Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-h6p2m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-03T07:11:19.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Growth of Third-Party Voting: An Empirical Case Study of Vermont, 1840–55

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Adam Chamberlain
Adam Chamberlain*
Affiliation:
Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, USA
*
Adam Chamberlain, Department of Politics and Geography, Coastal Carolina University, P.O. Box 261954, Conway, SC 29528, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article seeks to uncover reasons behind the relatively high levels of third-party voting found at the state level in the early- to mid-1800s. I argue that third parties needed to develop localized bases of support from which they could expand. By analyzing Liberty Party gubernatorial voting in Vermont during the 1840s, the article shows that the party developed support in particular towns, maintained this over election cycles, and spread the party message to neighboring towns after the creation of a formal party organization. I also find that towns with strong Liberty Party support in the early 1840s continued to be strong supporters of the Free Soil Party in the 1850s. I then present evidence that early bases of Liberty Party support tended to vote at much higher levels for the Republican Party in 1855, indicating that the geographic development of an abolitionist party in the early 1840s helped in the establishment of Republican success in Vermont. These findings highlight the importance of geographic context in the development of third-party voting in the early- to mid-1800s and its connection to the rise of the Republican Party.

Keywords

Minor partiesVermontparty developmentLiberty PartyFree Soil Party
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 343 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Neal, and Brox, Brian J.. 2005. “The Roots of Third Party Voting: The 2000 Nader Campaign in Historical Perspective.” Party Politics 11(5): 623–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AmericanRails.com. n.d. “Vermont Railroads and Railfanning in the ‘Green Mountain State.‘” http://www.american-rails.com/vermont-railroads.html (Accessed August 25, 2011).Google Scholar
Bates, Frank G. 1912. “Village Government in New England.” The American Political Science Review 6(3): 367–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berelson, B., Lazarsfeld, P. F., and McPhee, W. N.. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bryan, Frank M. 2004. Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brynn, Edward P. 1970. “Vermont's Political Vacuum of 1845-1856 and the Emergence of the Republican Party.” Vermont History 38(3): 113–23.Google Scholar
Carson, Jamie L., Engstrom, Erik J., and Roberts, Jason M.. 2006. “Redistricting, Candidate Entry, and the Politics of Nineteenth-Century U.S. House Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 50(2): 283–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeCanio, Samuel. 2007. “Religion and Nineteenth-Century Voting Behavior: A New Look at Some Old Data.” The Journal of Politics 69(2): 339–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
FairVote. 1999. “Final Report of the Vermont Commission to Study Instant Runoff Voting.” Appendix D. www.fairvote.org/irv/vermont/d_history.htm (Accessed June 11, 2009).Google Scholar
“The Freeman for Six Months.” Green Mountain Freeman. April 4, 1845.Google Scholar
Gaines, Brian J., and Tam Cho, Wendy K.. 2004. “On California's 1920 Alien Land Law: The Psychology and Economics of Racial Discrimination.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 4(3): 271–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirano, Shigeo, and Snyder, James M. Jr. 2007. “The Decline of Third Party Voting in the United States.” The Journal of Politics 69(1): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, Michael F. 1999. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Howe, Edward T. 2005. “Vermont Incorporated Villages: A Vanishing Institution.” Vermont History 73:16–39.Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert. 1979. “Political Participation and the Neighborhood Social Context.” American Journal of Political Science 23(3): 579–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert. 1986. Politics in Context: Assimilation and Conflict in Urban Neighborhoods. New York: Agathon Press.Google Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert, and Sprague, John. 1987. “Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information.” The American Political Science Review 81(4): 1197–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Daniel B. and Fielding, Gordon J.. 1991. “Private Toll Roads: Learning from the Nineteenth Century.” Working Paper 91-14, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine.Google Scholar
Kramer, Gerald H. 1983. “The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate- versus Individual-Level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting.” The American Political Science Review 77(1): 92–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulldorff, Martin. 1997. “A Spatial Scan Statistic.” Communications in Statistics: Theory and Methods 26:1481–96.Google Scholar
Kulldorff, Martin, and Information Management Services. 2006. “SaTScan™ v7.0: Software for the Spatial and Space-Time Scan Statistics.” www.satscan.org (Accessed July 18, 2009).Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard, and Gaudet, Hazel. 1948. The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Election. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ludlum, David M. 1939. Social Ferment in Vermont, 1791-1850. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markowtiz, Debra. n.d. “Untitled Document on the 1853 Election and the Selection of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Treasurer.” Vermont. archives.org/govhistory/governance/Majority/pdf/1853.pdf (Accessed June 11, 2009).Google Scholar
McNall, Neil A. 1938. Anti-slavery sentiment in Vermont, 1777-1861. [Master's Thesis.] University of Vermont.Google Scholar
McPherson, James M. 1963. “The Fight Against the Gag Rule: Joshua Leavitt and Antislavery Insurgency in the Whig Party, 1839-1842.” The Journal of Negro History 48(3): 177–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrow, R. L. 1929. “The Liberty Party in Vermont.” The New England Quarterly 2(2): 234–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Orange County Convention.” Green Mountain Freeman. January 24, 1844.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 1966. “Political Attitudes and the Local Community.” The American Political Science Review 60(3): 640–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., Behr, Roy L., and Lazarus, Edward H.. 1996. Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schraufnagel, Scot. 2011. Third Party Blues: The Truth and Consequences of Two-Party Dominance. New York: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Sewell, Richard H. 1976. Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silbey, J. H. [1983] 1985. “‘There Are Other Questions Beside That of Slavery Merely’: The Democratic Party and Antislavery Politics.” In The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics Before the Civil War, ed. Silbey, J. H.. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silbey, Joel H. 1985. The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics Before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silbey, Joel H. 1991. The American Political Nation, 1838-1893. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
State Archives of Vermont Online. n.d. Gubernatorial Inaugural and Farewell Addresses. vermont-archives.org/govhistory/gov/govinaug/index.htm (Accessed July 18, 2009).Google Scholar
“State Convention.” Green Mountain Freeman. January 24, 1845.Google Scholar
Tobler, Waldo. 1970. “A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region.” Economic Geography 46(June): 234–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar