1892 United States Presidential Election

The 1892 United States presidential election was the 27th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1892. The election saw the son of former Democratic-Republican President Sam Houston, Aaron Burr Houston, defeat the Farmer-Labor nominee and as well the first woman to be nominated for the Presidency by a major political party, Mary Elizabeth Lease. The Liberal Anti-Prohibition Party was also able to see a strikingly good showing, with their nominee Horace Boies winning 14% of the popular vote, which was a major victory for the previously dying party.

Though there was significant opposition to Lease's nomination, due to her being a woman and due to her being a self described Socialist, she was able to win the Farmer-Labor Party nomination after a deadlock at the Convention, resulting in her nomination as a compromise candidate between the Socialists, Georgists, and Moderates. The son of former President Sam Houston, Aaron Burr Houston, was able to win the Federal Republican nomination, defeating many established politicians to somewhat narrowly win the nomination. Houston was opposed by many Conservatives within the Party, and was also opposed by many of the Party bosses, but he was supported by many Native groups and Progressives like John D. White. The Liberal Anti-Prohibition Convention was relatively quick, where it nominated Horace Boies of Iowa to be their Presidential nominee, with Tyre York of North Carolina as their Vice Presidential nominee.

Unsurprisingly, Houston won in a moderate landslide, easily defeating both Lease and Boies. Houston won a 48% of the popular vote and 318 Electoral votes, to Lease's 37% and 134 electoral votes. Boies came out of the election surprisingly strong, winning 14% of the popular vote, and winning 16 Electoral votes, where he gave the Liberal Anti-Prohibition Party its best showing yet in an election.

Federal Republican Party nomination
Also see: 1892 Federal Republican National Convention

Candidates
With the Farmer-Labor Party’s 1888 victory granting them only the second instance in American history of a party holding the White House for three terms, many Federal Republicans hoped the term of Henry George would destroy Farmer-Labor as Franklin Pierce’s presidency destroyed the Democratic-Republicans. Since the initial Federal Republican frontrunner, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, left the race following the discovery of the body of a murdered child in a closet in his home, for which his daughter was been charged, and personal accusations relating to the marriage of the then-43 year old Walls to the 14 year old cousin of his recently deceased wife in 1885. Thus, the race was opened to be the candidate to challenge the first openly socialist Farmer-Labor nominee, Mary Elizabeth Lease.

There were six prime candidates for the nomination, though only three were taken seriously. Out of the three taken seriously, only two had any real chance at winning the nomination. Those were men were Governor of Texas and son of former President Sam Houston, Aaron Burr Houston, and a former Senator from Virginia, Nathan Goff. The Convention would turn into primarily a duel between the two men, as they tried to defeat each other for the Federal Republican nomination.

Balloting
The years of organizing by John D. White and allies on his own behalf had not found success in 1880, yet the generation of progressives that joined the Federal Republicans to support White had built an organization since, and thus it had gone into action for Houston. With old progressives such as Galusha Grow, Shelby Cullom, and Nathaniel P. Banks joining Charles Bonaparte and the young Albert Beveridge, in building a Houston organization, the convention began with the young Texan in the lead. Nathan Goff, despite having the backing of Josiah T. Walls and Thomas B. Reed, was surprised to find himself in second.

On the second ballot, little change occurred, but Houston’s small gain and the continued weakness of Pingree convinced the Michigander that he wouldn’t win. Morgan’s money was proved inadequate as the banker failed to be close to the strongest candidate. Pingree then unexpectedly threw his support behind Houston, lifting the Governor to over 200 votes, 40 ahead of Goff despite Goff manager Stephen B. Elkins securing the support of Missouri. With La Follette’s allies forced to concede Wisconsin’s second choice to Bragg, the state voted for the former President, yet the rest of Pingree’s supporters went as a bloc for Houston.

Convinced by his brother John to switch to Houston, Leonidas C. Houk of Tennessee threw his weight behind Houston, joined by Minnesota’s Knute Nelson and Jeter C. Pritchard of North Carolina. Charles Bonaparte and George Wellington of Maryland, joining the rest, were successful in flipping their state to Houston. The bosses and party conservatives realized the Governor’s nomination was guaranteed and threw themselves behind him to avoid being ostracized if he won the presidency, triggering a second count of the fourth ballot which Houston swept.

