John M . Palmer ( politician ) John McAuley Palmer ( September 13 , 1817September 25 , 1900 ) , 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 ( against state sovereignty on slavery ) , 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 . " Early life and career . Born at Eagle Creek in Scott County , Kentucky , Palmer ' s family in 1831 moved to Alton , Illinois . They were very poor , but he later worked his way through college . In 1839 , he was admitted to the bar in that state . Palmer married Malinda Ann Neely in 1842 and had ten children with her . His early careers included being a lawyer , school teacher , coopering , and selling clocks . Palmer was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1848 . Between 1852 and 1855 , he was a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate , but joined the Republican party upon its organization and became one of its leaders in Illinois . He presided over the 1856 Illinois Republican Convention in Bloomington that founded the party in his home state . In 1859 he was the Republican candidate in a special election to a vacancy in the 36th Congress caused by the death of Thomas L . Harris , but he was defeated by John A . McClernand . He later became a Republican presidential elector in 1860 , and was one of the leading people who got his friend Abraham Lincoln nominated for the presidency at the national convention in Chicago . In 1861 , he was appointed by Lincoln to be a delegate to the peace convention in Washington . It failed when no compromise could be reached . Civil War . During the American Civil War , Palmer served in the Union army , rising from the rank of colonel to that of major general in the volunteer service . He enlisted in 1861 and was commissioned Colonel of the 14th Illinois Infantry , serving under his friend John C . Fremont in an expedition to Springfield , Missouri , to put down the rebellion in that state . On December 20 , 1861 , he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned command of a brigade under John Pope . Palmer took part in the capture of New Madrid and Island No . 10 , commanding a division in the latter campaign . Taken ill in the field , he returned home to recuperate and raised a new regiment , the 122nd Illinois Infantry . Taking the field again in September , he was assigned by William S . Rosecrans to command the first division of the Army of the Mississippi in Alabama and Tennessee . On November 29 , 1862 , he was promoted to major general of volunteers , and was conspicuous in the Battle of Stones River , where his division held an important position within the Union lines . Palmer effectively led his troops during the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863 . He commanded the 14th Corps of the Army of the Cumberland during the Chattanooga Campaign ( November 23 , – November 25 , 1863 ) , and served under George Henry Thomas in the Atlanta Campaign . Palmer ' s corps was a part of William T . Sherman ' s March to the Sea and the actions to capture Savannah , Georgia , late in the year . In early 1865 , he asked to be relieved of command and was reassigned to command all Federal forces in Kentucky , helping to assert Federal control over the state for the next three years . As Kentucky ' s military governor , Palmer established such control by two methods : waging a hard war against guerrillas and achieving the end of slavery in a state not bound by the Emancipation Proclamation . As late as May 1865 , Palmer made clear his position on hard war after Kentucky irregulars still in the field had threatened him about summary punishment for captured partisans — “ if you treat them as prisoners of war we will respect the same towards your soldiers if not we never can . ” Palmer ordered that guerrillas would not be allowed to surrender . “ [ N ] o commission , real or forged , shall save [ them ] , ” he ordered , “ all will be driven out or punished accordingly . . . such men [ will ] be exterminated . ” Palmer , one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Illinois , was an avowed abolitionist who had received his assignment from his friend the president specifically to implement military policies to end slavery in the state . ( When Lincoln offered the assignment in Kentucky to Palmer , then without a command , the general claimed the president directed him firmly : “ Go to Kentucky , keep your temper , do as you please , and I will sustain you . ” ) Palmer in fact needed little convincing , believing “ that all that was left of slavery [ in Kentucky ] was its mischiefs ” and , as he related , he was “ determined to ‘ drive the last nail in the coffin ’ of the ‘ institution ’ even if it cost me the command of the department . ” ( Indeed , to his wife he opined in 1865 that “ if [ I ] had been asked five or ten years ago what honor I would ask as the highest which could be confer [ r ] ed upon me I would have said let me destroy slavery in Kentucky . ” ) On March 20 , at one of Louisville ’ s