Van Buren vs. 4 Whigs

In 1824, Henry Clay was Speaker of the House and one of four Democratic Republicans running for president.  The others were Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William Crawford.  Clay correctly predicted that no one would win the majority, which would throw the election of president to the House of Representatives.  As Speaker, he liked his odds of being selected there.  His plan was ruined when he placed 4th and the House could only consider the top three candidates.  Drats!

Twelve years later, Henry Clay's nascent Whig Party was pitted against Jackson's Vice President, Martin Van Buren.  The Whig Party was only a couple of years old and Clay - who had the best name recognition - chose not to run in 1836.  Instead, hearkening back the 1824, the Whigs fielded a slate of candidates, each running in states where they had the best chance at winning.  All they needed to do was prevent Van Buren from winning a majority of the electoral votes, which would let the House pick from the top contenders.

William Henry Harrison, who had largely vanished from politics more than a decade before, proved to be the most popular of the Whigs, winning 7 states and 37% of the popular vote.

Hugh White, a senator from Tennessee, won 2 states and 10% of the vote.

Daniel Webster, the famous orator and senator from Massachusetts, carried his home state and 3% of the vote.

Willie Mangum, yet another senator, carried South Carolina.  This was odd as he was the senator for North Carolina, which voted for Van Buren.

Despite the number of candidates arrayed against him, Martin Van Buren won a majority of the votes, nearly 51% and carried 15 states.

Though the gambit didn't pay off for the Whigs, they did discover which of their candidates they should run in the next election.  William Henry Harrison, Hero of the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and noted General from the War of 1812, had shown the most nationwide support.  It was thus no surprise when he was selected as the sole Whig candidate to face Van Buren in 1840.

Three Time Nominee

Generally speaking, politicians only win the nomination for president one or two times.  Parties normally only nominate the politician for a 2nd time if he is the incumbent.  To take examples from recent years, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump were each nominated for 2nd terms while Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton were not renominated.  The winners get a second shot while the losers are usually tossed aside.  Of course, there are exceptions.  Sometimes the loser is given a second chance.  For instance, Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower in 1952, but was nominated again in 1956; he lost again.  In a couple of cases, there have been three-time losers: both Henry Clay & William Jennings Bryan were nominees in 3 separate elections.

Looking only at men who served as president, how many of them were nominated on three separate occasions?

Thomas Jefferson was the Democratic-Republican nominee for president in 1796, 1800, and 1804.  He came in second place in 1796, which secured him the vice presidency.  He won the presidency in 1800 and was nominated for re-election in 1804.

Andrew Jackson was one of four Democratic-Republican nominees in 1824.  Though he won the plurality of electoral votes and popular vote, he lost to John Quincy Adams in the contingent election.  He was the Democratic nominee (the Democratic-Republican party had split into factions after the 1824 debacle) in both 1828 and 1832.

Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's chosen successor.  He won in 1836 and was renominated in 1840.  Though he lost in 1840, he became the Free-Soil Party candidate in 1848, marking his 3rd time running in the general election.

Grover Cleveland ran for office in 1884 and won.  However, when he ran for re-election in 1888, he lost to Benjamin Harrison.  He secured the Democratic nomination again in 1892 and won.  He was the first president to serve non-consecutive terms.

Richard Nixon ran for president in 1960.  He lost to JFK.  However, he managed to win the nomination again in 1968 and went on to win the presidency.  He won re-election in 1972, though he didn't finish his term.

Donald Trump duplicated Grover Cleveland's feat.  He won in 2016, lost his 2020 re-election bid, but then came back to win in 2024.

Of this group, Jefferson, Jackson, Cleveland, and Trump were nominees in three consecutive elections.

Presidential Rankings - The Bad Ones

To fall under the 'somewhat negative' category, Graboyes states that the president "governed badly, had serious personal failings, or both."

John Quincy Adams: A great man who rose to his highest level of incompetence.

Martin Van Buren: A fixer who was not suited to the top role.  Helpless against the Panic of 1837 that was the hangover of the Jackson years.

Lyndon Banes Johnson: One of the most skilled and competent presidents ever but his policies have left lasting damage, notably Medicare and Medicaid.  No personal ethics.  His handling of Vietnam.

