oystertoadfish has issued a correction as of 10:05 on Feb 15, 2016

Ibogaine has issued a correction as of 21:03 on Feb 16, 2016

QuoProQuid has issued a correction as of 17:56 on Feb 21, 2016

• Party Affiliation: Democratic Party
  
• Notable Positions: Governor of Tennessee, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, United States Representative from Tennessee
  
• Biography: Polk was born on a family farm in North Carolina. When he was ten, he travelled with his family to the frontier of Tennessee, where his parents hoped to make a name for themselves. While the Polks were financially successful, so much so that they bought thousands of acres of land and over fifty slaves, the hardships left deep physical and psychological scars on Polk that would shape his career. In 1825, Polk joined the United States House of Representatives where he served as an advocate of Jackson, a man already supported by Polk’s father. Though he made a name for himself, both by pursuing Jacksonian policies and by expanding his father’s fantastic wealth, Polk never had aspirations for the Presidency. It was only thanks to a Southern coup against former President Martin Van Buren that Polk has ended up on the ticket, thus becoming the country’s first dark horse candidate.
  
• Platform: Hoping to divide the Whigs, Polk has centered his Presidency around an aggressively expansionist foreign policy. With the support of Dallas, Polk has announced his support for annexing all of Texas and the Oregon Territory, using the slogan, “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight” to attract Northern and Southern supporters. Polk has other ambitions involving Panama and Cuba and many of his supporters have called for the annexation of “All Mexico”. Polk has also used tariff policy to build national support, characterizing himself as a supporter of “common-sense” reductions that will make expensive imports affordable to average consumers. He hopes to work with American producers to ensure their livelihoods are unaffected by free trade. Though a true believer in slavery, Polk considers the preservation of the Union to be paramount and is willing to make major sacrifices to ensure the country’s survival. He has proposed extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Coast to assuage Northern and Southern concerns. He believes that the native American tribes living in those lands must be “civilized, forcibly if need be” as they possess no worthwhile cultural traits. Polk supports Van Buren’s Independent Treasury System as a compromise between hardline Jacksonian thought and the Hamiltonian Bank and hopes to strengthen the institution as President. On all other issues, he is a standard Jacksonian.

• Party Affiliation: Democratic Party
  
• Notable Positions: United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Attorney General, Mayor of Philadelphia, Ambassador to Russia, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
  
• Biography: Dallas is the the son of Alexander James Dallas, former Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of War under James Madison, status which has endeared him to party elites. A reluctant lawyer, who likely only went to college to satisfy his father, Dallas spent his early life trying to escape from Pennsylvania. He unsuccessfully tried to fight in the War of 1812, before jumping at an opportunity to serve as Albert Gallatin’s secretary in Russia as Gallatin tried to negotiate peace terms for the War of 1812. He was then ordered to London, where he served as the Treasury Department’s representative. After returning to the states, he has been an active and enthusiastic politician. In 1835, Dallas served as Grand Master of the Freemasons in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Dallas’s foreign ties and status were used to inflame existing anti-Mason sentiment. Dallas is also noted for having a rivalry with a prominent Pennsylvania politician named James Buchanan.
  
• Platform: Dallas is the leader of Pennsylvania’s “Family Party” faction, a segment of the Democratic Party that espouses belief in a supreme Constitution, an energetic national government able to implement protective tariffs and internal improvements, a powerful central banking system, and expansionism. Though he is at odds with the party on almost all issues, Dallas has been selected to balance the ticket and attract Northerners to the largely Southern Democratic Party. Plus, Dallas’s militant views on the need to conquer “all of Oregon” has helped dissuade Northern fears about the expansion of slavery at the expense of Northern ambitions. Though personally in favor of tariffs, Dallas believes that the Vice President’s role is to support the public’s wishes and advance the President’s agenda. Thus, Dallas has sworn to promote Polk’s anti-bank and anti-tariff policies if elected. Dallas advocates popular sovereignty as a solution to the slavery question and hopes it will defuse growing tensions on the slavery issue. He has made no statements on the Native American issue. In foreign policy, Dallas can be characterized as a radical jingoist who believes that America should spread its liberty across the world.

