1834 Indiana gubernatorial election
August 4, 1834
 
Nominee Noah Noble James G. Read
Party Whig Democratic
Popular vote 36,773 27,257
Percentage 57.4% 42.6%
Governor before election

Noah Noble
Nonpartisan

 Elected Governor

Noah Noble
Whig

The 1834 Indiana gubernatorial election took place on August 4, 1834, under the provisions of the Constitution of Indiana. It was the seventh gubernatorial election in the State of Indiana. The incumbent Whig governor Noah Noble defeated Democratic former state representative James G. Read. The election took place concurrently with elections for lieutenant governor and members of the Indiana General Assembly. This was the first gubernatorial election in Indiana contested on a partisan basis.[1]

Noble was elected in 1831, defeating Read and outgoing Lieutenant Governor Milton Stapp in a three-way race to succeed the retiring governor James B. Ray. In office, he aligned himself with the Anti-Jacksonian faction in state politics that in 1834 organized itself as the Whig Party. The Jacksonians, now calling themselves "Democratic Republicans" or "Democrats," nominated Read at a state convention in Indianapolis. Noble benefited from rapid population growth and economic expansion in the early 1830s that more than provided for the state's meagre expenses. He defeated Read by a convincing margin, carrying 51 of the state's 69 counties.[2]

This was the first gubernatorial election of the Second Party System in Indiana. The preceding election of 1831, and all previous elections, had been contested on a nonpartisan basis. Both candidates campaigned personally and with gusto. Noble benefited from the support of Democrats who favored the candidacy of a Westerner such as Richard Mentor Johnson for president in 1836 as well as the united support of the Whigs. Whigs interpreted Noble's victory as foreshadowing the defeat of Martin Van Buren in the coming presidential election. (Indiana's electoral votes would in fact go to the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, who nevertheless lost the national election to Van Buren.)[3]

Nominations

Whig nomination

The Whig Party in Indiana grew out of the Anti-Jacksonian faction who prior to 1834 called themselves Adams or Clay men. They were sometimes called National Republicans as one faction of the Jeffersonian Republican Party that split during the contentious 1824 United States presidential election. The national Whig movement was a conglomerate of American System nationalists, Nullifiers or state rights men, and Anti-Masons opposed to the influence of secret societies that supposedly undermined republican egalitarianism. In Indiana, National Republicans were by far the largest element of the new party; the Anti-Masonic candidates had received almost no votes in the state in 1832 United States presidential election and the Nullifiers none at all.[4]

Indiana Whigs did not hold a state convention ahead of the gubernatorial election. Noble was widely acknowledged as the favorite candidate of the Whigs but still saw benefit in maintaining the public appearance of nonpartisanship. His campaign was supported by the Whig partisan press alongside Lieutenant Governor David Wallace and the Whig legislative slate.[5]

Democratic nomination

Delegates from forty counties met at Indianapolis on December 9, 1833, to nominate a candidate for governor. The call for a state convention of Hoosier Jacksonians had been issued by the editor of the Indiana Democrat, Alexander F. Morrison, who declared the "paramount interests" of the country demanded "concert of action" among loyal Jacksonians. Calling themselves the "Democratic Republican" convention, the gathering was the first of its kind in Indiana politics. (In earlier elections, candidates for governor had prevailed on friendly editors to place their names before the public without recourse to party conventions.) James G. Read was nominated on the second ballot with 50 out of 72 votes, defeating Jacob B. Lowe of Monroe County. Lowe then moved that the nomination be made unanimous in order to reflect the unity of Hoosier Democrats heading into the spring campaign.[6]

Gubernatorial ballot[7]
1st2nd
James G. Read 30 50
Jacob B. Lowe 20 19
Gamaliel Taylor 8 0
Jonathan McCarty 6 0
James P. Drake 5 0
John Wesley Davis 2 0
Scattering 3 3

Campaign

While Noble wrote to Read in April to propose that neither candidate actively canvass votes, this agreement was largely ignored and soon forgotten. As both men were broadly in agreement on the major issues before the state, the campaign centered on issues of character. Whigs trumpeted Noble's nonpartisanship in awarding half of official appointments to members of the opposition party and savaged Read for having been nominated by a gathering of corrupt office-seekers and partisan apparatchiks. Democrats countered that Noble's first election had been secured by the influence of "political aristocrats" and party managers, contrasted with the more democratic mode of a state convention. Both parties accused the opposition of appealing for votes on a partisan basis and suggested that discerning voters would doubtless judge their candidate the more deserving choice.[8]

Results

Noble defeated Read by an overwhelming margin of more than 9,000 votes. He carried 51 counties to 18 for Read, the latter of whose support was concentrated in the southern and western part of the state. Democrats attributed Noble's victory to crossover voting stemming from the governor's personal popularity, while Whigs interpreted the results as a show of support for Whig policies.[9]