Richard Nixon: Competent and skilled, he resolved LBJ's Vietnam disaster and established relations with China.  However, he embraced bad economic policies (price controls) and destroyed his presidency by his actions regarding Watergate.

Gerald Ford: Creditable job of post-Watergate leadership.  Bad foreign policy and economic policies.

Bill Clinton: Though he had the makings of a somewhat positive president with his political skills, moderated views, charming demeanor, and strong intellect, he poisoned it with his sexual scandals, financial shenanigans, perjury, and unpardonable pardons.

Barack Obama: Ended NASA monopoly on space which allowed SpaceX to flourish, took out bin Laden.  His embrace of racial division, frequent attacks on his predecessor, and beneficial treatment of Iran were harmful.  He created a cult of personality that his party has yet to overcome.

Donald Trump: Despite a long list of impressive accomplishments (Abraham Accords, Jerusalem embassy, smashing ISIS, energy independence, end of the Iran Deal, the COVID vaccine, roaring economy, low unemployment - notably for blacks and Hispanics, border enforcement, Space Force, and Judicial appointments), Trump more than offset it with his verbal diarrhea and J6 catastrophe.

Joe Biden: He reversed most of the positives of the Trump administration.  The end of energy independence once again filled the coffers of adversaries: Russia & Iran. Iran financed Hamas (October 7 attack in Israel and the latest Gaza War), Hezbollah, and the Houthis (Red Sea conflict).  Inflation.  Open border, mobs at homes of the Supreme Court, obvious signs of dementia.

Mostly, I'll agree.  He's a bit hard on Martin Van Buren.  He had some foreign policy successes that determined the borders of the United States and Canada, but that Panic of 1837 really sank him.  The Amistad was just a footnote.  Nixon established the imperial presidency, seeking to create executive positions that duplicated the Cabinet in order to expand those protected by executive privilege.  Given how many positives he lists for Trump, the negatives must really weigh a lot in his estimation.

Three Time Loser: The Great Compromiser

Discouraged by the Tyler administration, Henry Clay nevertheless saw opportunity coming in 1844.  Though Tyler wanted to be re-elected, no party wanted him.  He had left the Democratic Party and betrayed the Whig Party.  It looked like Martin Van Buren would be the Democratic nominee in 1844 and Clay the Whig.  Clay liked his chances.  Despite the ongoing ruckus about annexing Texas, neither Van Buren nor Clay were in favor of that.  It would be a policy argument, the American System vs. Jacksonian Democracy.  Once again, events turned against Clay.

Though Van Buren received the majority of the votes for the nomination at the Democratic Convention, he could not secure the two-third required.  Nor could any of the other initial contenders.  Then, someone suggested James Knox Polk.  Polk, the first dark horse candidate, was selected on the 9th ballot.  Unlike Van Buren, Polk favored the annexation of Texas.  President Tyler, who was running an independent campaign that supported annexation, dropped out of the race in favor of Polk.  The election now became a referendum on the Texas question and the country voted for annexation.  Henry Clay was now a three-time loser for the presidency.  Even so, he was not yet done.

Clay had taken Mexico at its word that a war would commence if Texas was annexed.  Not only would it lead to war with Mexico, but it would exacerbate the slavery issue.  Despite being a slave owner, Clay viewed slavery as morally wrong and had argued for gradual emancipation.  This half-measure on his part was appreciated by neither the abolitionist of the North nor the slave owners of the South.  However, it did demonstrate why he was called the Great Compromiser.  Indeed, he had a long track record of shepherding compromises through Congress.

The Missouri Compromise (1820) allowed Missouri to join the Union as a slave state, but offset that by admitting Maine as a free state.  Further, it set a boundary between slave and free states.  It was kicking the can down the road but quelled the hot tempers of the moment.

The Nullification Crisis (1832) saw South Carolina claiming a right to ignore Federal Tariffs.  President Jackson proposed invading South Carolina if that should happen.  Jackson's vice president, John C. Calhoun, resigned during the growing divide; he was a South Carolinian and one of the strongest voices for nullification.  Clay, despite his long rivalry with Jackson, sided against the Nullifiers.  He did not like Jackson's solution of a Force Bill and military invasion.  Instead, he guided the passage of a reduction in the tariff, which mollified the Nullifiers.  The hostilities subsided and Clay was once again key in maintaining domestic tranquility.

