Thomas Edward Watson

Thomas Edward Watson, September 5, 1856 (Thomson, Ga.)– September 26, 1922 (Washington, DC)

VP candidate for People's Party (1896)

Running mate with nominee: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1935)
Popular vote: 222,583 (1.6%)            
Electoral vote: 27/447

The campaign:

With the nomination of William Jennings Bryan the Democratic Party had managed to co-opt many issues long advocated by third parties. The Democratic ticket was endorsed by the single-issue Silver Party, but the People's Party found themselves in a bind. Would they split the vote and help elect McKinley, or would they endorse Bryan?

What they came up with was something of a compromise that in the end worked for no one. They endorsed Bryan but wished not to tolerate his corporate industrialist running mate Arthur Sewall. The Vice-Presidential nomination was given to fiery former Congressman Thomas E. Watson of Georgia. So Bryan had two running mates from two different political parties.

Bryan and Watson were reluctant comrades. The standard bearer basically ignored his Populist VP during the campaign even though Watson was active in his electioneering efforts. Watson included his rival Sewall among the targets in his political attacks.

In a result where the word "fiasco" and "debacle" are frequently used by historians, Bryan lost, Watson began his political journey into racism and religious bigotry, and the People's Party began their collapse.

Although the Bryan/Watson ticket did not garner a high percentage of popular votes, they did earn a respectable tally of 27  in the Electoral College: Arkansas 3, Louisiana 4, Missouri 4, Montana 1, Nebraska 4, North Carolina 5, South Dakota 2, Utah 1, Washington 2, Wyoming 1.

Election history:
1882- Georgia General Assembly (Democratic)
1891-1893 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (Alliance Democrat/People's Party)
1892 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (People's Party) - defeated
1894 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (People's Party) - defeated
1895 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (People's Party) - defeated
1898 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (Populist Party) - defeated
1900 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (Populist Party) - defeated
1904 - US President (Populist Party) - defeated
1908 - US President (Populist Party) - defeated
1911 - Democratic primary US Senate (Ga.) - defeated
1918 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (Democratic) - defeated
1922-1922 - US Senate (Ga.) (Democratic)

Other occupations: school teacher, attorney, presidential elector (Ga.) for Cleveland 1888, newspaper editor, magazine publisher, author, novelist. 

Buried: Thomson City Cemetery (Thomson, Ga.)

Notes:
While in Congress was one of the forces behind the creation of Rural Free Delivery (the postal RFD)
Was considered a progressive inclusionist in the 19th century but during the 20th century had shifted
 to a white supremacist, anti-Catholic, antisemitic and Nativist political stand.
He opposed America's entry into World War I and the draft which made him sympathetic to the
 Socialists (who he had earlier shunned). The Federal postal system (including RFD no doubt) ceased delivering his publications.
His father was a CSA Army wounded veteran.
Watson sent his child to Catholic school while attacking the Church at the same time.

James Gaven Field

James Gaven Field, February 24, 1826 (Walnut, Va.) – October 12, 1901 (Gordonsville, Va.)

VP candidate for People's Party (1892)

Running mate with nominee: James B. Weaver (1833-1912)
Popular vote: 1,026,595 (8.51%)             
Electoral vote: 22/444 (Nev., Colo., Idaho, Kan., N.D)

The campaign:

The People's Party platform called for a graduated income tax, popular vote of senators, public referendum, and nationalizing the railroads. Although not official platform issues, they also supported limitation of immigration and contract labor (including the Chinese, no doubt), support for the 8-hour workday, abolition of the Pinkerton detectives, and limiting the presidency to a single term.

Presidential candidate James Weaver had been in the Union Army and was part of Sherman's March to the Sea. In order to balance the ticket and attract voters in Dixie, James Gaven Field who was a former slave owner and wounded CSA soldier was selected.

The Weaver/Field ticket was among the more successful of US third party efforts. They won 22 electoral votes in five Western states and elected a number of candidates to other offices. Field's place on the ballot did not really help them in the South as they had hoped. Elements of the Democratic Party were already starting to co-opt many issues of the People's Party, or "Populists" as they were known.

Election history:
1877-1882 - Virginia Attorney General (Conservative Party)
1881 - Conservative Democratic Party nomination for Virginia Attorney General - defeated

Other occupations: teacher, clerk, attorney, Culpeper County (Va.) Attorney 1859-1861, Confederate major, assistant to the secretary of the California constitutional convention 1849, General in militia 1872, farmer,

Buried: Fairview Cemetery (Culpepper, Va.)

Notes:
Served on the staff of SCA Gen. A.P. Hill. Was wounded at Cold Harbor and lost a leg at Cedar Creek.
Baptist lay preacher.
Argued before the Supreme Court that African Americans should not be allowed to serve on juries in
 Ex Parte Virginia (1879) and lost.
Said that Grover Cleveland should be impeached in 1893.
Supported Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1900.
Appointed General of the militia in 1872 and afterward known as "Gen. Field."

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, ca. February 1818 (Cordova, Md.) – February 20, 1895 (Washington, DC)

VP candidate for Equal Rights Party (aka People's Party aka Cosmo-Political Party aka National Radical Reformers) (1872)

Running mate with nominee: Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927)
Popular vote: 0 (0%)            
Electoral vote: 0/352

The campaign:

Our brief thumbnail format cannot really give justice to just how far ahead of their time and how visionary both names on this ticket were. Even after a century and a half these two seem so modern. 

The fact that Woodhull was female and had an African-American running mate stirred up so much controversy that little notice was paid to her age-- she was too young to be President according to the requirements of the Constitution.

Douglass had no role in the campaign. He was nominated without his permission, did not participate in any electioneering for Woodhull, and apparently never made any public statement regarding being a VP candidate. On the contrary, he did some campaigning for Grant and was a presidential elector at large for New York for the Republicans.

The Woodhull/Douglass ticket did not appear on any official ballots but no doubt they did receive a number of write-in votes.

Election history:
1888 - Nomination for US President (Republican) - defeated

Other occupations: slave, preacher, abolitionist, author, newspaper publisher, human rights activist, US Ambassador to Haiti 1889-1891, US Marshal for Washington DC, Recorder of Deeds for Washington DC

Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, NY)

Notes:

Douglass quotes--

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."

"I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress."

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground."

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."

"The great fact underlying the claim for universal suffrage is that every man is himself and belongs to himself, and represents his own individuality, not only in form and features, but in thought and feeling. And the same is true of woman. She is herself, and can be nobody else than herself. Her selfhood is as perfect and as absolute as is the selfhood of man."

"Whatever the future may have in store for us, one thing is certain; this new revolution in human thought will never go backward. When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world. Such a truth is woman’s right to equal liberty with man. She was born with it. It was hers before she comprehended it. It is inscribed upon all the powers and faculties of her soul, and no custom, law, or usage can ever destroy it. Now that it has got fairly fixed in the minds of the few, it is bound to become fixed in the minds of the many, and be supported at last by a great cloud of witnesses, which no man can number and no power can withstand."