Woodrow Wilson's 1916 presidential campaign and the "He Kept Us Out of War" strategy

Presidential Campaign

revolves under the presidential leadership from its formation. The presidential candidate has to undergo an electoral process so that they are declared winners. The nation has faced challenges like the world wars and even the civil wars due to differences in ideologies. The paper is going to cover U.S. political campaign of President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 as well as how this campaign differs from that of 1912? U.S. political campaign of President Lincoln in 1864 and its strongest factor. In what ways are the Wilson election and the Lincoln elections similar? How does the threat of World War I affect Wilson's campaign? And how did the threat of Civil War affect Lincoln's campaign.

U.S. political campaign of President Woodrow Wilson in 1916

Campaign in Europe was dominated by fighting. The campaign for Woodrow Wilson's re-election was based on a pledge of continued neutrality in the Great War within Europe. He was using a campaign slogan "He Kept Us out of war" which was highly popular, Leary, William M., Jr. (1967). A program of higher mobilization and preparedness was promoted by Hughes, a section of pro-Wilson newspaper alleged that, in any case Hughes was elected, he had the intension of involving the American into war. Since there was a fruitful pressure on Germans from Wilson so that to stop submarine war without restriction, it proves to be hard for Hughes to invade the peace platform of Wilson, Link, Arthur Stanley (1954).

More criticism came from Hughes towards the intervention of military within Mexico, in which U.S. backed many factions in a civil war. Other attacks which Hughes applied against Wilson were; due to the fact that Wilson backed many pro-labor laws like shortening the working days to just eight hours from the basis that they had effect to the interest of the business, Link, Arthur Stanley (1965). Nevertheless, these criticisms had less impact, more so to the factory workers who gave that support to these laws. Whatever assisted Hughes was the famous former President Theodore Roosevelt, as well the reason that the republican were the greater in number within the nation during that time. There was a major mistake which was committed by Hughes in California, prior to the election, Hughes carried out his campaign all over the state. At the time he was in Long Beach, he made his stay in the same hotel as Hiram Johnson (the states' powerful Republican Governor. Hughes might have not been having idea of the presence of Johnson within the hotel, and he appeared not to greet Johnson in the hotel suite. Due to this, John considered this as intentional snub and did not give his full support to Hughes. There was extreme narrow loss by Hughes in California which might have been caused by this.

The night of election, Hughes was leading within the states of Eastern and Midwestern, which made various newspaper to announce him as the winner, though Wilson turn down the idea of conceding, and while results from the West as well as South came in, Wilson made a comeback and at the end he was the one that took the lead, Pusey, Merlo J. (1951). California proved to be the major state since the vote were won 3,800 against million casted. This proved to be one of the closest electoral votes within the history of American having just 266 remaining vote for a win. From a famous legend of 1916 campaign, indicates that Hughes retired to bed while having in mind that he had already won during the night of election.

The next morning when he was tried to be telephoned about the sudden change, an unknown identity answered the telephone and informed the reporter that the President is asleep, the reporter answered that when he wakes up, he is to be informed that he was not the President. Even though Wilson had the lead in three states he lost in 1912 (Utah, Washington and California) Milkis, Sidney M (2009). Not only Wilson is the first President to win re- election by a small margin in his second election as compared to first election but James Madison also with a small margin, won the re-election as compared to his first election, Lovell, S.D. (1980).

United States Presidential election of 1864

During the election of 1864 in the United States, Abraham Lincoln was the one re-elected as the president. Under the National Union, Lincoln ran against his former top civil war general, George B. McClellan, who was a democrat candidate. Even though McClellan was the "peace candidate" he did not individually believed in the platform of his party, Harold M. Dudley (1932). Though at the time of his 1864 election, when the civil war was still going on, people did not view Lincoln as the majestic figure like the way he was. At some point, most of the people from the North were fed up with the civil war. A number of them knew that the civil war was going to last for a few weeks only, yet 1864 was the third year ever seen of bloodiest affair within America.

Most of the people had anticipation of removing Lincoln, since they argued that Lincoln did not handle the job correctly. Main military victories were not present from the North as well as inflation which were caused by high cost of war. Lincoln was experiencing the fear that sometimes he was not going to be re-elected for the second time. "Lincoln's Shoes" which was a political cartoon, facilitated people to think critically, where they asked themselves that "if not Lincoln for presidency then who else? The demonstrations from the cartoon indicated that Lincoln was larger as compared to life persona, as he emerges as a sleeping giant in background of the cartoon. At the foreground, people seems to be smaller than as they appear as compared to Lincoln and they are trying to measure his shoes which seems to be very taller as compared to all of them, Nelson, Larry E.(1980).

The intensions of the cartoon were to poke fun at people who were targeting the presidential seat. The cartoon had their significance since they portrayed that there was nobody who could take the country out of the civil war except Lincoln. Though people believed that he mishandles the war, no apparent and clear alternative was there to Lincoln. This attributed to the re-election of Lincoln, and this shows a bigger theme to the American presidency. It portrays that rarely does the incumbent president loses at the times of war. Among the Lincolns slogan which were famous was "Don't Change Horses in the middle of the stream"

Nevertheless, most of the military as well as political events contributed to the Lincoln's re-election inevitable. Firstly, democrats were supposed to confront the relentless internal strain in the party at the Democratic National Convention. The campaign of McClellan was inconsistence and difficult due to the contradictions of the political compromises which were made at the Democratic National Convention. Secondly, Fremont's campa andign was influenced by Democratic National Convention. Within the Democratic platform, Fremont was appalled, which is described as "union with Slavery." Because of discussion with Cochrane plus his supporters, in September 1864, Fremont took a decision of withdrawal out of the race. He indicated that it was very important to win the civil war, even though he still believed that Lincoln could never go far away, the greatest necessity was the defeat of McClellan. A war democrat called General Cochrane accepted and then withdraws; Fremont stopped his political campaign and immediately he brokered a political deal where Lincoln removed U.S. postmaster general from office. After his withdrawal from the presidential election, the chances of McClellan victory faded, Paludan, Phillip Shaw (1994).

