page_title: John M. Palmer (politician)
section_title: Defending the gold standard
hierarchical_section_title: John M. Palmer (politician) / Postbellum career / Defending the gold standard
caption_attribution_description: GLOBE EXTRA LATEST. GOLD DEMOCRATS CHEER. Delegates to the Indianapolis Convention Get a Warm Welcome Home. Headline and drawing about the 1896 Gold Democratic Convention
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: Palmer was the presidential candidate for the National Democratic Party in the 1896 election.  The National Democratic Party was a conservative splinter group opposed to the free-silver platform of the regular Democratic Party and its nominee, William Jennings Bryan. His running mate on this "Gold Democratic" ticket was Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., a former Confederate general and governor of Kentucky. The National Democratic Party ticket received the coveted endorsement of the New York Times.
  The party arose out of a split in the Democratic Party due to the economic depression that occurred under Democratic president Grover Cleveland. At the 1896 presidential convention, one of Palmer's main Illinois rivals was Governor John Peter Altgeld, who succeeded in getting his own candidate, former Illinoisan William Jennings Bryan, nominated for the presidency. The currency issue dominated the campaign, blurring party lines. Eastern Democrats, unable to accept the party's free-silver platform and unwilling to support McKinley for his tariff views, created their own political party and nominated Palmer as their own candidate.
  Palmer opposed free silver, which was a plan to place the value of silver to gold at a 16-to-1 ratio, and then to tie the U.S. dollar to that value.  Palmer noted that this plan ran contrary to the world market value of silver and gold, which was about 32 to 1.  But, with Altgeld and Bryan in control of the Democratic convention, free silver won the day. Palmer believed it would have ruined the American economy, and he ran for president for a third party that was a breakaway group of Democrats.  In waging this quixotic campaign, he was a key figure in the "last stand" of classical liberalism as a political movement in the 19th century.
  Palmer and the other founders were disenchanted Democrats who viewed the party as a means to preserve the small-government ideals of Thomas Jefferson and Grover Cleveland, which they believed had been betrayed by Bryan. In its first official statement, the executive committee of the party declared, the Democrats had believed "in the ability of every individual, unassisted, if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness" and had upheld his "right and opportunity peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same right and opportunity. [They] stood for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are implied by the century-old battle-cry of the Democratic party, 'Individual Liberty'" The party criticized both the inflationist policies of the Democrats and the protectionism of the Republicans.
  Palmer's campaign platform was popular and he could have been a major factor in the election had he been younger, but few voters were willing to support a 79-year-old candidate. Although he could have made up for this with a youthful running mate, he instead chose 73-year-old Simon Bolivar Buckner, in part because it was thought that the idea of two former generals, one Union and one Confederate, teamed up would emphasize national unity and ease the still-lingering resentment in the South from the Civil War. The two displayed a good amount of energy for their age and embarked on a busy campaign schedule, but most supporters of the ideals of the National Democratic Party probably voted for McKinley because of his support of the gold standard. Palmer and Buckner received just over 1% of the vote.
  Palmer died of a heart attack in Springfield, Illinois on September 25, 1900 and was interred in the City Cemetery in Carlinville, Illinois.
  John M. Palmer Elementary School, located at 5051 North Kenneth Avenue on the northwest side of Chicago was named in his honor.
caption: The National "Gold" Democratic Convention
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