# William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign Canonical: https://web4.xpay.bi/en/wiki/wp-en-34655588/ Language: en Published: 2026-10-25T19:10:14.879Z Updated: 2026-10-25T19:10:14.879Z In 1896, William Jennings Bryan ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States. Bryan, a former Democratic congressman from Nebraska, gained his party's presidential nomination in July of that year after electrifying the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. He was defeated in the general election by the Republican candidate, former Ohio governor William ## Key facts ## Overview In 1896, William Jennings Bryan ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States. Bryan, a former Democratic congressman from Nebraska, gained his party's presidential nomination in July of that year after electrifying the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. He was defeated in the general election by the Republican candidate, former Ohio governor William McKinley. Born in 1860, Bryan grew up in rural Illinois and in 1887 moved to Nebraska, where he practiced law and entered politics. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1890, and was re-elected in 1892, before mounting an unsuccessful US Senate run. He set his sights on higher office, believing he could be elected president in 1896 even though he remained a relatively minor figure in the Democratic Party. In anticipation of a presidential campaign, he spent much of 1895 and early 1896 making speeches across the United States; his compelling oratory increased his popularity in his party. Bryan often spoke on the issue of the currency. The economic Panic of 1893 had left the nation in a deep recession, which still persisted in early 1896. Bryan and many other Democrats believed the economic malaise could be remedied through a return to bimetallism, or free silver—a policy they believed would inflate the currency and make it easier for debtors to repay loans. Bryan went to the Democratic convention in Chicago as an undeclared candidate, whom the press had given only a small chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. His 'Cross of Gold' speech, given to conclude the debate on the party platform, immediately transformed him into a favorite for the nomination, and he won it the next day. The Democrats nominated Arthur Sewall, a wealthy Maine banker and shipbuilder, for vice president. The left-wing Populist Party (which had hoped to nominate the only silver-supporting candidate) endorsed Bryan for president, but found Sewall unacceptable, substituting Thomas E. Watson of Georgia. Abandoned by many gold-supporting party leaders and newspapers after the Chicago convention, Bryan undertook an extensive tour by rail to bring his campaign to the people. He spoke some 600 times, to an estimated 5,000,000 listeners. His campaign focused on silver, an issue that failed to appeal to the urban voter, and he was defeated in what is generally seen as a realigning election. The coalition of wealthy, middle-class and urban voters that defeated Bryan kept the Republicans in power for most of the time until 1932. Although defeated in the election, Bryan's campaign made him a national figure, which he remained until his death in 1925. ## Bryan William Jennings Bryan was born in rural Salem, Illinois, in 1860. His father, Silas Bryan, was a Jacksonian Democrat, judge, lawyer, and local party activist. As a judge's son, the younger Bryan had ample opportunity to observe the art of speechmaking in courtrooms, political rallies, and at church and revival meetings. In post-Civil War America, oratory was highly prized, and Bryan showed aptitude for it from a young age, raised in his father's house in Salem. Attending Illinois College beginning in 1877, Bryan devoted himself to winning the school prize for speaking. He won the prize in his junior year, and also secured the affection of Mary Baird, a student at a nearby women's academy. She became his wife, and was his principal assistant throughout his career. While attending law school from 1881 to 1883, Bryan was a clerk to former Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, who influenced him in a dislike for wealth and business monopolies. Bryan was strongly affected by the emerging Social Gospel movement that called on Protestant activists to seek to cure social problems such as poverty. Looking for a growing city in which his practice could thrive, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1887. Bryan quickly became prominent in Lincoln as a lawyer and a public speaker, becoming known as the "Boy Orator of the Platte". In 1890, he agreed to run for Congress against William James Connell, a Republican, who had won the local congressional seat in 1888. At that time, Nebraska was suffering hard times as many farmers had difficulties making ends meet due to low grain prices, and many Americans were discontented with the existing two major political parties. As a result, disillusioned farmers