Vice Presidential nomination
With the progressives ascendant, Houston’s first instinct was to select John D. White himself as Vice President, but party conservatives would do all in their power to stop him. Finally obtaining a letter against it signed by a number of leading progressives on party unity grounds, Houston and White agreed not to present the name of a progressive and accept a moderate conservative as Vice President. The name considered first and foremost was William B. Allison of Iowa, yet he refused to advocate for himself due to a contentment with his seat in the senate. Warner Miller of New York was presented by “Boss” Thomas Platt, a New York machine politician, with Houston allies countering with 68 year old former Illinois Governor and incumbent Senator Richard J. Oglesby, focusing on his popularity in the key swing state and his background as an orphan who rose through the political ranks, hailing a ticket with the son of the man who saved the Union and a man who had to make his way in the world after his father's death when he was but 12 years of age. Oglesby was thus selected.

Candidates
With President Henry George’s term largely unsuccessful and discontent among Laborites towards the President rising, the new system of nomination for Farmer-Labor candidates, the “primary election,” provided an opening for driven anti-George Laborites to challenge the President before the people. Yet, their initial choice for standard-bearer, 79 year old former President Lyman Trumbull, refused to seek a third term, with the famously cold septuagenarian breaking into tears as he cited his desire to accompany his two dying children in their final moments. Their second choice, Clay Senator Richard F. Pettigrew, organized the campaign heavily yet refused to stand as a candidate, likely seeing 1892 as a Federal Republican year. Thus, several candidates entered the field against George.

The Convention was packed full of Candidates, ranging from the populist James B. Weaver, to camera inventor Simon Wing, and to the eventual candidate, Economist and the Mayor of New York City, Henry George.

Primaries
Inaugurating the primary seasons were the contests in Wisconsin and Kentucky, with Wisconsin as the particular focus on Powderly, Weaver, and George’s campaigns, while Watson dedicated his early campaign to speeches in Kentucky. Weaver’s machine overcame all opposition, winning Kentucky with 8 of the state’s 13 delegates and 65.4% of the vote, while winning only 5 of Wisconsin’s 12 and 42.3% of the vote to slightly above 20% each for President George and Terence V. Powderly. Thus, Weaver’s frontrunner status emerged from the start.

Being from the state, Kyle swept 3 of Clay’s delegates, with the other candidates aside from Wing largely neglecting the state. Wing’s own Massachusetts proved to be George’s first victory, carrying 8 of the state’s 15 delegates and 44.8% to 32.6% for Wing. Texas, with Watson’s campaign overseen by rising star John H. “Cyclone” Davis, would be swept with 51.3% of the vote to only 25.8% for Weaver, 23.3% for Wing, and 9 of the state’s delegates. It would aid in establishing Watson’s reputation as a Southern candidate, helping him carry the region while hurting him elsewhere, while Wing’s home state defeat forever damaged the socialist cameraman.

With George loyalist Tom L. Johnson at his campaign’s helm and Jacob Coxey remaining neutral, the President carried 45.6% of the vote in Ohio to only 6.3% for Weaver, who was outshone by 8.1% for Wing, 14.7% for Kyle, and 23.4% for the union oriented Powderly. Nonetheless, Weaver swept Colorado the same day. Thus, a two week gap in the campaign arose. As many states started their primaries, the largest portion of delegates up yet, Weaver largely won them and solidified his lead further. Competing with Kyle narrowly in the West, Watson narrowly in the South, and George narrowly in Illinois, his strong showings in almost every state even if he lost many was argued by his supporters to be proof of the strength of his campaign across the nation. Watson’s South Carolina victory was bitterly contested with Weaver, while George’s Illinois victory rang hollow as he carried away but one delegate more than Weaver. George saw a comeback, with the de Mille family of actors turned politicians leading a lively touring campaign in North Carolina to outdo the machinations of former Vice President Daniel L. Russell and successfully helping George win 6 of the state’s 11 delegates and 43.2% of the vote to 4 for Watson, who carried 22.7%, and one for Wing, who had 9.8%. Weaver swept all 13 Iowa delegates, but George’s home state of New York proved to be the main contest. With Powderly and Wing stumping the state, single tax organizers led by Henry George Jr. were tasked with saving the President without his own help. Yet, their campaign was able to, winning 19 of the state’s delegates and 51.4% of the vote to 10 for Simon Wing, with 27.6% of the vote, and 7 for Terence V. Powderly who carried only 19.8% of the vote despite his former union presidency. Arkansas was won by Weaver in a close contest with Watson, with neither receiving over 40% of the vote. Alabama, on the other hand, was a sweep for Watson as Congressman Milford W. Howard toured the state for his mentor. Yet, it would be the three states of the Caribbean that would provide the surprise of the week. Florida went for Kyle, yet the results for Cuba and Santo Domingo took days to come in, revealing a Kyle sweep of every delegate from all three states. His campaign had focused on re-enlivening itself as the other candidates began to deadlock, and succeeded entirely.

