Part 46

═══════════════════════╤════════════════════╤═════╤═══════╤══════════╤══════════╤═══╤════════════════════╤═════╤══════ │ │ │ ╰Residence.│Qualified.╯ │ │ │ Name. │ Birthplace. │Year.│ Paternal │ ” │ ” │Politics.│ Place of Death. │Year.│Age at │ │ │ Ancestry. │ ” │ ” │ │ │ │Death. ──┬────────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────┼────────────┼─────┼────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼─────┼────── 1│John Adams │Quincy, Mass. │ 1735│English │Mass.│1789│ Fed. │Quincy, Mass. │1826 │ 90 2│Thomas Jefferson │Shadwell, Va. │ 1743│Welsh │Va. │1797│ Rep. │Monticello, Va. │1826 │ 83 3│Aaron Burr │Newark, N. J. │ 1756│English │N. Y.│1801│ Rep. │Staten Island, N. Y.│1836 │ 80 4│George Clinton │Ulster Co., N. Y. │ 1739│English │N. Y.│1805│ Rep. │Washington, D. C. │1812 │ 73 5│Elbridge Gerry │Marblehead, Mass. │ 1744│English │Mass.│1813│ Rep. │Washington, D. C. │1814 │ 70 6│Daniel D. Tompkins │Scarsdale, N. Y. │ 1774│English │N. Y.│1817│ Rep. │Staten Island, N. Y.│1825 │ 51 7│John C. Calhoun │Abbeville, S. C. │ 1782│Scotch-Irish│S. C.│1825│ Rep. │Washington, D. C. │1850 │ 68 8│Martin Van Buren │Kinderhook, N. Y. │ 1782│Dutch │N. Y.│1833│ Dem. │Kinderhook, N. Y. │1862 │ 79 9│Richard M. Johnson │Louisville, Ky │ 1780│English │Ky. │1837│ Dem. │Frankfort, Ky. │1850 │ 70 10│John Tyler │Greenway, Va. │ 1790│English │Va. │1841│ Dem. │Richmond, Va. │1862 │ 72 11│George M. Dallas │Philadelphia, Pa. │ 1792│English │Pa. │1845│ Dem. │Philadelphia, Pa. │1864 │ 72 12│Millard Fillmore │Summer Hill, N. Y. │ 1800│English │N. Y.│1849│ Whig │Buffalo, N. Y. │1874 │ 74 13│William R. King │Sampson Co., N. C. │ 1786│English │Ala. │1853│ Dem. │Dallas Co., Ala. │1853 │ 67 14│John C. Breckenridge│Lexington, Ky. │ 1821│Scotch │Ky. │1857│ Dem. │Lexington, Ky. │1875 │ 54 15│Hannibal Hamlin │Paris, Me. │ 1809│English │Me. │1861│ Rep. │Bangor, Me. │1891 │ 81 16│Andrew Johnson │Raleigh, N. C. │ 1808│English │Tenn.│1865│ Rep. │Carter Co., Tenn. │1875 │ 66 17│Schuyler Colfax │New York City, N. Y.│ 1823│English │Ind. │1869│ Rep. │Mankato, Minn. │1885 │ 62 18│Henry Wilson │Farmington, N. H. │ 1812│English │Mass.│1873│ Rep. │Washington D. C. │1875 │ 63 19│William A. Wheeler │Malone, N. Y. │ 1819│English │N. Y.│1877│ Rep. │Malone, N. Y. │1887 │ 68 20│Chester A. Arthur │Fairfield, Vt. │ 1830│Scotch-Irish│N. Y.│1881│ Rep. │New York City, N. Y.│1886 │ 56 21│Thos. A. Hendricks │Muskingum Co., O. │ 1819│Scotch-Irish│Ind. │1885│ Dem. │Indianapolis, Ind. │1885 │ 66 22│Levi P. Morton │Shoreham, Vt. │ 1824│Scotch │N. Y.│1889│ Rep. │ │ │ 23│Adlai E. Stevenson │Christian Co., Ky. │ 1835│Scotch-Irish│Ill. │1893│ Dem. │ │ │ 24│Garret A. Hobart │Long Branch, N. J. │ 1844│English │N. J.│1897│ Rep. │Paterson, N. J. │1899 │ 55 ══╧════════════════════╧════════════════════╧═════╧════════════╧═════╧════╧═════════╧════════════════════╧═════╧══════

