United States presidential election, 1896

United States presidential election, 1896

United States

1892 November 3, 1896 1900

All 447 electoral votes of the Electoral College

224 electoral votes needed to win

Turnout 79.3%[1] Increase 4.6 pp

William McKinley by Courtney Art Studio, 1896.jpg William Jennings Bryan

2.jpg

Nominee William McKinley William Jennings Bryan

Party Republican Democratic People's

Home state Ohio Nebraska

Running mate Garret Hobart Arthur Sewall (Democratic)

Thomas Watson (People's)

Electoral vote 271 176

States carried 23 22

Popular vote 7,111,607 6,509,052

Percentage 51.0%46.7%

ElectoralCollege1896.svg

Presidential election results map. Red denotes those won by McKinley/Hobart,

blue denotes states won by Bryan/Sewall and the Populist ticket of Bryan/Watson.
Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election

Grover Cleveland

Democratic

Elected President

William McKinley

Republican
The United States presidential election of 1896 was the 28th quadrennial
presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. It was the climax of an
intensely heated contest in which Republican candidate William McKinley (a
former Governor of Ohio) defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan (a former
Representative from Nebraska) in one of the most dramatic and complex races in
American history.

The 1896 campaign was a realigning election that ended the old Third Party
System and began the Fourth Party System.[2] McKinley forged a conservative
coalition in which businessmen, professionals, skilled factory workers, and
prosperous farmers were heavily represented. He was strongest in cities and in
the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. Bryan was the nominee of the
Democrats, the Populist Party, and the Silver Republicans. He presented his
campaign as a crusade of the working man against the rich, who impoverished
America by limiting the money supply, which was based on gold. Silver, he said,
was in ample supply and if coined into money would restore prosperity while
undermining the illicit power of the money trust. Bryan was strongest in the
South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. Bryan's moralistic rhetoric and
crusade for inflation (to be generated by a money supply based on silver as well
as gold) alienated conservatives. Turnout was very high, passing 90% of the
eligible voters in many places.

Since the Panic of 1893, the nation had been mired in a deep economic
depression, marked by low prices, low profits, high unemployment, and violent
strikes. Economic issues, especially tariff policy and the question of whether the
gold standard should be preserved for the money supply, were central issues.
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 its economically conservative Bourbon
faction, represented by incumbent President Grover Cleveland, largely gave
Bryan and his supporters control of the Democratic Party until the 1920s, and set
the stage for Republican domination of the Fourth Party System and control of the
White House for 28 of the next 36 years, interrupted only by the two terms of
Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

This was the last presidential election where the party in control of the White
House changed hands but at the same time at least one state switched its
electoral votes to back a major party candidate in opposition to the party that
just won[a] (in effect backing the losing major party presidential candidate for
two consecutive presidential elections where the winning candidate in each
election happened to be from a different party).
Contents [hide]

1 Nominations

1.1 Republican Party nomination

1.1.1 Republican Candidates gallery

1.2 Democratic Party nomination

1.2.1 Democratic Candidates gallery

1.3 National Democratic Party nomination

1.3.1 Gold Democrat Candidates gallery

1.3.2 Populist Party nomination

1.3.2.1 Candidates gallery

1.3.3 Silver Party

1.3.3.1 Candidates gallery

1.3.4 Socialist Labor nomination

1.3.5 Prohibition Party

1.3.5.1 "Narrow Gauge" Prohibition nomination

1.3.5.2 "Broad Gauge" Prohibition nomination

2 Campaign strategies

2.1 Financing

2.2 Republican attacks on Bryan

2.3 Ethnic responses

2.4 Labor unions and skilled workers

3 The fall campaign

4 Results

4.1 General results

4.2 Geography of results

4.3 Southern votes

4.4 Geography of Results

4.4.1 Cartographic Gallery

4.5 Results by state

4.6 Close states

4.6.1 Statistics

5 See also

6 References

7 Notes

8 Further reading

8.1 Primary sources

9 External links

Nominations[edit]

Republican Party nomination[edit]

Main article: 1896 Republican National Convention

McKinley/Hobart campaign poster

Republican Party (United States)

Republican Party Ticket, 1896

William McKinley Garret Hobart

for Presidentfor Vice President

WmMcKinley.jpg

GHobart.jpg

39th

Governor of Ohio

(1892-1896) President of the

New Jersey Senate

(18811882)

Campaign

Republican Candidates gallery[edit]

Governor

William McKinley

of Ohio

Speaker

Thomas Brackett Reed

from Maine

Senator

Matthew S. Quay

from Pennsylvania

Governor

Levi P. Morton

of New York

Senator

William B. Allison

from Iowa

At their convention in St. Louis, Missouri, held between June 16 and 18, 1896, the
Republicans nominated William McKinley for president and New Jersey's Garret
Hobart for vice-president. McKinley had just vacated the office of Governor of
Ohio. Both candidates were easily nominated on first ballots.
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 demand
for the end of 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 and outspent the Democrats by an estimated 5-to-1 margin. This sum
would be equivalent to approximately $85 million, according to the inflation
calculator of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Major McKinley was the last veteran
of the American Civil War to be nominated for president by either major party.

Presidential Ballot

William McKinley 661.5

Thomas Brackett Reed 84.5

Matthew S. Quay 61.5

Levi P. Morton 58

William B. Allison 35.5

James D. Cameron 1

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 Party nomination[edit]

Main article: 1896 Democratic National Convention

Bryan's famous "cross of gold" speech gave him the presidential nomination and
swung the party to the silver cause

Democratic Party (United States)

Democratic Party Ticket, 1896

William Jennings Bryan Arthur Sewall

for Presidentfor Vice President

Bryan 1896 left.png

ArthurSewall.png

U.S. Representative

for Nebraska's 1st

(18911895)Director of the

Maine Central Railroad

Campaign

Bryan-Sewall.jpg

Democratic Candidates gallery[edit]

Representative

William Jennings Bryan

from Nebraska

Representative

Richard P. Bland

from Missouri

Governor

Robert E. Pattison

of Pennsylvania
Senator

Joseph Blackburn

from Kentucky

Governor

Horace Boies

of Iowa

John R. McLean

from Ohio

Governor

Claude Matthews

of Indiana

Governor

Sylvester Pennoyer

of Oregon

One month after McKinley's nomination, supporters of silver-backed currency

took control of the Democratic convention held in Chicago on July 711. 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. A two-thirds vote was required for the nomination and the silverites
had it in spite of 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% in favor. The other delegates voted 91% against, so
the silverites could count on a majority of 67% of the delegates.[3]

An attorney, former congressman, and unsuccessful Senate candidate named

William Jennings Bryan filled the void. A superb orator, Bryan hailed from
Nebraska and spoke for the farmers who were suffering from the economic
depression following the Panic of 1893. At the convention, Bryan delivered one of
the greatest political speeches in American history, the "Cross of Gold" 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 their suffering. He called for reform of the
monetary system, an end to the gold standard, and 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 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 person ever nominated by a major party for
president.

[show](1-5) Presidential Ballot

[show](1-5) Vice Presidential Ballot

National Democratic Party nomination[edit]

National Democratic candidates

Gold Democrat Candidates gallery[edit]

Senator

John M. Palmer

from Illinois
Ambassador

Edward S. Bragg

Senator

William Freeman Vilas

from Wisconsin

President

Grover Cleveland

Treasury Secretary

John G. Carlisle

Agriculture Secretary

Julius Sterling Morton

Postmaster General

William Lyne Wilson

Representative

Henry Watterson
from Kentucky

The National "Gold" Democratic Convention

The pro-gold Democrats reacted to Bryan's nomination with a mixture of anger,

desperation, and confusion. A number of pro-gold Bourbon 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 from Wisconsin, 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. The
choice instead was John M. Palmer, a 79-year-old former Senator from Illinois.[4]
Simon Bolivar Buckner, a 73-year-old former governor of Kentucky, was
nominated by acclamation for vice-president. The ticket, symbolic of post-Civil
War reconciliation, featured the oldest combined age of the candidates in
American history.

Palmer/Buckner campaign button

Despite their advanced ages, Palmer and Buckner embarked on a busy speaking
tour, including visits to most major cities in the East. 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 lawyer Kenesaw Mountain Landis. "He has actually gotten it into his head
he is running for office."[5] The Palmer ticket was considered to be a vehicle to
elect McKinley for some Gold Democrats, such as William Collins Whitney and
Abram Hewitt, the treasurer of the National Democratic Party, and they received
quiet financial support from Mark Hanna. 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."[6] 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.[7]
However, the National Democratic Party was not merely an adjunct to the
McKinley campaign. An 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, and this did indeed happen in 1904.[8]

Presidential Ballot

Ballot 1st Before Shifts 1st After Shifts

John M. Palmer 757.5 769.5

Edward S. Bragg 130.5 118.5

Populist Party nomination[edit]

Populist candidates:

William Jennings Bryan, former U.S. representative (Nebraska)

Seymour F. Norton from Illinois, writer

Candidates gallery[edit]