history entity & event Flashcards
America’s first third party by riding the tide of their sentiment following the 1826 disappearance of Freemason whistleblower William Morgan. For the 1832 election, the they selected William Wirt in the first presidential nominating convention in United States history. Running against eventual winner Andrew Jackson, a Democrat seeking re-election, and Henry Clay, a National Republican, Wirt managed to receive 8% of the popular vote and 7 electoral votes from Vermont. Vermont and Pennsylvania both elected them as governors, and Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and other states all sent them to the U.S. House of Representatives
Anti-Masonic Party
was created through a union of anti-slavery factions from the two major parties, the Barnburner Democrats and Conscience Whigs. Its platform, unlike that of James G. Birney’s earlier Liberty Party (established 1840), did not aim to abolish slavery, but rather to cease its expansion. As a result, they backed the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the Democratic Party on using popular sovereignty to decide slavery’s status. In its first year, 1848, the party ended up with two senators and 14 Representatives in Congress. Free Soil presidential candidate Martin van Buren managed to capture 10% of the popular vote, and his influence may have secured Whig candidate Zachary Taylor’s close victory over Democrat Lewis Cass
Free Soil Party
formed from the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant nativism of early America. Secret societies like the Order of the Star Spangled Banner had been sprouting up since the 1840s, but it was not a unified entity until the 1854 elections, when it won 52 of the 234 seats in the House, including the position of Speaker of the House. The 1856 presidential election was the first one for both this party behind Millard Fillmore and the Republican Party behind John C. Frémont. Fillmore received 22% of the popular vote but only eight electoral votes from Maryland; Frémont won eleven states with 33% of the popular vote. Strong Southern support, however, allowed Democrat James Buchanan an easy win
American Party, Know-Nothing Party
had its roots in the same farmer-labor partnership that created the Greenback Party (established 1874). Opposed to the elites of the banking and railroad industries, the movement promised agrarian and labor reform. Its first presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, captured 22 electoral votes from six western states with 8.5% of the vote in 1892, as Democrat Grover Cleveland won his rematch against Republican Benjamin Harrison. Also in the West, multiple of this party’s governors, senators, and representatives held power throughout the decade. They nominated the same presidential candidate as the Democrats in 1896, William Jennings Bryan, because of his stance on a silver bi-metal currency, though their vice-presidential candidate — party leader Thomas E. Watson — differed from the Democratic candidate. Bryan’s failure to defeat Republican William McKinley spelled the decline of the Party
People’s Party, Populist Party
is usually associated with Eugene V. Debs, the face of the American movement at its peak. He ran for president five times from 1900 to 1920, and managed to increase his vote counts with each successive campaign. He attracted over 900,000 votes twice: in 1912 with 6% of the vote, almost making it a four-way race, and in 1920, when Debs famously ran his campaign while imprisoned. Starting in 1928, his successor, Norman Thomas, ran for president six consecutive times, though the party was not quite able to replicate Debs’s success
Socialist Party
Former President Theodore Roosevelt’s party was created after he was unable to reclaim the Republican nomination from his former ally William Howard Taft. Roosevelt pitted his platform of New Nationalism, which promised reforms inspired by the movement, against Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s more conservative New Freedom. In the most successful American third-party campaign ever, Roosevelt’s 27% was still only enough to win six states; the split of the Republican voter base between him and Taft ensured a dominant victory for Wilson even though Wilson received only 42% of the vote
Bull Moose Party, Progressive Party
was founded by Southern Democrats to oppose President Truman’s re-election bid, in response to his actions advancing civil rights. When Truman was nominated by the Democrats in 1948, members from the South stormed out of the convention, creating a further divide within the party. With South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond as its candidate, the party — while receiving the same amount of votes as Henry Wallace — won 39 electoral votes from four southern states. Though it was a temporary split, the issue of civil rights did not disappear
States’ Rights Democratic Party, Dixiecrat Party
is notable mainly for attempts to outlaw it, such as the 1940 Smith Act which criminalized organizations advocating the violent overthrow of the government, the -this party- Control Act of 1954, and the inquiries of the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senators Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy. Though the 1951 Supreme Court case Dennis v. U.S. ruled that there is no First-Amendment right to advocate the overthrow of the government, general concerns about freedom of speech and overreach in investigations of this party put an end to prosecutions of individuals solely for belonging to the Party by the early 1960s. The CPUSA ran Gus Hall for President four times, but was never a significant force at the ballot box. In 1995, a cache of Soviet documents known as VENONA was published, revealing that this party was controlled by Moscow. Like the Socialist Party, the party has splintered into several similarly named successor organizations
Communist Party of the United States of America