James B. Weaver saw his next victory in the oft looked Tijuana primary, with Simon Wing coming in second 34.2% of the vote yet being denied any delegates. George carried his former home state of California, though opponents accused him of letting Treasury Secretary James Maguire run the California campaign from afar. Kyle’s victory of the day, Minnesota, would receive the most attention, as he carried 5 of the state’s 9 delegates and won 44.4% of the vote in what was assumed to be a safely Weaverite state. Maryland and Delaware’s small yet committed state parties formally endorsed Weaver, yet Kyle won all of both state’s delegates and over 60% of the vote in both, winning 68.3% in Delaware. Both Missouri and Indiana yielded close races, with the former voting for Weaver and the latter for Kyle.

The West soon completed its primaries with a grand showdown between Weaver and Kyle, with Kyle and his supporters such as Colorado Senator Henry Teller predicting that if Kyle could sweep the Western states, he would emerge as the nominee. Weaver's own supporters in the region such as Sylvester Pennoyer of Oregon were able to coax the reluctant Iowan from the Midwest to put himself directly before the people, a strategy successful enough to lead to what Kyle himself took as the collapse of his campaign as Weaver swept every Western primary and denied Kyle even a single delegate from the region. George was able to carry two states, yet Pennoyer was able to move the Oregon party convention to deny George two delegates, leading to a dispute among the delegates to be decided at the convention. The least watched primary, Virginia, yielded an unsurprising majority to Tom Watson.

Carrying Michigan in a surprising victory, Henry George nonetheless was largely ignored by the press, as Weaver rose further and further as the party's frontrunner. Despite only winning Maine, the victories of George and Watson were viewed as secondary, with Weaver being declared "the man to beat" by Tom Watson himself. Weaver was able to carry largely rural Vermont, with Tom Watson receiving a surprising 38.7% of the vote. With Rhode Island in a near tie between George and Powderly, Connecticut went for the union leader in a landslide of over 60% of the vote. New Jersey, with the lowest voter turnout of any primary, was won by George with Simon Wing in second.

Despite having left the campaign trail weeks prior, James H. Kyle carried New Hampshire with 31.3% of the vote, yet swept the winner-take-all primary. Thus, none possessed a majority entering the convention. George and Weaver, the former as confident of his defeat as the latter was unsure of his triumph, were thus arranged to meet for the sake of party unity on the day prior to the convention.

The Convention
Vice President Jerry Simpson was the initial and long the most serious consideration as a candidate to hold the party together in a united campaign going forth, yet a single view would devastate his chances. With much of the anti-George sentiment rising from prohibitionists, former President Bidwell made clear that the nomination of "Sockless Jerry" would prompt a reformation of the National Party. With George insisting on a land value tax supporter and Weaver and others emphasizing the importance of a prohibitionist and supporter of an income tax, as well as one to appeal to farmers, the pool was further narrowed. With Frances Willard's participation in the 1888 bolt ending her chances, a mere process of elimination would seemingly reduce the choice to one man, or rather, one woman.