and others formed a new far-left party, which came to be known as the Populist Party. The Populists proposed both greater government control over the economy (with some calling for government ownership of railroads) and giving the people power over government through the secret ballot, direct election of United States Senators (who were, until 1913, elected by state legislatures), and replacement of the Electoral College with direct election of the president and vice president by popular vote. Party members in many states, including Nebraska, demanded inflation of the currency through issuance of paper or silver currency, allowing easier repayment of debt. After a candidate backed by the nascent Populists withdrew, Bryan defeated Connell for the seat by 6,700 votes (nearly doubling Connell's 1888 margin), receiving support from the Populists and Prohibitionists. In Congress, Bryan was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee and became a major spokesman on the tariff and money questions. He introduced several proposals for the direct election of senators and to eliminate tariff barriers in industries dominated by monopolies or trusts. This advocacy brought him contributions from silver mine owners in his successful re-election bid in 1892. In the 1892 presidential election, former Democratic president Grover Cleveland defeated the Republican incumbent, Benjamin Harrison, to regain his office. Bryan did not support Cleveland, making it clear he preferred the Populist candidate, James B. Weaver, though he indicated that as a loyal Democrat, he would vote the party ticket. In May 1894, Bryan announced he would not seek re-election to the House of Representatives, feeling the incessant need to raise money to campaign in a marginal district was inhibiting his political career. Instead, he sought the Senate seat that the Nebraska legislature would fill in January 1895. Although Bryan was successful in winning the non-binding popular vote, Republicans gained a majority in the legislature and elected John Thurston as senator. ## Economic depression; rise of free silver The question of the currency had been a major political issue since the mid-1870s. Advocates of free silver (or bimetallism) wanted the government to accept all silver bullion presented to it and to return it, struck into coin, at the historic value ratio between gold and silver of 16 to 1. This would restore a practice abolished in 1873. A free silver policy would inflate the currency, as the silver in a dollar coin was worth just over half the face value. Someone who presented ten dollars in silver bullion would receive back almost twice that in silver coin. Advocates believed these proposals would lead to prosperity, while opponents warned that varying from the gold standard (which the United States had, effectively, used since 1873) would cause problems in international trade. The 1878 Bland–Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the government to buy large quantities of silver and strike it into coin. They had been passed as compromises between free silver and the gold standard. Bryan, who had been elected after the passage of the latter enactment, initially had little to say on the subject. Free silver was very popular among Nebraskans, though many powerful Democrats opposed it. After his election to Congress, Bryan studied the currency question carefully, and came to believe in free silver; he also saw its political potential. By 1893, Bryan had become a leading supporter of free silver, arguing in a speech in St. Louis that the gold standard was deflationary "making a man pay a debt with a dollar larger than the one he borrowed ... If this robbery is permitted, the farmer will be ruined, and then the cities will suffer." Even as Cleveland took office as president in March 1893, there were signs of an economic decline. Sherman's act required the government to pay out gold in exchange for silver and paper currency, and through the early months of 1893 gold flowed out of the Treasury. On April 22, 1893, the amount of gold in the Treasury dropped below $100 million for the first time since 1879, adding to the unease. Rumors that Europeans were about to redeem a large sum for gold caused desperate selling on the stock market, the start of the Panic of 1893. By August, many firms had gone bankrupt, and a special session of Congress convened, called by Cleveland to repeal the silver purchase act. Bryan, who was still in Congress, spoke eloquently against the repeal, but Cleveland forced it through. The President's uncompromising stand for gold alienated many in his own party (most southern and western Democrats were pro-silver). The economy failed to improve, and when the President in 1894 sent federal troops to Illinois to break up the Pullman Strike, he outraged even more Democrats. In late 1894, pro-silver Democrats began to organize in the hope of taking control of the party from Cleveland and other Gold Democrats and nominating a silver candidate in 1896. In this, they were led by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, who had opposed Cleveland over the Pullman strike. The Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1894 midterm elections, with a number of southern states, usually solid for the Democrats, electing Republican or Populist congressmen. In 1893, bimetallism had been just one of many proposals by Populists and others. As the economic downturn continued, free silver advocates blamed its continuation on the repeal of the silver purchase act, and the issue of silver became more prominent. Free silver especially resonated among farmers in the South and West, as well as miners. June 1894 marked the publication of William H. Harvey's Coin's Financial School. The book, composed of accounts of (fictitious) lectures on the silver issue given by an adolescent named Coin to Chicago audiences, became an immense bestseller. The book included (as foils to the title character) many of Chicago's most prominent men of business; some, such as banker and future Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage, issued denials that they had participated in any such lectures. This popular treatment of the currency issue was highly influential. A Missourian, Ezra Peters, wrote to Illinois Senator John M. Palmer, "Coins \[sic\] Financial School is raising h— in this neck of the woods. If those in favor of honest money don't do something to offset its influence the country is going to the dogs." Bryan called it: "the most potent of educational forces at work in behalf of bimetallism." A Minnesota correspondent wrote in Outlook magazine: "high school boys are about equally divided between silver and baseball, with a decided leaning toward the former". ## Preparation In March 1895, the same month he left Congress, Bryan passed his 35th birthday, making him constitutionally eligible for the presidency. By then, he had come to see his nomination for that office as possible, even likely. Bryan believed he could use the coalition-building techniques he had applied in gaining election to Congress, uniting pro-silver forces behind him to gain the Democratic nomination and the presidency. To that end, it was important that the Populists not nominate a rival silver candidate, and he took pains to cultivate good relations with Populist leaders. Through 1895 and early 1896, Bryan sought to make himself as widely known as an advocate for silver as possible. He had accepted the nominal editorship of the Omaha World-Herald in August 1894. The position involved no day-to-day duties, but allowed him to publish his political commentaries. In the 17 months between his departure from Congress and the Democratic National Convention in July 1896, Bryan travelled widely through the South and West, speaking on silver. At every stop, he made contacts that he later cultivated. Several times, in his addresses, Bryan repeated variations on lines he had spoken in Congress in December 1894, decrying the gold standard, "I will not help to crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. I will not aid them to press down upon the bleeding brow of labor this crown of thorns." Historian H. Wayne Morgan described Bryan: Robert La Follette remembered Bryan as "a tall, slender, handsome fellow who looked like a young divine". A streak of the moralist preacher raised his political chances among a people attuned to the biblical phrase and Shakespearan \[sic\] stance. He was a fine actor, with a justly famous voice, but was not a charlatan. Bryan believed in the out-dated Jeffersonian virtues he preached in the Hamiltonian world of 1896 ... He was young, had a respectable but not burdensome record, came from the West, and understood the arts of conciliation. Though men thought otherwise at the time, neither fate nor accident created his position in the party. Through early 1896, Bryan quietly sought the nomination. Any possible candidacy depended on silver supporters being successful in electing the bulk of convention delegates; accordingly Bryan backed such efforts. He maintained contact with silver partisans in other parties, hopeful of gathering them in after a nomination. His campaign was low-key, without excessive publicity: Bryan did not want to attract the attention of more prominent candidates. He continued to give speeches, and collected his traveling expenses, and most often a speaking fee, from those who had invited him. Bryan faced a number of disadvantages in seeking the Democratic nomination: he was little-known among Americans who did not follow politics closely, he had no money to pour into his campaign, he lacked public office, and had incurred the enmity of Cleveland and his administration through his stance on silver and other issues. There was little advantage to the Democratic Party in nominating a candidate from Nebraska, a state small in population that had never voted for a Democrat. As state conventions met to nominate delegates to the July national convention, for the most part, they