President Buchanan was the only Chief Magistrate of the Republic who, having served one term in the Presidency, was not a candidate for re-election. He announced his purpose not to be a candidate in his inaugural address, and I doubt not that he never swerved from that determination. At the close of his administration the political conditions gave no promise of his re-election, however much he might have desired it, but he was then past the patriarchal years, and he is the one President who entered the office to serve only a term and adhered to it. The elder Adams was defeated for re-election by Jefferson; the younger Adams was defeated for re-election by Jackson; Van Buren was defeated for re-election by the elder Harrison, and the younger Harrison was defeated for re-election by Cleveland, while Hayes, Polk and Pierce were candidates for re-election, but were rejected by the party.

Four Vice-Presidents succeeded to the Presidency by the death of the President, and all of them were earnest candidates for election to another term. Tyler and Johnson sought the Democratic nomination and failed. Fillmore failed in the struggle for the Whig nomination, and Arthur was defeated by Blaine.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and Cleveland were twice elected President. Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland were each defeated for the Presidency, although twice elected. Jefferson and Jackson were defeated in their first contests, and then elected to two successive terms, and Cleveland was elected in 1884, defeated in 1888, and re-elected in 1892. Jackson and Cleveland are the only two Presidents who were candidates in three national elections and received an increased plurality in each successive contest. Both were defeated in one battle when they had received the largest popular vote. Grant was the only President who made a struggle for a third term.

Four Presidents died in office—namely, Harrison in 1841, after having served but little over a month; Taylor in 1850, after having served less than a year and a half; Lincoln in 1865, only a little more than a month after his second inauguration, and Garfield in 1881, before the close of the first year of his administration.

Six Vice-Presidents have died in office: Clinton in 1812, after having presided over the Senate for seven years; Gerry in 1814, after little more than a year of service; William R. King, in 1853, who took the oath as Vice-President on the 4th of March of that year in Cuba, and died soon thereafter; Henry Wilson in 1875, having served but little more than half his term; Thomas A. Hendricks in 1885, having served less than a year, and Hobart in 1899, leaving nearly a year and a half of his term unexpired.

No President _pro tem._ of the Senate has ever reached the Presidency. There was only one occasion in the history of the Government when it seemed probable that the President _pro tem._ might be called to the chief executive office of the nation. Johnson, as Vice-President, had succeeded Lincoln as President, and Senator Wade, of Ohio, was president _pro tem._ of the Senate. In 1868, some ten months before the expiration of Johnson’s term, he was impeached by the House, and acquitted in the Senate by a single vote. The question was then raised as to whether the President _pro tem._ of the Senate was such an officer as was contemplated by the Constitution to fill the office of President, and there was considerable agitation from time to time on the subject in Congress, which finally culminated in the passage of the Presidential Succession bill of January 18, 1886, by which the succession to the Presidency is fully defined and eligibles are provided quite sufficient in number to meet any possible emergency. The following is the full text of the present law regulating the Presidential succession:

_Be it enacted, etc._, that in case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of both the President and Vice-President of the United States, the Secretary of State, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Treasury, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of War, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Attorney-General, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Postmaster-General, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Navy, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Interior shall act as President until the disability of the President or Vice-President is removed, or a President shall be elected: _provided_, that whenever the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States shall devolve upon any of the persons named herein, if Congress be not then in session, or if it would not meet in accordance with law within twenty days thereafter, it shall be the duty of the person upon whom said powers and duties shall devolve to issue a proclamation convening Congress in extraordinary session, giving twenty days’ notice of the time of meeting.

SECTION 2. That the preceding section shall only be held to describe and apply to such officers as shall have been appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate to the offices therein named, and such as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution, and not under impeachment by the House of Representatives of the United States at the time the powers and duties of the office shall devolve upon them respectively.

SEC. 3. That sections 146, 147, 148, 149, and 150 of the Revised Statutes are hereby repealed.

