With the upcoming elections, I thought it might be fun to provide some interesting facts about previous elections here in the U.S.
So here goes.
The worst campaign slogan in history belongs to Al Smith, who was against prohibition. To show his support for the creation, distribution, and sale of alcohol, he advertised: “Vote for Al Smith and he’ll make your wet dreams come true.”
It wasn’t until 1856 that Congress removed property ownership as a requirement to vote in elections.
The first U.S. presidential election was in 1789. Back then, only white men who owned property could vote, a stipulation that prohibited 94% of the population from casting a ballot.
During the 1872 election, presidential incumbent Ulysses S. Grant ran against a corpse. His opponent, Horace Greeley, died before the election was finalized. Grant won the election.
In 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth, a former slave and advocate for justice demanded a ballot in Michigan, but she was turned away. American women of all races finally won the right to vote in 1920.
Congress gave Native Americans the right to vote in presidential elections in 1924; however, some states banned them from voting until the 1940s.[3]
George Washington is the only U.S. president in history to win 100% of the Electoral College vote. This is mainly because organized parties weren’t yet formed, and he ran unopposed. He was reluctant to become president and noted to his future secretary of war, Henry Knox, that becoming president felt like he was going to “the place of his execution”.
George Washington blew his entire campaign budget against John Adams on 160 gallons of liquor to serve to potential voters.
Before the 1804, the presidential candidate who received the second highest electoral votes became vice-president.
John Adams complained that the only reason George Washing was “chosen for everything,” including president, was because “he was taller than anyone else in the room.”
During the 1776 presidential campaign, Thomas Jefferson secretly hired a writer named James Callender to attack his opponent, John Adams, in print. Callender called Adams a “hermaphroditical character” who neither had the “force of a man” or the “gentleness of a woman.” Callender was later jailed for insurrection.
In 1845, Congress decided that voting day would be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which was after the fall harvest and before winter conditions made travel too difficult.
Andrew Jackson’s inauguration party was so wild that Jackson snuck out of the White House and spent the night at a hotel. Finally, servants dragged tubs of punch out on the lawn to lure out the crowds.
The party was so big that even the brave, battle-tested President Jackson fled the scene.
Democrats use a donkey as their mascot thanks to Andrew Jackson. When his critics called him a “jackass” because of his populist views, he embraced the image, even using it alongside his slogan, “Let the people rule.”
When Democrat Stephen A. Douglas called Abraham Lincoln “two-faced” during an election year, Lincoln replied, “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?”
Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
– Abraham Lincoln
During the 1920 presidential election, a candidate from a third party, Eugene V. Debs, a socialist, ran his presidential campaign from prison. He was in jail for opposing WW I. He ultimately won 3% of the popular vote.
George Washington gave the shortest inauguration speech at 135 words. William Henry Harrison’s was the longest, at 8,445 words. He spoke for over two hours in a heavy snowstorm, which made him catch a cold and ultimately die from pneumonia one month later.
Grover Cleveland is the only candidate ever to be elected to one term, defeated for a second term, and then elected again four years later. Thus, he became both the 22nd in president (1885) and the 24th president (1893). McKinley was pres in between his 2 terms.
The word “election” is from the Latin eligere, which means, “to pick out, select” and is related to the world “lecture.”
To this day, it is illegal to drink alcohol in Kentucky and South Carolina on election day.
During the John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson election year, American politics sounded much like we hear today. For example, Jackson called John Quincy a pimp, and Quincy called Jackson’s wife a slut and his mother a prostitute.
A lot different than George Washington who argued that a presidential candidate should not appear too eager to win the presidency or actively seek it. Rather, he said “The office should seek the man.” He considered active campaigning undignified, even vulgar.
. The first woman to run for U.S. President was Victoria Woodhull in 1872, nearly 50 years before the 19th Amendment allowed women to vote in presidential elections. Woodhull also believed that women should have the freedom to marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference.
Her running mate, Frederick Douglass, was the first African-American ever nominated for Vice President.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president an astonishing four terms before the 22nd Amendment set term limits.
One final bit of election history for you.
Before sophisticated computer models were used to get out the vote, violent gangs would kidnap voters, feed them alcohol or drugs and force them to vote multiple times dressed in various disguises. Known as “cooping,” this was a common strategy to ensure a win on election day.
In the 1800s, United States elections were rife with fraud, and political parties were more like private clubs than the bureaucratic representatives we have today, so cooping fit right into politics of the time.
“The practice of “cooping” voters on election day was quite common,” and campaign gangs who corralled voters were, according to one definition, “wining and dining [victims] till they “vote” according to wishes of the “Coop-manager,” disrupting the American voting process. This was common in Missouri elections in the early 1800’s.
On election day, you would show up at the courthouse and there, the candidates had all set up booths with all the liquor you could drink.
Once you chose your candidate, you were required to step before the election official and publicly declare your choice of candidate.
While the public was aware of and disgusted by cooping, it was so ingrained in American politics that it continued through the end of the 19th century. In 1842, Washington’s Weekly Globe wrote that the “Federalist Party in the United States, during the last presidential election, introduced all these contrivances” which included “bribing, bullying, and the abduction of voters, steeped in drunkenness.”
So there you have it folks. Based on what you’ve heard today, your thoughts on the upcoming elections?