1844 Democratic National Convention
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1844 presidential election |
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Nominees
Polk and Dallas |
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| Convention | |
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| Date(s) | May 27–29, 1844 |
| City | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Venue | Odd Fellows Hall |
| Candidates | |
| Presidential nominee | James K. Polk of Tennessee |
| Vice Presidential nominee | George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania |
The 1844 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore. At first, the Democrats were split between three candidates: abolitionist Martin Van Buren, former President of the United States and leader of the dominant Jacksonian faction; James Buchanan, Senator from Pennsylvania, a so-called "moderate"; and Ambassador to France Lewis Cass, a retired general and advocate of territorial expansionism.
The annexation of Texas was the chief political issue of the day. Van Buren, initially the leading candidate, opposed immediate annexation because it might lead to a sectional crisis over the status of slavery in the West. This position cost Van Buren the support of southern and expansionist Democrats; as a result, he failed to win the nomination. The delegates likewise could not settle on Cass, whose credentials also included past service as a U.S. minister to France.
On the eighth ballot, the historian George Bancroft, a delegate from Massachusetts, proposed former House Speaker James K. Polk as a compromise candidate. Polk argued that Texas and Oregon had always belonged to the United States by right. He called for "the immediate reannexation of Texas" and for the "reoccupation" of the disputed Oregon territory.
On the next roll call, the convention unanimously accepted Polk, who became the first dark horse, or little-known, presidential candidate. The delegates selected Senator Silas Wright of New York for Vice President, but Wright, an admirer of Van Buren, declined the nomination, becoming the first person to decline a vice presidential nomination. The Democrats then nominated George M. Dallas, a Pennsylvania lawyer.
In 1840, the Democratic Party Convention had provided that a majority vote would be sufficient for nominee selection. Northern Democrat Van Burenites arrived at the convention on May 27, 1844, with the expectation that, possessing a majority of the delegates, they would quickly secure the candidacy for their man. Early in proceedings, Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, in cooperation with Senator James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, called for the reinstatement of the traditional 1832 and 1834 convention rule requiring a two-thirds vote for nomination (the rule would remain in place until it was revoked by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936). Following a historical pattern in which a minority faction of Northern Democrats delivered votes to produce southern wing victories for pro-slavery legislation, the Van Burenite delegates split over the pivotal vote. Fully one-third of the pro-Van Buren delegates (52 of 154) voted to reinstate the two-thirds rule, along with 90 of 104 anti-Van Buren delegates, producing a final vote of 148 to 116. Van Buren supporters persisted in spite of this setback, garnering 146 votes for their candidate on the first ballot, a 55% simple majority, but short of the now required 177 votes. Middle and Deep South pro-annexationists opposed Van Buren 75 to 3, depriving northern anti-annexationists the 31 votes needed for victory.
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