated it, by a general Secession.

No one but him has to live that down.

AmBu

What would you be referring to here?

Tim

Can you imagine? Eleven states pull out of the Union because the powers which got you elected are so distasteful to the 'residue' of the country that they say no more, and up and leave?

That's got to smart! Fifteen successful elections, and you have to be the one who tears the country in half, by your very presence in office?

I'd hate to have to have dealt with that!

AmBu

This is, of course, a distortion of what happened.

In 1858 -- when absolutely no one seriously spoke of Abraham Lincoln becoming President -- Fire-Eater leaders in the South were already openly discussing the election of ANY Republican as a justification for secession.

There was a famous debate on the re-opening of the African Slave Trade at the Southern Commercial Convention that year between Roger Pryor of Virginia and Yancy of Alabama (both famous orators, although Pryor was an up-and-comer at the time). The debate was reprinted in papers throughout the country, and particularly in the South.

In that debate, Yancy said the conditions to justify secession already existed. Pryor said they did not. Yancy asked what would make him say it was justified. Pryor said the election of a Republican would.

Those are the type of men who dragged "the South" into secession. They worked at it for years; some for decades. They started on it before the Republican Party even existed. They plotted and organized to split the Democratic Party in 1860 as a means of losing the election, to ensure a Republican (again, ANY Republican) would win because they wanted to use that as an excuse for secession, to whip people into a frenzy with propaganda. They were successful in getting what they wished for, and like many wishes, they should have been more careful in their choice.

Blaming the result of these deliberate Southern efforts on Abraham Lincoln is just not to be believed.

Tim

Oh, I agree, completely!

A distortion, most definitely.

Any Republican would have caused it because of what he represented; sectional interests at the North.

But he was the first Republican, and he had not been able to win over his enemies...

He could not PRESIDE over them, as PRESIDENT.

The office of president, as I see it, is the personification of WE THE PEOPLE in one man; not a tyrant, not a dictator, and not a public servant...

But a man who sides with the INDIVIDUAL man, as his champion. He should be without party, ideally, because he is ever expected to act like he has none, once elected.

It is a symbolic office which suggests that he is the last resort between legislature and judicial. He executes
as a governmental police officer. He has discretion, which can either make or break the people.

He is the constant reminder that we are individuals, and not states, nor nation, in our simplest form.

A man as lauded as Lincoln should have had the words to keep the Union preserved. We in the South should have loved him for what he did to save us from wanting a Confederacy, or for bringing us willingly back in, through negotiations, after Secession happened.

He didn't. He was a sectional president. The South just showed him exactly whom he would be representing...

Whom he did represent.

Yet, he is loved and treated as if he had done that very thing; Preserved the Union.

Truth is, the truth hurts, don't you agree?


Therefore, I think it had to have hurt him, as well.

AmBu

I cannot also help but think that there were certain designing persons at the North who also wanted to see the South secede, so they could attack them, with guns.

I do know that you cannot include Senator Jefferson Davis in that company of Southern
saboteurs! He was as thorough a Union man as Colonel Baldwin said himself to be!

Historically, (ignoring, for the moment, Why they did it) the political leaders of the south, set themselves up as a form of vetting committee, through which only those candidates who met the approval of that committee, could be elected. Not only did they want the power and authority to decide who Should be, but also, who Could be, elected.

(Sigh.)

Batter up.

An actual history lession is desperately needed.

Unionblue

Elected Presidents, Popular Vote, Lee than 50%

Revisionists and Historical Facts are antithetical to each other.

I would be willing to give the right people those checks and balances, given the history of our presidents after the fact.

So long as they were judging upon certain qualities, like fitness to lead, and lack of any real sectionalism...

AmBu

In other words,

They could vote for anyone to be president,

as long as they met YOUR standards?

Unionblue

These standards are not yours, as well?

AmBu

And you know what my standards are?

Or are you just assuming that those standards are mine?

You ask a serious question, I will reply with a serious answer.

But if you want to dance, change the music.

Unionblue

Well, I was under the impression that it was a serious question, and that the standards I listed would be required by any candidate you would select, as well.

Perhaps I was in error.

The North did select a candidate from a new party so unpalatable to the South that it left the Union over him, and that party.

The North does seem to enjoy selecting such avant-garde
types, those with a certain shock factor. I may have read you wrong, sir.

Perhaps such is more of a regional metastasis than I had considered. I have already been asked if I thought that region was a prerequisite for political thought. Now I see
that you may not hold to my standards for a candidate... and that if you don't hold to such, it might be a difference in opinion of a regional ideology. I, like these Southerners, think that a candidate should be selected who would be acceptable to all, even the minority.
After all, this man will be representing both sides; those who wanted him, and those who did not...

The North, I cannot help but believe, holds no such pattern up to the light.

You still have not said whether you do, or do not, consider these standards to be yours. If you don't want to say whether, or not, I accept that.

I do not want to put words into your mouth, sir. That is not my aim, just as it is not my aim to accept the thoughts of political ideologies as 'mine', simply because a 'majority' thinks such about this, or that. I have often been reviled for my views on 'Slavery', and the Confederate Secession, because they do not meet with the official modern historians' approval. That does not mean that I am, or will be, 'shamed' into saying something I do not believe in my heart.

