The Presidential Contenders In 1856

The Presidential Contenders in 1856

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For the presidential election of 1856, the Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John Breckenridge, the newly formed Republican party nominated John Fremont and William Drayton, the American [or Know-Nothing] party nominated former president Millard Fillmore and Andrew Donelson, and the Abolition Party nominated Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland.

Buchanan started his political career as a state representative in Pennsylvania, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1821, appointed minister to Russia in 1832, and elected US Senator in 1834. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1845 by President Polk and in that capacity helped forge the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War. He was appointed by President Polk as minister to Great Britain in 1853. As such, he, along with the American ministers to Spain and France, issued the Ostend Manifesto, which recommended the annexation of Cuba to the United States. This endeared him to southerners, who assumed Cuba would be a slave state.

He was one of several northerners supported over the years by southern Democrats for being amenable to slaveholders' interests, a situation originating with Martin van Buren.

Buchanan's two major rivals for the nomination, Franklin Pierce and Stephen Douglas, were both politically tainted by the bloodshed in Kansas. Buchanan was untainted, since he had been abroad during most of the controversy. Even so, he did not secure...

The Presidential Contenders In 1856

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