George's and Weaver's delegates acted almost in unison, with the few defections to other candidates outweighed by defections to their candidate, and thus it was that the "Queen of the Populists" was nominated for the Presidency on the first ballot of the 1892 Farmer-Labor national convention, thus it was that 42 year old Secretary of Agriculture Mary Elizabeth Lease of Nebraska took to the stage to deliver a speech in the vein of the address that masny credited with bringing Lyman Trumbull the presidency twelve years prior. And so did the Farmer-Laborites greatest orator deliver her address: "This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first." She then proceeded to posit her view of the Federal Republican platform: "Wall Street would own the country. It would be no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country made slaves, and monopoly as the master. The West and South made bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules." Becoming the first Farmer-Labor nominee to declare for socialism, she stated "The grand principles of Socialism and the brotherhood of man cannot live under such old forms of tyranny." Once more turning to her view of the problems facing the nation: ''"Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The monopolists lie to us and their political speakers mislead us. Some politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 9,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States, and over 100,000 shop-girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them... We want money, land and transportation."''

Finally, she ended with an immortal line praised as heroic by supporters and denounced as revolutionary by opponents: "We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary; the people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware."

Though Lease's critics within the party, primarily over the imperialism issue, where she has stated support for annexing Central America, remain, they went silent then. The audience roared, with a Texas delegate drawing a pistol and shouting "what can I do?"

The question of the Vice Presidency remained wide open. First considered was Cassius Marcellus Clay, elected to the office 40 years prior, yet the 82 year old Kentucky railroad nationalization advocate had only joined the party in 1889 and was thus considered insufficiently Laborite to warrant such a distinction. With the Midwest a battleground, nominating a candidate from the region was considered important by many, while others advocated the nomination of a Southerner such as Charles E. Cunningham of Arkansas and Barzillai Chambers of Texas, who had ran as the party's nominee for the Vice Presidency in 1864. Lease invited all considered to meet with her personally, and declared that she would make her choice following an acquaintance with the candidates. Chambers, Cunningham, Alson Streeter of Illinois, all visited her, as well as several other minor candidates and others on behalf of one of the major three. Viewing farmers as the party's base and wishing to ensure the support of older Laborites, Chambers quickly was considered the frontrunner, yet his health issues led to the selection of Cunningham. The 69 year old Arkansas having served in both the Bidwell and Trumbull cabinet’s highest posts, as Governor of Arkansas, and as a Senator from Arkansas and Missouri.

Liberal Anti-Prohibition Party nomination
Mired by infighting and increasingly losing ballot access, the Liberal Anti-Prohibition Party found only man can unite it, Tyre York. Yet, the former Governor of North Carolina instead sought to hold his Congressional seat, arguing that the party must continue to hold sway in Congress. Thus, division was the rule of the day as the party convened.

With John Nance Garner challenging Mills in Texas, the convention voted to permit any rival delegation to be seated, removing any caps on delegation size. From there, things quickly went out of control as spectators rushed to the floor to register as delegates, with the number rising to nearly a thousand. Amidst cheers, Boies was nominated, with Tyre York chosen for the Vice Presidency. Garner was selected as Chairman of the LAP National Committee, de facto campaign manager, and labelled his candidate “Glorious Horace” in an interview post-convention.

Farmer-Labor
With the newly introduced primary system yielding a defeat for President Henry George, the Farmer-Labor convention settled upon a compromise ticket, nominating both the first woman ever to be nominated for the Presidency and the first self-proclaimed socialist, 42 year old orator and Secretary of Agriculture Mary Elizabeth Lease of Nebraska, with 69 year old former Secretary of State Charles E. Cunningham of Arkansas nominated for the Vice Presidency. A woman whom even many Federal Republicans consider the greatest orator in the nation, Lease had undertaken a vast national tour to speak to voters, focusing on rural and agriculture areas where she urged farmers to “raise less corn and more hell!” Lease’s platform focused upon government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, to be managed on a state by state basis with each state maintaining a three person board of commissioners. On a more socialistic note, she called for “the unearned increment of labor from labor-saving machinery to be equally divided between the manufacturer, the operative and the consumer.” Upon the issue of tariffs she stated support for pan-American free trade counterbalanced by tariffs upon foreign products outside of the Americas. Further, she has called for pan-American unity in measurements, and suggested an adoption of the metric system, while joining Houston in endorsing the maintenance of prohibition, an end to child labor, the direct election of senators, and the spread of primaries or referendums as a means of assessing the people’s will through a direct vote.