supported silver, and sent silver men to Chicago. Gold Democrats had success in the Northeast, and little elsewhere. Most state conventions did not bind, or "instruct", their delegates to vote for a specific candidate for the nomination; this course was strongly supported by Bryan. Once delegates were selected, Bryan wrote to party officials and obtained a list; he sent copies of his speeches, clippings from the World-Herald, and his photograph to each delegate. In June 1896, Bryan's old teacher, former senator Trumbull died; on the day of his funeral, Bryan's mother also died, suddenly in Salem. Bryan spoke at her funeral, quoting lines from Second Timothy: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." He also attended, as a correspondent for the World-Herald, the Republican convention that month in St. Louis. The Republicans, at the request of their nominee for president, former Ohio governor William McKinley, included a plank in their party platform supporting the gold standard. Bryan was deeply moved when, after the adoption of the platform, Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller led a walkout of silver-supporting Republicans. Bryan's biographer, Paolo Coletta, suggests that Bryan may have played a part in inciting the silver men's departure; he was in close contact with Silver Republicans such as Teller and South Dakota Senator Richard Pettigrew. Historian James Barnes wrote of Bryan's preparations: The Nebraskan merely understood the political situation better than most of those who might have been his rivals, and he took advantage in a legitimate and thoroughly honorable manner of the existing conditions. He knew that hard work could turn the discontent of the people into a revolt against the gold wing of the party, and no group of individuals ever labored more diligently to gain their political ends than did the silver men in the \[Democratic Party\] between 1893 and 1896. Bryan sensed the possibility of becoming the nominee long before 1896; his ambition was fully matured several months prior to the convention, and there is evidence that his hopes were becoming tinged with certainty before he left for Chicago. ## Convention In the run up to the Democratic National Convention, set to begin at the Chicago Coliseum on July 7, 1896, no candidate was seen as an overwhelming favorite for the presidential nomination. The leading candidates were former Missouri congressman Richard P. Bland and former Iowa governor Horace Boies. "Silver Dick" Bland was seen as the elder statesman of the silver movement; he had originated the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, while Boies's victories for governor in a normally Republican state made him attractive as a candidate who might compete with McKinley in the crucial Midwest. Both had openly declared their candidacies, and were the only Democrats to have organizations seeking to obtain pledged delegates. Neither candidate had much money to spend on his campaign. In addition to the frontrunners, other silver men were spoken of as candidates. These included Vice President Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, Senator Joseph C. Blackburn of Kentucky, Indiana Governor Claude Matthews, and Bryan. Illinois Governor Altgeld, a leader of the silver movement, was ineligible because he was not a natural-born U.S. citizen as required for the presidency in the Constitution. When Senator Teller walked out of the Republican convention in protest over the currency plank, he immediately became another possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. However, he was deemed unlikely to succeed, as many Democrats feared that if elected, he might fill some patronage jobs with Republicans. President Cleveland spent the week of the convention fishing, and had no comment about the events there; political scientist Richard Bensel attributes Cleveland's political inaction to the President's loss of influence in his party. Bryan's Nebraska delegation left Lincoln by train on July 5. Carrying some 200 people, the train bore signs on each of its five cars, such as "The W.J. Bryan Club" and "Keep Your Eye on Nebraska." Bryan's strategy was simple: maintain a low profile as a candidate until the last possible moment, then give a speech that rallied the silver forces behind him and bring about his nomination. He was utterly confident that he would succeed, believing "the logic of the situation," as he later put it, dictated his selection. He explained to Champ Clark, the future Speaker of the House, that Bland and others from southern states would fall because of prejudice towards the old Confederacy, that Boies could not be nominated because he was too little-known, and all others would fail due to lack of support—leaving only himself. Coletta noted the problems faced by Bryan in obtaining the nomination, and how his groundwork helped overcome them: The maneuver that paid Bryan highest dividends was his fifteen months of missionary work in behalf of silver and cultivation of the Chicago delegates. He knew personally more delegates than did any other candidate ... and he was on the ground to supervise his strategy. When he spoke of himself as the nominee, some reacted as \[journalist\] Willis J. Abbot did and doubted his mental capacity. How could a boy in appearance, one not yet admitted to the convention, without a single state behind him, dare claim the nomination? The answer was simple, Bryan told Abbot—he had prepared a speech that would stampede the convention. Bryan stayed at the Clifton House, a modest hotel adjoining the opulent Palmer House. A large banner outside the Clifton House proclaimed the presence of Nebraska's delegation headquarters, but did not mention Bryan's campaign, which was run from Nebraska's rooms. The main candidates headquartered at the Palmer House, their rooms often crowded as they served free alcoholic drinks. The Coliseum was located in a "dry" district of Chicago but the hotels were not. Just before the convention, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made initial determinations of which delegations were to be seated—once convened, delegates would make the final determination after the convention's Credentials Committee reported. The DNC seated a rival, pro-gold Nebraska delegation, and recommended New York Senator David B. Hill as the convention's temporary chairman, each by a vote of 27–23. Bryan was present when it was announced that his delegation would not be initially seated; reports state he acted "somewhat surprised" at the outcome. Since the DNC action meant Bryan would not have a seat at the start of proceedings, he could not be the temporary chairman (who would deliver the keynote address); the Nebraskan began looking for other opportunities to make a speech at the convention. Historian James A. Barnes deemed the DNC's vote immaterial; once the convention met on July 7, it quickly elected a silver man, Virginia Senator John Daniel, as temporary chairman and appointed a committee to review credentials friendly to the silver cause. As the committees met, the convention proceeded, though in considerable confusion. Many of the silver men had not attended a national convention before, and were unfamiliar with its procedures. Members of the Committee on Resolutions (also called the Platform Committee) intended to elect California Senator Stephen M. White as chairman; they found that he had already been co-opted as permanent chairman of the convention. Bryan had been widely supported as a candidate for permanent chairman by the silver men, but some western delegates on the Committee on Permanent Organization objected, stating that they wanted the chance to support Bryan for the nomination (the permanent chairman was customarily ruled out as a candidate). Delegates spent most of the first two days listening to various speeches by silver supporters. The first report from the Credentials Committee, on the afternoon of July 8, recommended the seating of Bryan's delegation. This was a matter of intense interest for the silver delegates: Bryan had written to large numbers of delegates urging them to support his men over their gold rivals; once in Chicago, he and his fellow Nebraskans had spoken with many others about the dispute. The convention, by voice vote, seated the silver Nebraskans, who arrived in the convention hall a few minutes later, accompanied by a band. Soon afterwards, the delegates, bored, shouted for a speech from Bryan, but he was not to be found. Once seated, Bryan went to the Platform Committee meeting at the Palmer House, displacing the Nebraska gold delegate on the committee. The proposed platform was pro-silver; Senator Hill had offered an amendment backing the gold standard, which had been defeated by committee vote. As Hill was determined to take the platform fight to the full convention, the committee discussed who should speak in the debate, and allocated 75 minutes to each side. South Carolina Senator Benjamin Tillman, a silver supporter, wanted an hour to address the convention, and to close the debate. When both Hill and Bryan (who was selected as the other pro-silver speaker) objected to such a long closing address, Tillman settled for 50 minutes and for opening the debate rather than closing it; Bryan was given 25 minutes to close. Bryan later asked the Platform Committee chairman, Arkansas Senator James K. Jones why he was given such a crucial role as closing the platform debate; Senator Jones responded that he had three reasons: Bryan's long service in the silver cause, the Nebraskan was the only major speaker not to have addressed the convention, and that Jones had a sore throat. That evening, Bryan dined with his wife and with friends. Looking upon the loud Boies and Bland supporters, Bryan commented, "These people don't know it, but they will be cheering for me just this way tomorrow night." ## Speech On the morning of July 9, 1896, thousands of people waited outside the Coliseum, hoping to hear the platform debate. The