Methodist churches , he announced as much . In the next few months , with an assiduousness that belied the initial impression he gave the legislature that he intended to placate the state ’ s loyal white populace , Palmer carried out Lincoln ’ s directive to do as he pleased . Not only did he actively enlist all able - bodied black men at an unprecedented rate — often with the assistance of all - black recruiting squads , and despite the legislature ’ s strident objection to the continued presence of black troops in the state — he sustained martial law in the state in order to override the state ’ s civil courts and governments because of their obvious unwillingness to assume " their clear and positive duty to protect the people from forcible wrongs , whether inflicted under the forms of law or otherwise . " He legitimated slave marriages to protect the wives and children of enlisted men ( in part a response to the Camp Nelson embarrassment ) , established refugee camps , fended off efforts by various municipal governments to expel fugitive slaves and free blacks alike and deny them the opportunity to find employment , released slaves from jails and workhouses , ordered that no bondman should be forced into service as substitutes , and issued tens of thousands of travel passes enabling African Americans to move freely within and without the state in search of employment . Called by African Americans “ free passes ” ( and by white Kentuckians “ Palmer passes ” ) they were both agent and symbol of the delayed yet inevitable death of slavery in the state . At an African American Fourth of July celebration at Louisville ’ s camp — one that followed a parade through the city streets , including some fifteen hundred armed black and white soldiers and band — Palmer , arriving in a gilded circus chariot , told an estimated twenty thousand attendees , most of whom he had already been assured believed the general was there to declare them free ( and who he claimed later he set out to inform otherwise ) , “ My countrymen , you are free , and while I command in this department the military forces of the United States will defend your right to freedom . ” That one of its circuit courts was soon to strike down Congress ’ s act of March 3 , 1865 , liberating black soldiers ’ dependants — some 72 , 045 individuals , or by one USCT officer ’ s estimate , “ [ t ] wo and one half persons freed , for each Colored Soldier enlisted in the State of Kentucky ” and two - thirds of the state ’ s slaves — only fueled the general ’ s intent to cure the state ’ s white residents of “ Negrophobia in its worst form . ” “ Slavery is dead in Kentucky , ” he crowed to his wife in October 1865 , “ and my Mission is accomplished . ” He was soon met with an indictment by Louisville ’ s grand jury for aiding fugitive slaves and a wave of lawsuits from dispossessed Kentucky slaveholders . Postbellum career . 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 . 1892 Presidential possibility . In 1892 , Palmer was seriously considered as a candidate for the presidency . At first , Palmer was taken up as a “ refuge ” candidate . Some Chicago Democrats , who were not prepared to accept Cleveland , Hill , or Gorman , were to support Palmer until they could go to the winner . This in itself was a point gained by Palmer and he proceeded to utilize it at once . In early February 1892 , Palmer had a conference with Patrick A . Collins , a former Democratic Massachusetts Congressman . At this conference , the two Democrats concluded a treaty . The purpose of the treaty was to make Palmer the Democratic Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor William Russell , Collins ' political ally and personal friend , the Vice Presidential candidate . It was argued by Collins that Palmer , being a Western Senator of Kentucky stock , would be acceptable to the Southern Democrats . The objection as to Palmer ’ s age would be met by pointing out that Russell , the youngest of governors , would become President in the event of his death . Russell ’ s nomination would command the support of New England Democrats . Before the 1892 Democratic National Convention , Cook County Democrats held a convention and endorsed Senator Palmer for President . In the end , Palmer stood faithful to former President Grover Cleveland and worked to have him nominated . Even though he supported Cleveland , many Illinois Democrats still supported him for President . Palmer was such a serious candidate that he had to go to the Democratic Convention in Chicago to discourage his own nomination . But , under exceptional circumstances , he did run for President in 1896 , rather than seeking reelection to the Senate . Defending the gold standard . 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 nineteenth 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 at Carlinville , Illinois . John M . Palmer Elementary School , located at 5051 North Kenneth Avenue on the northwest side of Chicago was named in his honor .