1896 Democratic National Convention
1896 presidential election | |
Convention | |
---|---|
Date(s) | July 7–11, 1896 |
City | Chicago, Illinois |
Venue | Chicago Coliseum |
Candidates | |
Presidential nominee | William J. Bryan of Nebraska |
Vice presidential nominee | Arthur Sewall of Maine |
The 1896 Democratic National Convention, held at the Chicago Coliseum from July 7 to July 11, was the scene of William Jennings Bryan's nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate for the 1896 U.S. presidential election.
At age 36, Bryan was the youngest presidential nominee in American history, only one year older than the constitutional minimum. Bryan's keynote
Bryan secured the nomination on the fifth ballot over Richard P. Bland. Bryan declined to choose a Democratic vice presidential nominee, leaving the choice to his fellow delegates. Arthur Sewall of Maine was nominated on the fifth ballot. Bryan and Sewall ultimately lost to the Republican candidates, William McKinley and Garret Hobart.
Silver in control
For three years the nation had been mired in a deep economic depression, marked by low prices, low profits, high unemployment, and violent strikes. Economic issues, especially silver or gold for the money supply, and tariffs, were central. President Grover Cleveland, a Bourbon Democrat was pro-business and a staunch supporter of conservative measures such as the gold standard; he was strongest in the Northeast. Opposed to him were the agrarian and silver factions based in the South and West, which had been empowered after the Panic of 1893.[1]
A two-thirds vote was required for the Democratic Party nomination and at the convention the silverites just barely had it despite the extreme regional polarization of the delegates. In a test vote on an anti-silver measure, the Eastern states (from Maryland to Maine), with 28% of the delegates voted 96% for gold. The delegates from the rest of the country voted 91% against gold, so the silverites controlled 67% of the delegates.[2]
Bryan moves up
Bryan was a talented orator. He gave speeches, organized meetings, and adopted resounding resolutions that eventually culminated in the founding of the American Bimetallic League, which then evolved into the National Bimetallic Union, and finally the National Silver Committee.[3] At the time many inflationist farmers believed that by increasing the amount of currency in circulation, the crops they grew would receive higher prices. They were opposed by banks and bond holders who feared inflation, and by urban workers who feared inflation would further erode their purchasing power. The ultimate goal of the League was to garner support on a national level for the reinstatement of the coinage of silver.[4]
With others, he made certain that the Democratic platform reflected the now strengthening spirit of the silverites. With his support, Charles H. Jones, of the St Louis Post-Dispatch, was put on the platform committee and Bryan's plank for free silver was adopted sixteen to one and silently added to the Chicago Democratic Platform, in order to avoid controversy.
At the 1896 convention, Bryan lambasted Eastern moneyed classes for supporting the
Several state delegations, mostly from the Northeast, supported the gold standard and refused to take part in the nomination process.
Presidential nomination
Presidential candidates
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Former Representative Richard P. Bland of Missouri
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FormerGovernor Robert E. Pattison of Pennsylvania
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Joseph Blackburn of Kentucky
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FormerGovernor Horace Boies of Iowa
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John R. McLean of Ohio
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Governor Claude Matthews of Indiana
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FormerGovernor Sylvester Pennoyer of Oregon
Declined
Not nominated
Balloting
Presidential Ballot | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | UN | |
Bryan | 137 | 197 | 219 | 280 | 652 | 930 |
Bland | 235 | 281 | 291 | 241 | 11 | 0 |
Pattison | 97 | 100 | 97 | 97 | 95 | 0 |
Blackburn
|
82 | 41 | 27 | 27 | 0 | 0 |
Boies | 67 | 37 | 36 | 33 | 0 | 0 |
McLean
|
54 | 53 | 54 | 46 | 0 | 0 |
Matthews | 37 | 34 | 34 | 36 | 0 | 0 |
Tillman | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Stevenson
|
6 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
Pennoyer | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Teller | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Russell | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hill | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Campbell | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Turpie | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Blank | 178 | 160 | 162 | 161 | 162 | 0 |
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1st Presidential Ballot
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2nd Presidential Ballot
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3rd Presidential Ballot
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4th Presidential Ballot
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5th Presidential Ballot
Vice Presidential nomination
After the selection of Bryan, the convention turned its attention to picking a running mate.
Eight names were placed in nomination: Arthur Sewall, John R. McLean,
Vice Presidential candidates
-
President of theMaine Central Railroad Arthur Sewall of Maine
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Walter Clark of North Carolina
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FormerGovernor Sylvester Pennoyer of Oregon
Declined
-
John R. McLean of Ohio
-
Former Representative Richard P. Bland of Missouri
-
Governor Horace Boies of Iowa
Balloting
Vice Presidential Ballot | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | UN | |
Sewall | 100 | 37 | 97 | 261 | 568 | 930 |
McLean
|
111 | 158 | 210 | 298 | 32 | 0 |
Bland | 62 | 294 | 255 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Sibley | 163 | 113 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
G.F. Williams | 76 | 16 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
Daniel | 11 | 0 | 6 | 54 | 36 | 0 |
Clark
|
50 | 22 | 22 | 46 | 22 | 0 |
J. Williams | 22 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Harrity | 19 | 21 | 19 | 11 | 11 | 0 |
Blackburn
|
20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Boies | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Lewis | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Pattison | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Fithian | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Teller | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
White | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Blank | 260 | 255 | 255 | 250 | 251 | 0 |
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1st Presidential Ballot
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2nd Presidential Ballot
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3rd Presidential Ballot
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4th Presidential Ballot
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5th Presidential Ballot
See also
- History of the United States Democratic Party
- 1896 United States presidential election
- 1896 Republican National Convention
- List of Democratic National Conventions
- U.S. presidential nomination convention
- William Jennings Bryan presidential campaign, 1896
References
- ^ Stanley L. Jones (1964). The presidential election of 1896. U. of Wisconsin Press. pp. 212–43.
- ^ Walter Dean Burnham, "The System of 1896: An Analysis," in Paul Kleppner et al., The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 147—202 at pp 158–60
- ^ Paulo E. Coletta, William Jennings Bryan: Volume I, Political Evangelist, 1860–1908, (1964) p. 107.
- ^ Paxton Hibben, The Peerless Leader, William Jennings Bryan (1929), 175.
- ^ Hibben, The Peerless Leader, William Jennings Bryan p 184.
- ^ a b "The Silver Fanatics are Invincible". The New York Times. 7 June 1896. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Bryan, Free Silver, and Repudiation". The New York Times. 11 July 1896. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
- ISBN 0-684-85068-0.
- ^ "Official proceedings of the Democratic national convention held in Chicago, Ill., July 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th, 1896."; pg. 350 [1]
Further reading
- Coletta, Paulo E. William Jennings Bryan: Volume I, Political Evangelist, 1860–1908, (1964)
- Geer, John G., and Thomas R. Rochon. "William Jennings Bryan on the Yellow Brick Road." Journal of American Culture 16.4 (1993): 59–63. Bryan resembles the Wizard of Oz
- Harpine, William D. "Bryan's “a cross of gold:” The rhetoric of polarization at the 1896 democratic convention." Quarterly Journal of Speech 87.3 (2001): 291–304. online
- Jones, Stanley L. The presidential election of 1896 (1964).
- Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1932) online.
Primary sources
- Chester, Edward W A guide to political platforms (1977) pp 127–135 online
External links
- 1896 Democratic National Convention at the Political Graveyard
- Democratic Party Platform of 1896 at The American Presidency Project
Preceded by Chicago, Illinois
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Democratic National Conventions | Succeeded by 1900 Kansas City, Missouri |