As the contest of 1836 was approached the various elements of opposition to Jackson felt confident that they could poll a majority of the popular vote, but there was no possibility of their uniting upon any one candidate without suffering great loss in their popular following. It was decided, therefore, that instead of attempting to unite the opposition to Jackson on one candidate, they would support several candidates who were particularly strong in their respective localities, with the hope that a majority of the electors might thus be chosen who would unite in the election of the strongest of the opposition candidates.

The Democrats were very much disturbed, as signs of disintegration were visible to all. Jackson was the most potent of any of our retiring Presidents, with the exception of Washington, and he dictated Van Buren for the succession. Without the omnipotent power of Jackson, Van Buren could not have been nominated or elected. Jackson had the Democracy thoroughly organized, and he wielded all the official power of his administration relentlessly to carry out his political aims. There was much hesitation about the Democrats accepting a national convention, because of the opposition to Van Buren, but Jackson personally importuned the leading Democrats to summon a convention at an early period, and a convention was finally called, to be held in Baltimore on the 20th of May, 1835, nearly a year and a half before the Presidential election.

It was not a representative convention, as although over six hundred delegates attended, a majority of them were from Maryland alone, but each State was allowed to cast the vote corresponding with its representation in Congress. Van Buren was nominated unanimously on the 1st ballot, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was made the candidate for Vice-President, receiving 178 votes, with 87 cast for William C. Rives, of Virginia. The two-thirds rule was reaffirmed in the convention, and even after Johnson had been nominated under the rule Virginia refused to approve the action of the convention presenting him as the candidate for Vice-President. No platform was adopted and no address was issued by the body to the people of the country.

The prominent candidates presented in opposition to Van Buren were General William H. Harrison and Judge John McLean, of Ohio; Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, and Judge Hugh L. White, of Tennessee. Willie P. Mangum, who received the electoral vote of South Carolina chosen by the Legislature, was not a candidate before the people, and it is remarkable that South Carolina, at war with Jackson on the right of nullification, cast her electoral vote for Mangum, who was one of the leaders of the Whig party and afterward distinguished as a Whig United States Senator.

No attempt was made to bring these opposing opposition elements together. Harrison was first nominated at Harrisburg, Penn., by two State conventions, both meeting ostensibly as anti-Masons, the one being Democratic and the other inclining to the new Whig organization, and he was also presented by Legislatures and mass-meetings in other States. Webster was nominated by the Whig Legislature of Massachusetts, and Judge White was nominated by the Legislatures of Tennessee and Alabama, and by mass-meetings in different sections of the South. He was then a United States Senator from Tennessee, but at war with Jackson, and he was confessedly the strongest opponent of Jackson in the entire South. The fact that he could command a nomination from the Democratic Legislature of Tennessee while Jackson was President is the best evidence of his exceptional popularity with the people, and it was proved also by him carrying the electoral vote of the State over Van Buren by a decided majority. Judge McLean gradually dropped out of the fight, as he was from Harrison’s State, and Harrison soon developed as much the strongest candidate of the entire opposition competitors.

The contest was one of intense bitterness. There were no conflicting opposition tickets run against Van Buren. In States where White was strongest the opposition united on White electoral tickets, where Harrison was strongest they united on Harrison electoral tickets, and where Webster was strongest they united on Webster electoral tickets. The campaign was thus shrewdly managed by the opposition, and it gave some promise of success, as if a majority of the electoral votes had been chosen against Van Buren, they would doubtless have been united upon one candidate before the time for meeting of the electoral colleges. In Clay’s State the battle was made for Harrison with him in the forefront of the fight, and Harrison carried the State by a safe majority.

The defamation of the contest of 1836 was equal to any of the malignant contests of the early days of the Republic. Van Buren, Harrison, White, and Webster were most vindictively assailed, and their public and private lives criticised far beyond the lines of decent disputation. Van Buren was proclaimed the mere puppet of Jackson; Harrison was denounced as a failure in field and forum, where he had been General, Governor, and Senator; Webster was defamed as an old blue-light Federalist, and White was assailed in the South as an ingrate who had sacrificed his self-respect to ambition.

There were twenty-six States to participate in the election of 1836. Arkansas had come into the Union on the 15th of June, and Michigan, where electors were chosen before the admission of the State, was formally admitted into the Union on the 26th of January, 1837, before the electoral count took place in Congress, and the precedent in the Missouri case in 1821 settled the right of Michigan to participate in the election. In all of the States, with the single exception of South Carolina, the electors were chosen by popular vote and by general ticket. The following was the popular vote as returned for the several candidates, taking the vote of the opposition electors chosen as an indication of the choice of their respective States:

STATES.Van Buren.Harrison.White.Webster.
Maine22,99015,239——————
New Hampshire18,7226,228——————
Vermont14,03920,996——————
Massachusetts34,474——————42,247
Rhode Island2,9642,710——————
Connecticut19,29118,749——————
New York166,815138,543——————
New Jersey25,59226,137——————
Pennsylvania91,47587,111——————
Delaware4,1534,733——————
Maryland22,16825,852——————
Virginia30,261———23,468———
North Carolina26,910———23,626———
South Carolina[10]————————————
Georgia22,104———24,876———
Alabama20,506———15,612———
Mississippi9,979———9,688———
Louisiana3,653———3,383———
Arkansas2,400———1,238———
Kentucky33,02536,687——————
Tennessee26,129———36,168———
Missouri10,995———7,337———
Ohio96,948105,404——————
Indiana32,47841,281——————
Illinois17,27514,292——————
Michigan7,3324,045——————
Totals762,678548,007145,39642,247

As Van Buren was successful, not only by a small popular majority, but by a clear majority of the electoral vote, no effort was necessary to unite the opposition electoral colleges, and they divided their votes between Harrison, White, and Webster, according to the preferences of the respective States. Virginia refused to give her electoral vote to Johnson for Vice-President, and that left him without an election, as he had not a majority of the whole Electoral College. He was, however, promptly elected by the Senate, receiving 33 votes to 16 for Francis Granger. He was the only Vice-President in the history of the Republic who was not elected by the Electoral College. When Adams, Jackson, Crawford, and Clay ran in 1824, and there was no choice for President in the Electoral College, John C. Calhoun received a decided majority in the college and was elected without an appeal to the Senate. The following is the vote as cast for President and Vice-President in the electoral colleges: