1856 United States presidential election (Train Crash)

The 1856 United States presidential election was the 18th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1856. Republican and Opposition nominee, senator Henry Wilson from Massachusetts, defeated the incumbent Democratic president David Rice Atchison.

Slavery was the main issue of the election, especially following the failure of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to pass the house and Atchison's admission via executive order of Kansas directly as a slave-state. Stronger opposition had formed in response; the Republican Party formed in the Northern United States, while the Opposition Party found it's strongest support base among northern moderates and southern unionists. They both formed a singular coalition to elect a speaker, Nathaniel P. Banks in the house following the 1854 and 1855 elections.

Incumbent president Atchison faced strong opposition at the Democratic National Convention, most notably from disaffected northerners. Senator Stephen A. Douglas became the leader of the opposition, criticizing Atchison in his failure to pass Kansas-Nebraska and calling for popular sovereignty to be used in it's stead. Minister to Great Britain and former United States Secretary of State James Buchanan, who appealed to delegates due to his absence from national politics for the past three years, also mounted a challenge. Atchison was eventually nominated on the 22nd ballot, and southern delegates nominated Mississippi representative John A. Quitman for the vice presidency.

At the Republican National Convention, New York Senator William H. Seward was presumed to be the nominee following the Caning of Senator Charles Sumner. However, after Speaker of the House Nathaniel P. Banks entered the race, the convention quickly became deadlocked. On the eighth ballot, however, compromise candidate Henry Wilson, the junior Senator from Massachusetts emerged, eventually triumphing on the eleventh ballot. In a concession to the Opposition Party, he nominated Virginian unionist John S. Carlile for the Vice Presidency. The Opposition Party co-endorsed Wilson, forming an alliance for him to run on in a few of the slave states, such as Tennessee.

This was the first time since Martin Van Buren in 1840 that an incumbent president lost re-election.

Background
President-elect Franklin Pierce died along with his eleven year old child, Benjamin, when while riding to Boston in a train along with his family, when it derailed and rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. His wife survived, Jane Pierce survived. Confusion gripped the country; eventually, the decision was made to inaugurate his vice president, William R. King in his stead. However, a little over a month after, King passed away as well. A power struggle gripped congress and the country between the Speaker of the House and notably more moderate Linn Boyd, and President Pro Tempore pro-slavery firebrand David Rice Atchison. A month and a few days later, Atchison eventually prevailed, being sworn in as president.

His top priority thus became to secure the entrance of Kansas as a slave state into the union; he also clashed with both the Spanish Empire and the British Empire in the Caribbean and Central America respectively. His administration also managed to force through the Gadsden Purchase, and issued the Ostend Manifesto, which caused a diplomatic crisis which America eventually backed down from.

From the start of the administration, Atchison was an unpopular president due to him being seen as a massive accident and a crooked political dealer. This was only accelerated with the failure of the Kansas-Nebraska Act due to his lack of satisfaction with him wishing for Kansas to instead be admitted immediately as a slave state, which was done by executive order. This had made him even more widely disliked and seen by many as a massive failure outside the south. This can be seen in his narrow victory at the Democratic convention for 1856, which by many was considered a shocking display of weakness.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, formed in the aftermath of the 1854 and 1855 elections to the house which displayed the need for a unified opposition force to the Democrats. Those who viewed the Republicans as too radical at the time, particularly Know Nothing's in Southern states, instead joined the Opposition Party and formed a coalition to control the House of Representatives, the first and only time this has happened in the United States.

Republican Party nomination
Republican candidates:
 * Henry Wilson, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
 * Nathaniel P. Banks, Speaker of the House from Massachusetts
 * William H. Seward, U.S. senator from New York

Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates:
 * David Rice Atchison, President of the United States
 * James Buchanan, Minister to Great Britain and former Secretary of State
 * Stephen Douglas, U.S. Senator from Illinois