1856 United States presidential election

← 1852 November 4, 1856 1860 →
296 members of the Electoral College 149 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	79.4%[1] 9.9 pp
Nominee James Buchanan John C. Frémont Millard Fillmore Party Democratic Republican Know Nothing Alliance North American Whig Home state Pennsylvania California New York Running mate John C. Breckinridge William L. Dayton Andrew J. Donelson Electoral vote 174 114 8 States carried 19 11 1 Popular vote 1,836,072 1,342,345 873,053 Percentage 45.3% 33.1% 21.5%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Buchanan/Breckinridge, Red by Frémont/Dayton, and Lavender by Fillmore/Donelson. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes cast by each state.
President before election Franklin Pierce Democratic Elected President James Buchanan Democratic

The 1856 United States presidential election was the 18th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1856. In a three-way election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Buchanan defeated President Franklin Pierce at the 1856 Democratic National Convention for the nomination. Pierce had become widely unpopular in the North because of his support for the pro-slavery faction in the ongoing civil war in territorial Kansas, and Buchanan, a former Secretary of State, had avoided the divisive debates over the Kansas–Nebraska Act by being in Europe as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Slavery was the main issue, and with it the question of the survival of the United States as it then existed. The Democrats were seen as the pro-slavery party; the new Republican party, though hostile to slavery, limited its efforts to the politically more manageable question of the extension of slavery into federal territories (and its removal from the District of Columbia). The nativist Know Nothings (known formally as the American Party) competed with the Republicans to replace the moribund Whig Party as the primary opposition to the Democrats. They emphasized opposition to Catholic immigrants.

The 1856 Republican National Convention nominated a ticket led by Frémont, an explorer and military officer who had served in the Mexican–American War. The Know Nothings, who ignored slavery and instead emphasized anti-immigration and anti-Catholic policies, nominated a ticket led by former Whig President Millard Fillmore. Domestic political turmoil was a major factor in the nominations of both Buchanan and Fillmore, who appealed in part because of their recent time abroad, when they did not have to take a position on the divisive questions related to slavery.

The Democrats supported expansionist slave-holding policies generally of varying intensities. Southern Democrats were all in favor of the expansion of slavery. Some wanted to obtain Cuba as slave territory, as espoused by the Ostend Manifesto. Northern Democrats called for "popular sovereignty", which in theory would allow the residents in a territory to decide for themselves the legal status of slavery. In practice, in Kansas Territory, it produced a state-level civil war. Frémont opposed the expansion of slavery. Buchanan called that position "extremist", warning that a Republican victory would lead to disunion, a then constant issue of political debate which had already been long discussed and advocated. The Know Nothings attempted to present themselves as the one party capable of bridging the sectional divides. All three major parties found support in the North, but the Republicans had virtually no backing in the South.

Buchanan won a plurality of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote, taking all but one slave state and five free states. Frémont won a majority of electoral votes from free states and finished second in the nationwide popular vote, while Fillmore took 21.5% of the popular vote but only carried Maryland. The Know Nothings soon collapsed as a national party, as most of its anti-slavery members joined the Republican Party after the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court ruling. This election marked the end of the Second Party System, 1856 also proved to be the last Democratic presidential victory until 1884, as Republicans emerged as the dominant party during and after the Civil War. As of 2023, this is the only time that the Democrats won the presidency without any electoral votes from New England and the only time that a Republican swept this region without winning the presidency (losing New Hampshire to Woodrow Wilson in 1916 with a margin of 56 votes).

The 1856 presidential election was primarily waged among three political parties, though other parties had been active in the spring of the year. The conventions of these parties are considered below in order of the party's popular vote.