You can see where I am coming from with that.

AmBu

I hereby retire from the dance floor.

Unionblue

You really, really don't like the South, do you?

Now, or then? Understand this, sir.

The American South were Americans who disagreed with the way the government was treating them. Jefferson said they had the right and duty to over throw that government.
They didn't They seceded, instead. For that, they were driven into the ground.

There are today other American opinions on the matter besides yours and the landed gentry who pass as your historians and soothsayers. No one is entirely right, or wrong, but that does not mean that your people are 100 percent accurate, nor the story you tell is in any way the whole of the matter. In fact, it guarantees error in your people to be present. They are only seeing it from one side. How can they then have the complete picture? I am surprised that you would think so, being such a stickler for detail as you claim to be...



I allow you the opinion, but I will answer this one piece:



"Yes, the fear of an honest and free election actually deciding the fate of an issue at the behest of the voters. Definately did not want that practice to spread, would we?"



No, not if it is calculated to politically destroy one's rivals economically while they are in the minority. We may as well be on the battlefields...

This is something our wonderful Constitution left out;
the defense of the minority and a redress for grievance.


This would have allowed slavery in the territories (or as Davis said, the slaves that the minority party still owned, not any new ones...) and thus, Democratic Southerners.

This would have stifled protectionism, undue tariff increases, and a moratorium on abolitionists 'extra-legal' influences.

And, it would have completely destroyed the need for a Secession in the lower South.

I don't trust hostility in voting. I think that candidates who are hostile to a section of the country should be barred from even running for office. Vetted, as we said, earlier.

Amen.

AmBu

Until our next post,
Unionblue

Your people, I am curious. Original Southerners or transplants? You ended up in Ohio, I note...

We are pretty special people, I am glad you have found this out.

Not all of us, mind. Those of Mr. Davis' and Mr. Lee's mindset are the most agreeable. Those of Mr. Stephen's
ilk have never been very agreeable and are not like to change their minds now...

Those forced into defending their slaves were the Cotton Whigs, if memory serves, and they never really had jack- squat for the Confederacy... Those who fought for the North who were not Cotton Whigs we call simply disloyal to the South. If a government comes between you and your family, the government should lose.... Robert E. Lee
lived by this...

Sorry, Stars and Stripes. Not this time.

You and your amendments! These were not about to stop a
hostile majority from taking control of everything and
ruining, politically, the opponent party...

The majority should have had a bridle shoved in its mouth!
1. No siding with criminals in either word or theory.
2. Represent everyone, even those whom you want to crush beneath your boots for owning slaves!
3. Do not give the impression that you tolerate terrorism in the slightest...

One election, under the original paper, is a winner take all gamble.

The FF did NOT anticipate this, but should have, seeing some of the 'yo's' who were representing the 'second party', as it was called... And the Constitution never protected anyone from invasion by political parties... it was designed to protect states from states and from other countries; it failed on both accounts.

Protectionism, tariff increases, and abolitionists were the problems which caused the South to leave the Union. Or, as Davis said, a feeling that the Union could not continue as it had been established...

Only when Conservative candidates were elected could the country survive.

After Lincoln, and until now, do note the hostilities which accompany the elections...

Worse than anything Jackson endured. Worse than anything except Lincoln and his Secession 'crisis'...

Lincoln should not have entered office leading that party of people, with the animosities that are still present, at this moment, to that era of the South.

If you are this violent against the old South, now... imagine the Thaddeus Stevens' and the Sumners' and the Salmon Chases... of then!

It doesn't bear consideration.

Dabney was right. Only all-out war would satisfy these Shermanesque types!


You think the North was right. I think that they were wrong to think they were right.

If I bring you Jefferson Davis, who wrote extensively, would you receive him as period enough for you?

Or would you say that he was 'on a side', where you, clearly, are the very soul of
'reason' in this regard?

I don't need someone to tell me when a group of hostiles is on the war path to destroying
a way of life, and then convincing everyone it was 'for the best'!

Not when that era of attackers stands to gain wealth, everlasting, from it.


None of your placaters and patronizing NPS types can convince me of this, I am afraid. I don't need Gallagher nor any of his persuasion to say that I misread the blatantly-hateful.
I have read Chase, and Sumner, and Stevens. I know they sound just like you. That worries me. A lot.

If the South were truly as miserable as you imagine, their memory would have been outlawed by this time. Just like the German Nazis are outlawed in Germany, now.



AmBu

Belief does not make truth.
Evidence makes truth.
And belief does not make evidence.

Speech over.

Unionblue

By this I presume you mean the slim racial majority of the antebellum south?

That's the problem with blanket statements such as these, if applied broadly the unintended consequences are far beyond what one would expect.

I've said it before, and it's worth repeating, living for a time where you are the racial minority is no bad thing.

It seems as though you would wish a world of evils on 90% of the nation of 1850 to satisfy the unrealistic and unsustainable lifestyle of the other 10.