1816 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania|
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Monroe
50–60%
60–70%
70–80%
80–90%
>90% |
Independent electors
50–60%
60–70%
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A presidential election was held in Pennsylvania on November 1, 1816 as part of the 1816 United States presidential election. The Caucus ticket of the U.S. secretary of state James Monroe and the governor of New York Daniel D. Tompkins defeated the Independent ticket. The Federalist Party failed to nominate a candidate. In the national election, Monroe easily defeated the senior U.S. senator from New York Rufus King, who received 34 votes from unpledged electors despite not being a candidate.
Monroe secured the Democratic-Republican nomination at the party's quadrennial caucus in March 1816 after the withdrawal of his nearest rival, the U.S. secretary of war William H. Crawford. The caucus passed over the governor of Pennsylvania Simon Snyder in favor of Tompkins as the party's vice presidential candidate. In the aftermath of the caucus, some observers criticized Monroe's nomination by a gathering of party insiders as undemocratic and potentially unconstitutional. A convention of Independent Democrats met at Carlisle, Pennsylvania on September 19–20 and nominated a list of 21 electors in opposition to the Caucus ticket. (Four electors on the Caucus ticket were cross-endorsed by the Carlisle convention.) The Independents did not designate a presidential candidate, although many assumed the electors would vote for DeWitt Clinton. The demoralized Federalist Party did not nominate electors. Many Federalists supported the Independent ticket, while a scattering vote was cast for "truly Federal" electors in three counties.
Monroe's convincing victory in Pennsylvania rendered speculation as to the recipient of the votes of the Independent electors moot. All 25 electors on the Caucus ticket were elected, including the four cross-endorsed by the Carlisle convention. The cooperation of dissident Democrats and Federalists in support of the Independent ticket formed the basis for a coalition of Federalists and Old School Democrats in the 1817 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election.
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