Thirdly, since there was the fall of Atlanta on September 2, a question that Union military victory was close at hand and inevitable was no longer in existence. And finally there was mobilization by the Union Party on the full strength of War Democrats and the Republicans under the label Union having the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of a stream" This was energized when the emancipation was being made the central issue by Lincoln, then GOP parties of the state emphasized the perfidy of the Copperheads. The strongest factor was the civil war which people were fed up of, since it lasted not as the way they expected, Randall, James G. And Richard N.(19550),

This election was somehow not the same as the previous election of 1912, where the 1912 elections were made of splitting of the Republicans leading to an easy loss to their opponent while in 1916, they had to come together and this made them to win the election. Economy in terms of businesses was put forward as a campaign tool for 1912, while coming out of the war was the main focused as a tool for the campaign. The elections for 1912 left out women, Howland, Harold (July 2001.

Similarities of the Wilson election and the Lincoln election

Both the campaigns used media as a means of wooing their votes by exposing their oppositions to criticism like, Wilson used newspaper to criticize Hughes while Lincoln uses news in terms of cartoon to show that no one was capable of taking his part, White, Jonathan W.(2004). All the campaigns were based on delivering people from a war, for example, Lincoln was to deliver the people from the civil war while Wilson was not to take people to another world war. The two campaigns involved a re-election and all of them resulted into a win against their oppositions.

How does the threat of World War I affect Wilson's campaign

Due to the fact that people did not want to be involved in the world war again, they needed a leader who was not going to take them into war. Wilson was peaceful while people saw Hughes as a person who was going to take them into war. This made Wilson to win. Republican which was being led by Theodore Roosevelt, strongly disapproves of Wilson denial to built up the U.S. Army looking forward to the threat of the war. Wilson managed to win the support of the peace element, more so to churches and women, stressing that an army build up was going to provoke war. William Jennings Bryan who was the secretary of state resigned in 1915, after his pacific recommendations were ignored by Wilson. Wilson carried out peace mediation on December 18, 1915, though was unsuccessful. At the beginning he asked each side to make their minimum terms essential to act as a security later. Allies wanted the enemies' empire to be dismembered, while the Central power reacted that victory was definite. There was no existence of desire for peace or common ground making the offer to elapse.

At the time when German submarines were killing sailors plus civilian passengers, Wilson gave demands to Germans to cease from that, though made the U.S. To be out of the war. The Britain gave a declaration of blocking of Germans so that the neutral ships could not be able to carry contraband foods to Germany. There was protest by Wilson against violation of neutral rights and nobody was killed. Since the protests were mild, the British had in their mind that America was going to see it as a casus belt.

Conclusion

Most elections are won by the one of the contestant if one manages to convince the people that the problem which is existing at that time is going to be dealt with convincingly. The weight of the criticism that that will be imposed on one another will also determine whether people are dissatisfied with the criticized contestant. The media also contributes a lot to the making an individual famous in terms of showing one's potential. The power which is existing at that moment tends to have upper hand of winning the election because of the already made influence within the state.

Work cited

Donald, David Herbert, Jean Harvey Baker, & Michael F. Holt, The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), 2001, 427.

Harold M. Dudley. "The Election of 1864," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Mar., 1932), pp. 500 -- 518 full text in JSTOR

Howland, Harold . "Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, a Chronicle of the Progressive Movement" (TXT, ZIP). Project Gutenberg. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2724. Retrieved 2006-12-23, July 2001.

Leary, William M., Jr. (1967). "Woodrow Wilson, Irish-Americans, and the Election of 1916." The Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians) 54 (1): 57 -- 72. doi:10.2307/1900319. JSTOR 1900319.

Link, Arthur Stanley. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910 -- 1917. New York: Harper. (1954)

Link, Arthur Stanley). Wilson: Campaigns For Progressivism and Peace 1916 -- 1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (1965)

Lovell, S.D. The Presidential Election of 1916. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0809309653. (1980).

Milkis, Sidney M. Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy (University Press of Kansas, 2009

Nelson, Larry E. Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric: Confederate Policy for the United States Presidential Contest of 1864. University of Alabama Press, 1980.

Paludan, Phillip Shaw . The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (University Press of Kansas,(1994) pp 274 -- 293

Pusey, Merlo J. Charles Evans Hughes. 1. New York: Macmillan.(1951)

Randall, James G. And Richard N. Current. Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure. Vol. 4 of Lincoln the President. 1955.

Vorenberg, Michael. "The Deformed Child': Slavery and the Election of 1864" Civil War History 2001 47(3): 240-257. ISSN 0009-8078 full text in JSTOR.

Winther, Oscar O. "The Soldier Vote in the Election of 1864," New York History, 25: 440-58, 1944.

White, Jonathan W.(2004) "Canvassing the Troops: the Federal Government and the Soldiers' Right to Vote" Civil War History 50(3): 291-317. ISSN 0009-8078

Presidential Election campaign in U.S.