The Compromise of 1850 resolved what to do with the vast territory acquired in the Mexican-American War.  Where President Taylor was in favor of adding California and New Mexico as free states, the South was strongly opposed to such a move.  Once again, Clay assembled legislation that offered something for everyone, but also a bitter cost.  California could be a free state but the fugitive slave laws would be strengthened.  Texas would lose much of its claimed territory in exchange for debt relief.  New Mexico would be a territory, not a state.  Taylor's untimely death and replacement by Millard Filmore saw the compromised signed into law.

In 1848, Clay had tried a final run for the presidency, but General Zachary Taylor won the Whig nomination.  Yes, as in 1840, Clay lost the nomination to a general who died in office.  He had sought the presidency in 1824, 1832, 1840, 1844, and 1848.  Though he never made it to the presidency, he is a hugely consequential American.  Clay died in 1852 and became the first person to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda.

Three Time Loser: The Whig Party

In the wake of the War of 1812, Henry Clay proposed his American System.  He called for a high tariff to protect and encourage American manufacturing, infrastructure spending to foster domestic commerce, more funding for national defense, a national bank to provide credit, and Federal assumption of state debt.  This eventually became the foundation for the Whig Party nearly 2 decades later.  Though President John Quincy Adams liked the American System, the Congress was not inclined to pass it.  Clay's stint as Secretary of State was busy but not noteworthy; it was mostly a case of maintaining the status quo with minor tweaks.

In the wake of the 1824 election, the Democratic-Republican party splintered.  Jackson had founded the Democratic Party (which is the one that exists today) and Adams became a National Republican.  There were other splinter parties such as the Anti-Masonic and Nullifier. In 1828, the rematch took place and Jackson crushed Adams.  Clay found himself out of government but now he was looking toward a rematch.   Clay was back in the Senate in 1831, a 20-year gap since his last service in that deliberative body.

In 1832, Clay was the nominee for the National Republican Party.  Like the 1824 election, there were multiple candidates though they each represented different parties.  There was John Floyd for the Nullifier Party and William Wirt for the Anti-Masonic Party.  Jackson proved too popular and the opposition too disorganized.  Clay won less than 40% of the vote and 49 electoral votes to Jackson's 54% of the vote and 219 electoral votes.  It was Clay's second losing run at the presidency.

Clay set about coalescing the anti-Jacksonians into a single party: The Whigs.  In Britain, the Whigs had opposed absolute monarchy and Clay viewed Jackson in that light.  In 1836, Jackson held with tradition of only serving two terms.  His chosen successor, Martin Van Buren, ran as the Democratic nominee.  Though Clay's Whig Party had assembled the various anti-Jacksonians, it was unable to settle on a single candidate.  As such, 1836 saw 4 Whigs facing Van Buren; Clay was not one of them.  Would the multiplicity of candidates lead to a contingent election like in 1824?  No.  Van Buren won, but the Whigs did secure seats in Congress.

In 1837, the Whigs controlled a third of the seats in the Senate and 40% in the House.  Clay had high hopes for the election of 1840.  Martin Van Buren - "Martin Van Ruin" - had presided over a disastrous economy and his re-election chances didn't look strong.  Though Clay sought the nomination, General William Henry Harrison was selected at the Whig National Convention; he had had the strongest showing of the 4 Whigs in 1836.  Harrison defeated Van Buren and the Whigs seized both the Senate and the House of Representatives!  Oh, happy days!  Clay was eager to implement the American System, but then disaster struck.  Harrison died only 1 month into his presidency and Vice President Tyler proved not to be quite the convert to the Whig Party as thought.

Amistad (1997)

It is 1839 and La Amistad, a Spanish schooner, is asea with a cargo hold full of slaves.  The slaves break free of their chains and kill most of the Spanish crew.  Those Spaniards left alive are ordered to sail the ship to Africa.  Of course, the sailors deceive the slaves by sailing toward the sunrise by day but turn around at night.  Eventually, the Amistad is intercepted by an American ship and taken to Connecticut.  Initially, it is assumed that a slave revolt had occurred, in which case the slaves would be executed and the Spaniards allowed to leave with their ship.  However, it was instead determined that the 'slaves' were from Africa.  The African slave trade is illegal.  Ergo, these are not slaves, but free men who had every right to kill those who held them in bondage.  This was an inconvenient conclusion for both Spain and the United States.  President Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) wanted the ship and slaves sent back to Cuba or Spain, anywhere that would make them someone else's problem.