1856 Democratic Party ticket
James Buchanan	John C. Breckinridge
for President	for Vice President
U.S. Minister to Great Britain (1853–1856)	U.S. Representative for Kentucky's 8th (1851–1855)

Democratic candidates:

• James Buchanan, Minister to Great Britain and former Secretary of State
• Franklin Pierce, President of the United States
• Stephen Douglas, U.S. Senator from Illinois
• Lewis Cass, Former U.S. Senator and 1848 presidential nominee from Michigan

• 
  Minister to Great Britain and former United States Secretary of State
  James Buchanan
• 
  President Franklin Pierce
  (Name Withdrawn on the 15th Ballot in favor of Stephen Douglas)
• 
  Senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois
  (Name Withdrawn on the 17th Ballot in favor of James Buchanan)
• 
  Senator Lewis Cass from Michigan

The Democratic Party was wounded from its devastating losses in the 1854–1855 midterm elections. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who had sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, entered the race in opposition to President Franklin Pierce. The Pennsylvania delegation continued to sponsor its favorite son Buchanan.

The Seventh Democratic National Convention was held in Smith and Nixon's Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 2 to 6, 1856. The delegates were deeply divided over slavery. On the first ballot, Buchanan placed first with 135.5 votes to 122.5 for Pierce, 33 for Douglas, and 5 for Senator Lewis Cass, who had been the presidential nominee in 1848. With each succeeding ballot, Douglas gained at Pierce's expense. On the 15th ballot, most of Pierce's delegates shifted to Douglas in an attempt to stop Buchanan, but Douglas withdrew when it became clear Buchanan had the support of the majority of those at the convention, also fearing that his continued participation might lead to divisions within the party that could endanger its chances in the general election. For the first time in American history someone who had been elected president was denied re-nomination after seeking it.

A host of candidates were nominated for the vice presidency, but a number of them attempted to withdraw themselves from consideration, among them the eventual nominee, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Breckinridge, besides having been selected as an elector, was also supporting former Speaker of the House Linn Boyd for the vice presidential nomination. However, following a draft effort led by the delegation from Vermont, Breckinridge was nominated on the second ballot.

1856 Republican Party ticket
John C. Frémont	William L. Dayton
for President	for Vice President
U.S. Senator from California (1850–1851)	U.S. Senator from New Jersey (1842–1851)

Republican candidates:

• John C. Frémont, former United States Senator from California
• John McLean, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

• 
  Former Senator John C. Frémont from California
• 
  Supreme Court Associate Justice John McLean from Ohio

The Republican Party was formed in early 1854 to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. During the midterm elections of 1854–1855, the Republican Party was one of the patchwork of anti-administration parties contesting the election, but they were able to win thirteen seats in the House of Representatives for the 34th Congress. However, the party collaborated with other disaffected groups and gradually absorbed them. In the elections of 1855, the Republican Party won three governorships.

The first Republican National Convention was held in the Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17 to 19, 1856. The convention approved an anti-slavery platform that called for congressional sovereignty in the territories, an end to polygamy in Mormon settlements, and federal assistance for a transcontinental railroad—a political outcome of the Pacific Railroad Surveys. John C. Frémont, John McLean, William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Charles Sumner all were considered by those at the convention, but the latter three requested that their names be withdrawn. Seward and Chase did not feel that the party was yet sufficiently organized to have a realistic chance of taking the White House and were content to wait until the next election. Sumner was in no fit condition to run after being violently assaulted on the Senate floor a month before the convention. McLean's name was initially withdrawn by his manager Rufus Spalding, but the withdrawal was rescinded at the strong behest of the Pennsylvania delegation led by Thaddeus Stevens.^[2] Kentucky was the only southern state to have a delegation at the convention.^[3] Frémont was nominated for president overwhelmingly on the formal ballot, and William L. Dayton was nominated for vice president over Abraham Lincoln.

1856 American Party ticket
Millard Fillmore	Andrew J. Donelson
for President	for Vice President
13th President of the United States (1850–1853)	2nd U.S. Envoy to Prussia (1846–1849)

American Party candidates:

• Millard Fillmore, former President of the United States from New York
• George Law, steamboat entrepreneur from New York

• 
  Former President Millard Fillmore
  from New York
• 
  Steamboat entrepreneur George Law from New York
  Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=1856_United_States_presidential_election
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