galleries were quickly packed, but the delegates, slowed by fatigue from the first two days and the long journey from the downtown hotels, were slower to arrive. It was not until 10:45 am, three-quarters of an hour late, that Chairman White called the convention to order. Bryan arrived during the delay; he was greeted with a musical tribute from one of the convention bands, which then returned to playing a medley of Irish melodies. Once White started the proceedings, he turned over the gavel to Senator Jones, who read the proposed platform to great applause from silver delegates, and hissing from gold men. The minority report attracted the opposite reaction. Senator Tillman, a fiery speaker who wore a pitchfork on his lapel, began the debate. His speech, set as the only one besides Bryan's in favor of silver, portrayed silver as a sectional issue pitting the poorer folk of the South and West against gold-supporting New York and the rest of the Northeast. It was badly received even by silver delegates, who wished to think of silver as a patriotic, national issue. Senator Jones felt compelled to spend five minutes (granted by the gold side), stating that the silver issue crossed sectional lines. New York Senator Hill was next: the leading spokesman for gold, both gold and silver delegates quieted to hear him. He was followed by Senator William Vilas of Wisconsin and former Massachusetts Governor William D. Russell. Each made their cases for gold, and likely changed few votes. Only Bryan was left to speak, and no one at the convention had yet effectively championed the silver cause. The New York Times described the setting: There never was such a propitious moment for such an orator than that which fell to Bryan. The minority \[gold faction\] had just been pleased and the majority had just been depressed and mortified by the appearance, as the champion of free silver, of Tillman ... The minority had indicated its position. The majority felt exposed, crestfallen, and humiliated. Writer Edgar Lee Masters, who witnessed Bryan's speech, remembered, "Suddenly I saw a man spring up from his seat among the delegates and with the agility and swiftness of an eager boxer hurry to the speaker's rostrum. He was slim, tall, pale, raven-haired, beaked of nose." The Nebraska delegation waved red handkerchiefs as Bryan progressed to the podium; he wore an alpaca sack suit more typical of Lincoln and the West than of Chicago. There was loud cheering as Bryan stood at the lectern; it took him a full minute to gain silence. He began: I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity. Bryan, with this declaration, set the theme of his argument, and as it would prove, his campaign: that the welfare of humanity was at stake with the silver issue. According to his biographer Michael Kazin, "Bryan felt he was serving his part in a grander conflict that began with Christ and showed no sign of approaching its end." From the start, Bryan had his audience: when he finished a sentence, they would rise, shout and cheer, then quiet themselves to ready for the next words; the Nebraskan later described the convention as like a trained choir. He dismissed arguments that the business men of the East favored the gold standard: We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils all summer, and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak of this broader class of business men. Many of the elements of the speech had appeared in prior Bryan addresses. However, the business man argument was new, though he had hinted at it in an interview he gave at the Republican convention. Bryan always regarded that argument as the speech's most powerful part, despite the fame its conclusion would gain. He responded to an argument by Senator Vilas that from silver forces might arise a Robespierre. Bryan affirmed that the people could be counted on to prevent the rise of a tyrant, and noted, "What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth." He continued: Upon which side will the Democratic Party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party. Bryan concluded the address, seizing a place in American history: Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." As he spoke his final sentence, he brought his hands to his head, fingers extended in imitation of thorns; amid dead silence in the Coliseum, he extended his arms, recalling with words and posture the Crucifixion of Jesus, and held that position for several seconds. He then lowered his arms, and began the journey back to his seat in the silence. Bryan described the stillness as "really painful"; his anxieties that he might have failed were soon broken by pandemonium. The New York World reported, "The floor of the convention seemed to heave up. Everybody seemed to go mad at once." In a demonstration of some half an hour, Bryan was carried around the floor, then surrounded with cheering supporters. Men and women threw their hats into the air, not caring where they might come down. Delegates