Their candidate was a bearded explorer of the American West and among the most admired men of his time. ... we can see that the disagreement in the 1856 election was relatively narrow.

Surprising Fact. The 1856 speaker election was so impassioned, it turned violent: In late January 1856, as the election approached the two-month mark, Democrat Albert Rust, an Arkansas politician ...

An early version of modern-day America was already visible in June 1856. At a music hall in Philadelphia, delegates of the recently founded Republican Party gathered for their convention and chose ...

Many Americans already are weary after hearing from bloviating candidates for the presidency a year and a half before the 2016 election. Presidential campaigns were considerably quieter in the ...

On this day in 1856, the Know-Nothings convened in Philadelphia to nominate their first presidential ticket. In November, their candidates — Millard Fillmore, a former one-term president, and ...

As we stagger through this year’s uninspiring presidential campaign, it might help to look back at the election of 1856, when, for the first time, the West yielded a presidential candidate. His ...