As he plows through the primaries piling up delegates, Donald Trump has the Republican party in an absolute panic. Not only about the election this year, but the very future of their party. This guy could divide the party so badly between radical conservatives and the rational “establishment” members of the party, that the Republican party as we knew it, could undergo the biggest re-examination and change in its history. The convention this summer is looking more and more like a train wreck. Trump says if he’s denied the nomination because of some ballot rules changes, there will be riots. Main stream Republican leaders are trying figure out how to derail the Trump train, and find an alternative candidate that can pull the party together. But time is running out.
We may have never seen a candidate as divisive and bigoted as Trump, but history in littered with candidates from both parties who revolted against their party. In 1948, it was the Democratic Party that had two leading members who were so opposed to their party’s platform they broke away and ran for president with parties on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. South Carolina Senator Storm Thurmond was a segregationist. When the party adopted a pro-civil rights platform, he marched out of the convention and formed The States’ Rights Democrats” or the “Dixiecrats” under the slogan, “Segregation Forever.” Thurmond won electoral votes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and, of course, South Carolina. The Democratic Party went on to be the party that supported the civil rights movement that was yet to come.
The other rebel was former vice president Henry Wallace. Wallace was Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president from 1941 to 1945. He was replaced by Harry Truman in 1945. Truman became president in April, 1945 when Roosevelt died in office. At the 1948 convention, Wallace wanted a friendlier and closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Truman wanted to be very aggressive against Communism and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Wallace split and ran for president as the Progressive Party candidate. He may have liked the Soviets, but voters didn’t. Wallace didn’t win a single state or electoral vote. Despite these two splits in the Democratic Party, Truman was able to narrowly defeat Republican Thomas Dewey for the president.
Horace Greeley was a famous newspaper editor who founded the politically influential New York Tribune. He was one of the founders of the Republican Party in 1854. He was a strong abolitionist and supported Lincoln for president and pushed him to end slavery before Lincoln was ready. After the Civil War, Greeley became angry with Republican President Uylsses S. Grant who was elected in 1868. Grant wanted to continue southern Reconstruction after the Civil War. Greeley disagreed. He thought the military should pull out of the south since slavery had been abolished. When Grant ran for re-elected in 1872, Greeley ran for and got the nomination of the breakaway Liberal Republican Party. The Democrats, who were the dominate party in the south, liked his stand so much, they also nominated him for president. Greeley won six mostly southern states and lost badly to Grant. If Greeley had won the election, he never would have become president. After the election, he went back to the Tribune where people tried to unseat him. He became so unhinged, his doctor sent him to an asylum, where he died on November, 29, 1872 even before the electoral votes were counted.
In 1860, it was the Democratic Party that found itself at a crossroads that would effect the party for decades. The country was on the brink of Civil War over slavery and states’ rights. The party had elected the last two presidents, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Two weak presidents who saw the party split over slavery. The “Northern Democrats” were a more moderate wing who believed states should have the right to decide the issue of slavery. The “Southern Democrats” believed slaves were property and the government couldn’t interfere with ownership. The “Northern Democrats” nominated Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas who had defeated Abraham Lincoln for that seat in 1858 after the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. The radical “Southern Democrats” nominated the sitting vice president John Breckenridge. We are all eternally grateful, Douglas and Breckenridge split the vote and Lincoln was elected president. Breckenridge went back to the Senate, but then joined the Confederate Army. He was expelled from the Senate and is the only Senator ever convicted of treason. He went on the become general in the Confederate Army, and the Secretary of War for the Confederacy. Over the next 52 years, the Democratic Party only won two presidential elections. Grover Cleveland won split terms in 1884 and 1892.
And finally the story of Aaron Burr, a man some may see as dangerous as Donald Trump, who came within a few votes of becoming president and changing the course of history. 1800, President John Adams was running for re-election. It was a bitter election that was a threat to the country’s very existence. Adams was a Federalist. His vice president, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson was running against him. The rules for presidential electors were different than they are today. Then, each elector cast two ballots for two different candidates. The candidate with the most votes would be elected president. The runner up would be elected vice president. Seventy three votes were cast for Jefferson and seventy three were cast for Aaron Burr, his vice presidential running mate. The Democratic-Republication party had planned for one elector to abstain from voting for Burr. This would have given Jefferson one more electoral vote and the presidency. But the plan was mishandled resulting in a tie.
The Federalist controlled House of Representatives had to vote to break the tie. On the 36th ballot, with the support of Federalist Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson was elected president and Burr vice president. Jefferson went on to be one of our greatest presidents. Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a famous duel three years later. Burr also then went on to conspire with the British in an attempt to take over land west of the Mississippi River to create his own country. He was caught, tried for treason, but he was acquitted. He died in exile.
The lessons of history show us our free democratic society allows for people of all beliefs, however bigoted, hateful, or misguided to put their ideas to a vote. History also shows us that the majority of Americans want leaders to be strong, clear minded, reasonable and inclusive. The Republican Party, and maybe all of us, will have to decide what the future will be. Trump, really? Remember, there’s plenty of room in the gallery of losers.
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