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United States presidential election, 1812
1812
Nominee		James Madison	DeWitt Clinton
Party		Democratic-Republican	Federalist
Home state		Virginia	New York
Running mate		Elbridge Gerry	Jared Ingersoll
Electoral vote		128	89
States carried		11	7
Popular vote		140,431	132,781
Percentage		50.4%	47.6%
Presidential election results map. Green denotes states won by Madison, orange denotes states won by Clinton. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent President James Madison Democratic-Republican President-elect James Madison Democratic-Republican

The United States presidential election of 1812 took place in the shadow of the War of 1812. It featured an intriguing competition between incumbent Democratic-Republican President James Madison and a dissident Democratic-Republican, DeWitt Clinton, nephew of Madison's late Vice President. The Federalist opposition threw their support behind Clinton. Nonetheless, Madison was re-elected handily.

Background

The spillover from the Napoleonic Wars had been steadily worsening throughout James Madison's first term, with the British and the French both ignoring the United States' neutral rights at sea and seizing American ships. The British provided additional provocations by impressing American seamen, by maintaining forts within United States territory in the Northwest, and by supporting American Indians at war with the United States in both the Northwest and Southwest.

Meanwhile, expansionists in the South and West of the United States coveted both British Canada and Spanish Florida, and wanted to use the provocations as a pretext to seize both areas. The pressure steadily built, and the United States declared war on Great Britain on June 12, 1812. This was after Madison had been nominated by the Democratic-Republicans but before the Federalists had made their nomination, .

Nominations

Democratic-Republican Party nomination

Democratic-Republican candidates

• James Madison (Virginia), President of the United States

Candidates gallery

James Madison (Virginia)

On May 18, a Democratic-Republican Congressional nominating caucus nominated President James Madison of Virginia. Seeking a New Englander for a running mate, the caucus initially chose New Hampshire governor John Langdon to balance the ticket, but after Langdon declined due to his age, a second caucus later nominated Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts for the Vice Presidency, which had been vacant since George Clinton's death a month earlier.

Dissident Democratic-Republican nomination

Dissident Democratic-Republican candidate:

• DeWitt Clinton (New York), Lieutenant Governor of New York

Candidates gallery

DeWitt Clinton (New York)

On May 29, a caucus of dissident Democratic-Republicans in the New York legislature nominated Dewitt Clinton, the nephew of the late Vice President, who had served as Senator and now was Mayor of New York City and Lieutenant Governor of New York. Clinton's campaign tailored their pamphlets and speeches by region. In the Northeast, Clinton was portrayed as the anti-War candidate. Meanwhile, in the South and West, where there were few people opposed to the war, Clinton ran on the basis of a more vigorous prosecution of the war.

In September, after fierce debate, a Federalist nominating caucus in New York City decided to support Clinton as their best chance to defeat the Democratic-Republicans since the "Revolution of 1800". The caucus then picked former United States Attorney Jared Ingersoll of Pennsylvania as his running mate.

General election

Campaign

Clinton continued his regional campaigning, anti-war in a Northeast most harmed by the war, and pro-war in the South and West. Although the Federalists made gains in Congress and although Clinton did better than any Federalist candidate since Adams, taking New York and New Jersey, Madison still won the Presidency by a comfortable margin. Madison, along with Woodrow Wilson, are the only US Presidents to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their first election (Madison won 69.3% of the electoral vote in 1808, but only won 58.7% of the electoral vote in 1812)

Results

Source (Popular Vote): U.S. President National Vote. Our Campaigns. (February 10, 2006).
Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 30, 2005).

^(a) Only 9 of the 18 states chose electors by popular vote.
^(b) Those states that did choose electors by popular vote had widely varying restrictions on suffrage via property requirements.
^(c) One Elector from Ohio did not vote.

Source: Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 30, 2005).

Breakdown by ticket

The split-party ticket of the Federalist DeWitt Clinton and the Democratic-Republican Elbridge Gerry was the result of two Federalist Electors in Gerry's home state of Massachusetts and one in New Hampshire voting for the New England region's favorite.

Electoral college selection

See also

• History of the United States (1789-1849)
• United States House elections, 1812

References

• Boller, Paul F., Jr. (2004). Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 26–28. ISBN 0195167163.  
• Siry, Steven Edwin (1985). "The Sectional Politics of "Practical Republicanism": De Witt Clinton's Presidential Bid, 1810-1812". Journal of the Early Republic 5 (4): 441–462. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3123061.  

External links

• "A Historical Analysis of the Electoral College". The Green Papers. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/ElectoralCollege.html. Retrieved March 20 2005.  
• "DeWitt Clinton Candidacy". OurCampaigns.com. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=263178. Retrieved February 16 2007.  
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825