Other issues touched by the campaign included support for farm subsidies, federal crop storage facilities, opposition to a literacy test requirement for voting, opposition to civil rights legislation, and a Georgist tax upon land value that would not replace the established income tax or tariffs. On foreign policy, she erred greatly from Farmer-Labor orthodoxy and called for the annexation of Latin America into a “Federation of the Americas” in tandem with the American aid to the colonization of Africa, painting both in starkly racial terms with statements such as “The highly-gifted white race of Europe and America are now fitted for the stewardship of the earth.” She has called for an agreement with European nations to send into Africa and South America “fifty million white families as planters on estates of 200 acres each, each with three families of the inferior races as tillers of the soil.” Further elaborating on her plan, she stated that the homeless would be the ideal candidates as colonialists.

Federal Republican
After years of organizing and setbacks such as the defeat of John D. White for the Speakership, the progressive wing of the Federal Republican Party finally achieved a major victory, having successfully nominated the party’s candidate for the presidency 38 year old Texas Governor Aaron Burr Houston, the son of former President Sam Houston whom endearing supporters nicknamed “ABH,” as conservatives received a concession in the form of 68 year old Vice Presidential nominee Richard J. Oglesby, a former Governor of Illinois. Declining from directly challenging the masterful Lease’s stump speeches with his folksy yet plain oratory, Houston instead pursued a front porch campaign, making speeches to crowds from his home that were subsequently printed and distributed across the nation. Houston’s campaign endorsed a number of measures once considered firmly Laborite, ardently defending the income tax the party once called for abolishing, calling for the direct election of senators, and arguing for prohibiting child labor, attempting to win over Laborite voters by casting his progressivism as an incremental and sane alternative to Lease’s socialism.

Upon tariffs, the ticket calls for a protective tariff in the short term while endorsing a permanent tariff commission in the long term. Houston strongly endorsed the maintenance of alcohol prohibition and endorsed environmental protection legislation. Houston continued his father’s legacy of close relations with Natives by endorsing a plan granting tribes congressional representation, yet his view on civil rights legislation was quite unclear at the time of the election, as he declined to comment on the topic, with Governor Oglesby and other civil rights supporters claiming he supported such legislation, while some Southern Federal Republicans such as Matt Ransom claimed the opposite. Houston’s sole comment on the matter was been a statement in support for a fairly applied literacy test, while stating that neither race nor sex should be considered whatsoever and that it is unconstitutional to do so. Nonetheless, many attacked the literacy test idea as exclusionary. On foreign policy, Houston endorsed the annexation of Hawaii and called for a vast expansion of the navy and modernization of the military in general, pledging to undo the nearly 50% budget cut to the War Department under Presidents Trumbull and George.

Liberal Anti-Prohibition
With the party in turmoil as a new faction of former moderate Laborites epitomized by the newly elected 24 year old National Committee Chairman John Nance Garner rose to power, the Liberal Anti-Prohibitionists nominated 65 year old former Iowa Governor Horace Boies for President, a man with a four decade long political career stretching back to his 1852 election to Congress on the Workingman’s ticket, with Representative and former Governor Tyre York of North Carolina nominated for the Vice Presidency. While the party’s platform remained single issue, opposing prohibition above all else, Boies focused secondarily upon winning former Laborites such as himself who joined hands with the party in their advocacy for free silver and other reforms yet were dismayed by the party’s at the time socialistic tendencies. Boies endorsed tariff reduction, stated opposition to expansionism in any form, stated support for civil rights legislation, and endorsed the same progressive economic reforms as the other two major candidates.

Results
Unsurprisingly, Houston won in a moderate landslide, easily defeating both Lease and Boies. Houston won a 48% of the popular vote and 318 Electoral votes, to Lease's 37% and 134 electoral votes. Boies came out of the election surprisingly strong, winning 14% of the popular vote, and winning 16 Electoral votes, where he gave the Liberal Anti-Prohibition Party its best showing yet in an election.