1831 Indiana gubernatorial election[10][11]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Whig Noah Noble 36,773 57.43% +11.82
Democratic James Gray Read 27,257 42.57% +1.84
Independent Christopher Harrison 1 0.00%
Total votes 64,031 100.00%

Results by county

Noah Noble
Whig		 James G. Read
Democratic		 County total
County Votes Percent Votes Percent Votes
Allen 246 68.72 112 31.28 358
Bartholomew 657 51.01 631 48.99 1,288
Boone 244 51.80 227 48.20 471
Carroll 272 44.16 344 55.84 616
Cass 449 89.44 53 10.56 502
Clark 672 41.66 941 58.34 1,613
Clay 60 15.27 333 84.73 393
Clinton 310 63.52 178 36.48 488
Crawford 300 60.24 198 39.76 498
Daviess 338 45.68 402 54.32 740
Dearborn 1,293 55.45 1,039 44.55 2,332
Decatur 869 72.72 326 27.28 1,195
Delaware 297 64.57 163 35.43 460
Dubois 82 24.77 249 75.23 331
Elkhart[lower-alpha 1] 172 59.11 119 40.89 291
Fayette 945 62.21 574 37.79 1,519
Floyd 588 66.44 297 33.56 885
Fountain 655 44.41 820 55.59 1,475
Franklin 1,061 73.43 384 26.57 1,445
Gibson 502 50.40 494 49.60 996
Grant 111 73.51 40 26.49 151
Greene 342 43.29 448 56.71 790
Hamilton 366 68.16 171 31.84 537
Hancock 295 53.15 260 46.85 555
Harrison 665 47.84 725 52.16 1,390
Hendricks 552 57.32 411 42.68 963
Henry 984 72.04 382 27.96 1,366
Huntington 257 89.55 30 10.45 287
Jackson 383 39.90 577 60.10 960
Jefferson 1,021 59.71 689 40.29 1,710
Jennings 435 57.54 321 42.46 756
Johnson 511 57.54 440 42.45 951
Knox[lower-alpha 2] 700 61.62 435 38.29 1,136
LaGrange 97 64.24 54 35.76 151
LaPorte 328 68.62 150 31.38 478
Lawrence 618 68.62 533 31.38 1,151
Madison 532 79.64 132[lower-alpha 3] 19.76 668
Marion 1,020 56.79 776 43.21 1,796
Martin 105 25.99 299 74.01 404
Miami 70 77.78 20 22.22 90
Monroe 548 44.88 673 55.12 1,221
Montgomery 859 64.83 466 35.17 1,325
Morgan 712 54.77 488 45.23 1,300
Orange 383 35.63 692 64.37 1,075
Owen 306 44.22 386 55.78 692
Parke 687 51.23 654 48.77 1,341
Perry 325 80.65 78 19.35 403
Pike 182 39.39 280 60.61 462
Posey 415 36.47 722 63.53 1,138
Putnam 854 53.31 748 46.69 1,602
Randolph 432 75.79 138 24.21 570
Ripley 741 75.61 239 24.39 980
Rush 1,219 63.39 704 36.61 1,923
St. Joseph 348 78.03 98 21.97 446
Scott 304 51.09 291 48.91 595
Shelby 872 63.93 492 36.07 1,364
Spencer 240 59.55 163 40.45 403
Sullivan 242 28.64 603 71.36 845
Switzerland 793 72.75 297 27.25 1,090
Tippecanoe 904 60.23 597 39.77 1,501
Union 709 55.91 559 44.09 1,268
Vanderburgh 243 54.12 206 45.88 449
Vermillion 563 55.30 455 44.70 1,018
Vigo 939 76.22 293 23.78 1,232
Warren 443 68.26 206 31.74 649
Warrick 173 38.79 273 61.21 446
Washington 658 38.43 1,053 61.57 1,712
Wayne 2,225 79.38 578 20.62 2,803
White 50 64.10 28 35.90 78
TOTAL 36,773 57.43 27,257 42.57 64,031

Notes

  1. ↑ The official returns do not include the votes of one township, rejected by the county clerk, where the vote was 39 for Read and 24 for Noble.
  2. ↑ Christopher Harrison received one vote in Knox County.
  3. ↑ 24 ballots intended for Read misspelled the candidate's name as "James B. Read" or "James C. Read" and were counted separately.

References

  1. ↑ Riker and Thornbrough, 143
  2. ↑ Carmony, 146-52
  3. ↑ Foughty; Carmony, 152
  4. ↑ Holt, 35; Carmony, 150
  5. ↑ Carmony, 151-52
  6. ↑ Carmony, 150-51
  7. ↑ "Indiana State Convention". Indiana Palladium. January 18, 1834.
  8. ↑ Carmony, 152
  9. ↑ Carmony, 152-53
  10. ↑ Capitol & Washington
  11. ↑ Riker and Thornbrough, pp. 143-45

Bibliography

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