CONTESTED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

There have been only two seriously contested elections in the history of our Presidential conflicts. They were the contest between Jefferson and Burr in 1800–1 and the contest between Hayes and Tilden in 1876–7. The Hayes-Tilden contest brought the country to the verge of revolution, and the very close battle between Garfield and Hancock four years later, and the Cleveland-Blaine struggle of 1884, that turned upon 1100 majority in a vote of nearly 6,000,000 in New York State, taught the necessity of having some definite statute providing for the determination of disputed electoral votes in the States by which such disputes would be practically eliminated from the powers of Congress. The following is the full text of the present statute, approved February 3, 1887, providing for the determination of contested electors:

_Be it enacted, etc._, that the electors of each State shall meet and give their votes on the second Monday in January next following their appointment, at such place in each State as the Legislature of such State shall direct.

SECTION 2. That if any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods of procedure, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to the said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned.

SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of the executive of each State, as soon as practicable after the conclusion of the appointment of electors in such State, by the final ascertainment under and in pursuance of the laws of such State providing for such ascertainment, to communicate under the seal of the State, to the Secretary of State of the United States, a certificate of such ascertainment of the electors appointed, setting forth the names of such electors and the canvass or other ascertainment, under the laws of such State, of the number of votes given or cast for each person for whose appointment any and all votes have been given or cast; and it shall also thereupon be the duty of the executive of each State to deliver to the electors of such State, on or before the day on which they are required, by the preceding section, to meet, the same certificate, in triplicate, under the seal of the State; and such certificate shall be enclosed and transmitted by the electors at the same time and in the same manner as is provided by law for transmitting by such electors to the seat of government the lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President: and Section 136 of the Revised Statutes is hereby repealed; and if there shall have been any final determination in the State of a controversy or contest, as provided for in Section 2 of this act, it shall be the duty of the executive of such State, as soon as practicable after such determination, to communicate, under the seal of the State, to the Secretary of State of the United States, a certificate of such determination, in form and manner as the same shall have been made; and the Secretary of State of the United States, as soon as practicable after the receipt at the State Department of each of the certificates hereinbefore directed to be transmitted to the Secretary of State, shall publish, in such public newspaper as he shall designate, such certificates in full; and at the first meeting of Congress, thereafter, he shall transmit to the two Houses of Congress copies in full of each and every such certificate so received theretofore at the State Department.

SEC. 4. That Congress shall be in session on the second Wednesday in February succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of one o’clock in the afternoon, on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate, and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be the certificates of the electoral vote, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes, as they shall appear from the said certificates, and, the votes having been ascertained and counted in the manner and according to the rules in this act provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice-President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors, whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to Section 3 of this act, from which but one return has been received, shall be rejected; but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in Section 2 of this act to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors, or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise a question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in Section 2 of this act, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its laws; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then and in that case the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.

SEC. 5. That while the two Houses shall be in meeting as provided in this act, the President of the Senate shall have power to preserve order; and no debate shall be allowed and no question shall be put by the presiding officer, except to either House on a motion to withdraw.

SEC. 6. That when the two Houses separate to decide upon an objection that may have been made to the counting of any electoral vote or votes from any State, or other question arising in the matter, each Senator and Representative may speak to such objection or question five minutes, and not more than once; but after such debate shall have lasted two hours, it shall be the duty of the presiding officer of each House to put the main question without further debate.

SEC. 7. Such joint meeting shall not be dissolved until the count of electoral votes shall be completed and the result declared; and no recess shall be taken unless a question shall have arisen in regard to counting any such votes, or otherwise under this act, in which case it shall be competent for either House, acting separately, in the manner hereinbefore provided, to direct a recess of such House not beyond the next calendar day, Sunday excepted, at the hour of ten o’clock in the forenoon. But if the counting of the electoral votes and the declaration of the result shall not have been completed before the fifth calendar day next after such first meeting of the two Houses, no further or other recess shall be taken by either House.

INDEX

Abolition party, birth of the, and its first candidates, 65; its second nominations, 84, 85; its platform in 1844, 85–88; its leaders denounced by Greeley, 90.

Adams, Charles Francis, a candidate for the nomination of President by the Liberal Republicans, 229.

Adams, John, his first election to the Vice-Presidency, 2–4; his second election to the Vice-Presidency, 4–6; his election to the Presidency, 7–11; supported by Washington as the Federalist candidate, 8; the campaign the most defamatory in American politics, 9; his vote in the third Electoral College, 10, 11; defeated for the Presidency, 12–20; his ungracious departure from the Executive Mansion, 20; his after-life and death, 20.