were shouting to begin the vote and nominate Bryan immediately, which he refused to consider, feeling that if his appeal could not last overnight, it would not last until November. Bryan left the convention, returning to his hotel to await the outcome. In the midst of the crazed crowd, Altgeld, a Bland supporter, commented to his friend, lawyer Clarence Darrow, "That is the greatest speech I ever listened to. I don't know but its effect will be to nominate him." ## Nomination When order was restored after Bryan's speech, the convention passed the platform, voting down the minority report and a resolution in support of the Cleveland administration; it then recessed for a few hours until 8:00 pm, when nominating speeches were to be made. According to The Boston Globe, Bryan "had locked himself within the four walls at the Clifton House, down town, and there blushes unseen. The dark horse is in his stall, feasting on the oats of hope and political straws." Bryan had made no arrangements for formal nominating speeches given the short timeframe, and was surprised when word was brought to him at the Clifton House that he had been nominated by Henry Lewis of Georgia: the candidate had expected the Kansas delegation to name him. As Missouri Senator George Vest nominated Bland, his oratory was drowned out by the gallery, "Bryan, Bryan, W.J. Bryan". The balloting for the presidential nomination was held on July 10, the day after the speech; a two-thirds majority was needed to nominate. Bryan remained at his hotel, sending word to his fellow Nebraskans, "There must be no pledging, no promising, on any subject with anybody. No delegation must be permitted to violate instructions given by a state convention. Our delegation should not be too prominent in applause. Treat all candidates fairly." On the first ballot, Bryan had 137 votes, mostly from Nebraska and four southern states, trailing Bland who had 235; Boies was fourth with 67 votes and was never a factor in the balloting. Bland maintained his lead on the second and third ballots, but on the fourth, with the convention in a huge uproar, Bryan took the lead. Governor Altgeld had held Illinois, which was subject to the "unit rule" whereby the entirety of a state's vote was cast as a majority of that state's delegation directed. After the fourth ballot, the Illinois delegation caucused and Altgeld was one of only two remaining Bland supporters, thus giving Bryan all of the state's 48 votes and bringing him near the two-thirds mark and the nomination. On the fifth ballot, other states joined the Bryan bandwagon, making him the Democratic candidate for president. At the Clifton House, Bryan's rooms were overwhelmed with those wishing to congratulate him, despite the efforts of police to keep the crowds at bay. Bryan quipped, "I seem to have plenty of friends now, but I remember well when they were very few." He left the choice of a running mate to the convention; delegates selected Maine shipbuilder Arthur Sewall. Active in Democratic Party politics, Sewall was one of the few eastern party leaders to support silver, was wealthy and could help finance the campaign; he also balanced the ticket geographically. According to historian Stanley Jones in his account of the 1896 election, "it seemed in retrospect a curious logic that gave a capitalist from Maine a leading role in a campaign intended to have a strong appeal to the masses of the South and West". Bryan and Sewall gained their nominations without the ballots of the gold men, most of whom refused to vote. Amid talk that the Gold Democrats would form their own party, Senator Hill was asked if he remained a Democrat. "I was a Democrat before the Convention and am a Democrat still—very still." ## General election campaign Bryan's nomination was denounced by many establishment Democrats. President Cleveland, stunned by the convention's repudiation of him and his policies, decided against open support for a bolt from the party, either by endorsing McKinley or by publicly backing a rival Democratic ticket. Nevertheless, Gold Democrats began plans to hold their own convention, which took place in September. Many Cleveland supporters decried Bryan as no true Democrat, but a fanatic and socialist, his nomination procured through demagoguery. Some of the Democratic political machines, such as New York's Tammany Hall, decided to ignore the national ticket and concentrate on electing local and congressional candidates. Large numbers of traditionally Democratic newspapers refused to support Bryan, including the New York World, w ## Sources - William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign · Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=34655588 Source: Wikipedia contributors — https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=34655588&oldid=1371701616 Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation notice: Reformatted for XPay; the source may be abridged, restructured or translated. Consult the cited revision for the original.