page_title: John M. Palmer (politician)
section_title: Postbellum career
hierarchical_section_title: John M. Palmer (politician) / Postbellum career
caption_attribution_description: John McAuley Palmer, Gov. of Illinois, 1869-1873
context_page_description: John McAuley Palmer was an Illinois resident, an American Civil War General who fought for the Union, the 15th Governor of Illinois, and presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party in the 1896 election on a platform to defend the gold standard, free trade, and limited government.
  Palmer switched political parties throughout his life, starting out a Democrat. He became in turn an anti-Nebraska Democrat, a Republican, a Liberal Republican, returned to being a Democrat, then ended as a Bourbon Democrat. He said, "I had my own views. I was not a slave of any party," and added, "I thought for myself and [have] spoken my own words on all occasions."
context_section_description: In 1866, he resigned from the Army and two years later was elected Governor of Illinois as a candidate of the Republican Party.  He succeeded fellow Republican, General Richard James Oglesby. He was succeeded in turn by Oglesby in 1873. In the Presidential election of 1872, Governor Palmer received three electoral votes for vice president by electors who had voted for the Liberal Republican Party's Vice Presidential candidate B. Gratz Brown for president after the death of Horace Greeley. In 1890, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and served one term.
  Mrs. Palmer Weber, the daughter of Senator Palmer, spent considerable time in Washington City during her father's senatorial term, where her beauty, grace and geniality made her very popular.
caption: John McAuley Palmer
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