Adams, John Quincy, defeated for the Presidency, 35, 37; his election to the Presidency by Congress, 39–46; his popular vote, 42; his vote in the tenth Electoral College, 43, 45; the real author of the Monroe Doctrine, 46; defeated for the Presidency, 47–51; a model President, his after-life and death, 45, 46.

Adams, John Quincy, receives the Vice-Presidential nomination of the Democratic dissenters in 1872, 238; offered the nomination of the Presidency by the same party, 238.

Adams, Samuel, his vote for the Presidency in the third Electoral College, 10, 11.

Alien and Sedition laws, passage of, and their purposes, 12, 13.

Allen, Philip, at a national Whig convention in 1848, 107.

American National party, its candidates and platform in 1876, 260; its candidates and platform in 1880, 283; its candidates and platform in 1888, 330–332; splits on a question of voting, 331.

American Prohibition National party (a split from the Prohibition party), its candidates and platform in 1884, 304, 305.

Anti-Mason party, its birth and power, 52, 53; calls the first political national convention ever held in the country, at Philadelphia, 52; its nominations, 53; its ticket adopted by the National Republicans in several States, 54.

Anti-Monopoly party, its candidates and platform in 1884, 299–301.

Armstrong, James, his vote for the Presidency in the first Electoral College, 3, 4.

Arthur, Chester A., his election to the Vice-Presidency, 274–284; succeeds to the Presidency after the death of Garfield, 286; his admirable administration, 286, 287; the author meets him at a dinner given by Cameron, 287; his life after his retirement from office, 287.

Ashman, George, permanent chairman of Republican National Convention of 1860, 157.

Banks, Nathaniel P., his vote for the Vice-Presidency in the twenty-second Electoral College, 241.

Barnburners, the, 98, 99, 107.

Bell, John, the nominee of the Constitutional Union party for the Presidency, 173, 174; the author’s account of his debate with Johnson, 204.

Bentley, Rev. Charles E., the nominee for the Presidency of the “Broad-Gauge” Prohibitionists, 386; his popular vote, 391.

Benton, Thomas H., at a national Whig convention in 1848, 107.

Bidwell, John, nominated for the Presidency by the Prohibition party, 351; his popular vote, 259.

Birney, James G., the candidate of the Abolition party, his first defeat for the Presidency, 65, 71, 72; his second defeat for the Presidency as the candidate of the Liberty party, 90, 91.

Black, James, nominated for the Presidency by the Prohibition party in 1872, 228; at the Prohibition National Convention in 1888, 329.

Blaine, James G., compared with Henry Clay, 244–246; at the Republican convention at Cincinnati in 1876, 247–249, 252; his efforts to secure the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1880, 270, 274; defeated for the Presidency, 288–315; he favored the nominations of General Sherman and Robert T. Lincoln, 288; his nomination, 289; his popular and electoral vote, 308, 309; why he was defeated in New York State and lost the election, 309–312; how he treated the Cleveland scandal, 312; he declines the Presidential nomination in 1888, 315; his after-life, 315.

Blair, Francis P., shelters Johnson during his incapacity after his inauguration, 204; nominated for the Vice-Presidency by the Democrats in 1868, 216.

Booth, Newton, receives the “Greenback” nomination for the Presidency, 257.

Bramlette, Thomas E., his vote for the Presidency in the twenty-second Electoral College, 241.

Breckenridge, John C., defeated for the Presidency, 166–176.

Brooks, John A., nominated for the Vice-Presidency by the Prohibition party, 329.

Brown, B. Gratz, the nominee of the Liberal Republicans for the Presidency, 229–231; nominated for the same office by the Democrats, 238; his vote in the twenty-second Electoral College, 241.

Bryan, William J., his defeat for the Presidency, 361–394; his nomination by the Democratic party, 371–373; his nomination by the People’s party, 378; his remarkable campaign, 390; his popular vote, 391; his electoral vote, 392; the remarkable political independence shown in the contest, 392–394.

Buchanan, James, his election to the Presidency, 130–153; favored by the Southern Democrats, 130, 131; his nomination at Cincinnati, 131, 132; one of the most desperately fought conflicts in American politics, 145; his popular and electoral vote, 148; far-reaching effects of his quarrel with Forney, 149–151; his political methods compared with those of the present day, 151, 152, and note; his determination to end the slavery agitation, 152; his reputation, character, and death, 153.