Charles Jones Jenkins, January 6, 1805 (Beaufort, SC) – June 14, 1883 (Augusta, Ga.)
VP candidate for Union Party 1852
Running mate with nominee: Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
Popular vote: 6,994 (0.22%)
Electoral vote: 0/296
The campaign:
The short-lived Union Party consisted mostly of Whigs from the Southern States who could not accept Winfield Scott as the mainstream Whig nominee. They nominated US Sec. of State Daniel Webster of Massachusetts for President with Jenkins as his running mate. Webster did not seek this nomination, nor did he protest it. Webster was also nominated by the Native American Party but with a different running mate.
In spite of the fact Webster died 9 days before the election on Oct. 24, 1852, the Webster/Jenkins ticket was still on the ballot in their homes states where they polled 5,324 (8.50%) in Georgia and 1,670 (1.31%) in Massachusetts.
Election history:
1830 - Georgia House of Representatives (States' Rights Democrat)
1831-1834 - Attorney General of Georgia
1834 - Georgia House of Representatives - defeated
1836-1841- Georgia House of Representatives (Whig)
1842 - Georgia House of Representatives (Whig) - defeated
1843 - Georgia House of Representatives (Whig)
1845 - Georgia House of Representatives (Whig)
1847 - Georgia House of Representatives (Whig)
1849-1850 - Georgia House of Representatives (Whig)
1853 - Governor of Georgia (Union Party) - defeated
1856 - Georgia State Senate (Union Party)
1865-1868 - Governor of Georgia (Conservative/Democratic)
Other occupations: attorney, Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia 1860-1866, President of the Georgia State Constitutional Convention of 1877, University of Georgia Trustee 1871-1883
Buried: Summerville Cemetery (Augusta, Ga.)
Notes:
Author of the Georgia Platform which supported the Compromise of 1850.
Fled Georgia and the governorship, taking the State Seal with him, during Reconstruction. During 18 months of his exile status he lived in Europe and returned to Georgia in 1870.
Two presidential electors from Georgia pledged to Horace Greeley in the 1872 election cast their votes for Jenkins due to Greeley's death before the Electoral College met.
Jenkins County. Ga. created 1905 is named in his honor.
Speaker of the Georgia House 1840, 1843, 1845, 1847.
Presbyterian.
Declined an offer for Sec. of Interior by President Fillmore in 1851
Was considered for the position of CSA Attorney General
Initially opposed secession but supported it after the Civil War began.