Abolitionist Lewis Tappan (Stellan Skarsgard) eagerly takes up the case of the enslaved Africans.  He hires Roger Sherman Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey) to argue the case.  As the Africans don't speak English, it is necessary to find an interpreter, who happens to be sailor currently in port, James Covey (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  Now they can interview the Africans and get the story, most importantly that of their leader, Cinque (Djimon Hounsou).  Despite difficulties, Baldwin wins the case!  But the government appeals to the Supreme Court.  Now former President and current Congressman John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) joins the case to argue the Africans' cause.

Overall, the movie gets the story correct.  However, there are many details over which to quibble.  Roger Baldwin is painted as a poor young lawyer who is getting his first big case.  McConaughey was in his late 20s when the movie was made.  The real Roger Baldwin was in his mid-40s and from a prominent family.  Queen Isabella II (Anna Paquin) was not yet of age to rule.  Those scenes where her advisors talk to her about the slave ship in American are just nonsense.  Queen Maria Christina was the regent during most of the Amistad drama.  Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman) is a fictional character; why?  What, you don't have enough characters already that you want to spend some screen time with a fictional one?

President Van Buren is treated badly by the script.  First, he did not go on the campaign trail to kiss babies and give stump speeches.  Campaigns were run by surrogates while the candidate stayed home.  Whistle stops are decades in the future.  Nor was he photographed while in office; the first president photographed in office was James K Polk in 1849.  That John C Calhoun should show up to a state dinner and embarrass Van Buren in front of the Spanish Minister is unthinkable.  Van Buren was a gifted politician (earning nicknames such as Little Magician and Red Fox of Kinderhook) who was the tactician behind President Andrew Jackson.  There is a reason that Jackson selected Van Buren as his successor.  Casting Nigel Hawthorne, who had recently (1994) portrayed the mentally disturbed King George III, further diminishes Van Buren.  He is walked over by his own cabinet secretaries, browbeaten by his opponents, and generally shown to be incompetent.  Good grief!

By contrast, John Quincy Adams comes across as the greatest former president who ever was.  Where most presidents vanish into retirement, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives only a couple of years after his presidency and remained there until he died in 1848.  During his lifetime, he had spent time in all the political parties (Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, Anti-Masonic, and finally Whig).  Hopkins does a great job with the character.

Overall, the film has uneven pacing and not enough focus.  Spielberg is telling too many stories.  If this was a mini-series, all of these characters could have arcs, but not here.  Dump the scenes in Spain, leave Van Buren out, delete the fictional characters, and focus on the story on Cinque.  Act 1, the revolt on the Amistad to the capture.  Act 2, the first trial where Baldwin wins.  Act 3, the Supreme Court and John Quincy Adams.  The rest is just filler that takes away from this central story and these most important characters.

Entertaining but not particularly educational.  The best part is Hopkins as JQ Adams.

When the Party Cracked

In 1848, President Polk could claim success on all four of his campaign promises.  He had reduced tariffs, reestablished an independent treasury, settled the Oregon boundary with Great Britain, and acquired California from Mexico.  Promises made and promises delivered.  This should have been a boon to his party.  Instead, his success broke his party.  That vast stretch of land was now up for grabs between the free states and the slave states.  Many northern Democrats weren't keen on the extension of slavery.  These voters split from the Democratic Party to join the Free Soil Party.  Former President Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) was chosen as the presidential nominee and Charles Francis Adams - son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson of President John Adams - as the VP nominee.  Though the Free Soil Party didn't earn a single electoral vote, it did manage to accumulate 10% of the popular vote.  The Free Soil Party out-performed the Democrats in three states.

Of course, Vermont and Massachusetts had voted for Henry Clay (Whig) in 1844, so Van Buren did little damage to the Democrats there. The important state was New York with 36 electoral votes.  In 1844, President Polk carried the state by a margin of 5,100 votes.  Native New Yorker Van Buren took all those votes and much more.  General Taylor, the Whig candidate, defeated Lewis Cass by an electoral vote of 163 to 127.  If Cass had carried New York, that would have been exactly reversed.  Van Buren knew full well that he had no chance of winning and that he was almost certainly handing the presidency to the Whigs, but he had moved toward the abolitionist camp over the years.

This was the second - and final - time that the Whigs won the presidency.  Like the previous time, the president died during his term: Harrison had only served a month as president and Taylor died after 16 months.  By the next presidential election, it was the Whig Party that unraveled.  By the mid 1850s, the disaffected Democrats, the Free Soil Party, the American Party, and various other splinter groups formed the Republican Party.

Ex-Presidents Who Ran Again

Generally speaking, when a president has left office, that has been the end of his political career.  Few men go on to seek lesser elective offices or pursue posts inferior to the presidency.  However, some have sought to resume the office of president after having left the job.

Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) had been the attorney general of New York, Governor of New York, a Senator from New York, the Secretary of State, the Vice President under Andrew Jackson, and finally President.  His term did not go well and he was voted out of office in 1840.  However, he sought the Democratic nomination in 1844, but lost to Polk.  In the 1848 election, a party split over the regulation of slavery in the territories led to the Free Soil Party.  The Free Soilers nominated Van Buren.  His running mate was Charles Francis Adams, son of President John Quincy Adams, and grandson of President John Adams.  Though he won 10% of the votes, Van Buren won no electoral votes.

Millard Filmore (1800-1874) had been a congressman and President Zachary Taylor's vice president.  When Taylor died in July 1850, Filmore became president.  Filmore was ambivalent about running for a term of his own in the 1852 election.  He was unpopular with Northern Whigs.  A backroom deal to get the nomination to either Daniel Webster or Filmore fell through, and Winfield Scott became the party nominee.  By 1856, the Whig Party was split by slavery, many migrating to the new Republican Party.  The American Party - better known as the Know Nothing Party - gathered other remnants of the Whigs.  The party nominated Filmore.  Filmore did better than Van Buren, winning 21.5% of the popular vote and 8 electoral votes.

Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) had left the White House after two terms.  However, in the wake of the Hayes Presidency, he sought a return to the presidency.  Many felt that this was a breech of Washington's two-term limit, which surely impacted later results.  In a convention fight, Grant was the lead candidate, but could not secure enough delegates for the nomination.  Eventually, the convention selected James Garfield for the nomination.

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) had won the presidency in 1884, the first Democrat to do so since James Buchanan in 1856.  However, he was voted out in 1888.  Cleveland was determined to return to office.  In the 1892 campaign, he was his party's clear frontrunner, but only narrowly secured the nomination.  He then went on to win the election, becoming the first - and so far only - president to serve non-consecutive terms.  Cleveland did not seek re-election in 1896, perhaps because his party had disowned him for his stance on the gold standard.  He supported the National Democratic Party in 1896 but refused to be the party nominee; this was a splinter party that supported the gold standard.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) had been a New York Assemblyman, New York City Police Commissioner, Governor of New York, Colonel in the Spanish-American War, and Vice President under William McKinley.  He became president on McKinley's assassination and was handily re-elected in 1904.  He selected William Howard Taft to succeed him in 1908.  Displeased with the Taft Administration, Roosevelt sought to win the Republican nomination.  That Taft's margin of victory at the convention came from Southern states that Republicans hadn't won since the 1870s irked Roosevelt.  He formed the Bullmoose Party and thus elected Woodrow Wilson.  Roosevelt won 27% of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes.  Taft won 23% of the vote and only 8 electoral votes.

Donald Trump (1946-) is the first man elected to the presidency who had been neither a politician or a soldier.  After a tumultuous presidency, he was defeated for re-election in one of the most troubled elections on record.  He claimed it was stolen.  He is currently the leading nominee for the Republican Party, having won both Iowa and New Hampshire thus far.  If successful, he will repeat Grover Cleveland's achievement.  Even if not elected, he will be the first ex-president to secure his party's nomination for another run and not win.

Clearly, most modern presidents learned from history that it was almost certainly a losing proposition.  Also, the 25th Amendment limited a president to 10 years, which would have nixed both Grant and Roosevelt's efforts.