• Party Affiliation: Whig Party
  
• Notable Positions: United States Senator from Kentucky, Secretary of State, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, United States Representative from Kentucky, President of the American Colonization Society
  
• Biography: Henry Clay is one of the most influential men in the country and the leading figure of the post-Jacksonian United States Congress. Born in Hanover County, Virginia, Clay unexpectedly joined the planter class at age four when his father died, leaving him and his brother with two slaves each. Using his family’s connections, Clay became friends with George Wythe, who was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and many other prominent Virginians, and was eventually admitted to the bar. Known for his oratory and legal skills, Clay was admitted to the United States Senate despite being under the constitutionally required age of thirty. Clay’s support for the War of 1812 allowed him to accelerate his career and achieve the Speakership. Under Clay, the position has evolved from a mere parliamentarian to one of political power second only to the President. In 1824, Clay orchestrated the Corrupt Bargain, which denied Jackson the Presidency. Jackson has hated Clay ever since and has sought to destroy his political career.
  
• Platform: As he did in 1832, Henry Clay has presented himself as a unifier, hoping to cool brewing tensions over slavery. Unlike 1832, the defining issue for Clay is not the American System, but the annexation of Texas. Opposed to both President Tyler and Democratic nominee Polk, Clay has come out decisively against the immediate annexation of the territory because it would upset the balance between North and South. Rather, he has declared that he would not admit Texas to the Union without “northern acquiescence,” apparently siding with Martin Van Buren’s calls for a national referendum. He is similarly ambivalent about Oregon and has criticized Polk for his dangerous saber-rattling. Clay hopes for a reasonable division of Oregon between the Canada and the United States. To prevent the Liberty Party from sapping too many of his votes, he has made an effort to present himself as a supporter of gradual emancipation. Despite this, Clay rarely goes anywhere without one or two slaves accompanying him at all times. To avoid alienating Southern supporters, the Clay campaign has joined forces with prominent anti-Catholic nativists and stopped talking about his views on Native Americans. If elected, Clay promises to tighten existing naturalization laws, to prevent immigrants from taking traditional American jobs, and protect the country’s borders. On all other affairs, Clay has resurrected his old campaign promises on the National Bank and internal improvements. He supports federally-run programs to make the United States economically self-sufficient. Clay has avoided campaigning on other issues to avoid dividing the Whig Party’s delicate coalition. To pacify any opposition within his Party, Clay has also pledged to serve only one term if elected.

• Party Affiliation: Whig Party
  
• Notable Positions: United States Senator from New Jersey, Attorney General of New Jersey
  
• Biography: Theodore Frelinghuysen is the second United States Senator from the prominent Frelinghuysen political dynasty, the son of a Revolutionary War Major General, a War of 1812 veteran, and a prominent religious advocate within the American Sunday School Union. Thanks to his familial connections and successful military service, Frelinghuysen was able to climb the ranks of government from Attorney General of New Jersey to Senator. Using connections gained through his government service and familial connections, Frelinghuysen has built a network of wealthy sponsors with which he uses to sponsor various projects. As a member of the American Bible Society, he has pushed for moral reform to address the laxity brought in by Catholic immigrants and sponsored various attempts to forcibly convert these new arrivals. He has also been involved in charity work for Indians and ex-slaves, using Christian teachings as the basis for his ministry.
  
• Platform: Frelinghuysen is known around the country as the “Christian Statesman” and is considered by many to be the nation’s leading advocate for Indians and slaves. During the Jackson administration, Frelinghuysen led six hour filibuster in an attempt to stop the Indian Removal Act, using evangelical Christian doctrine to convince the body that forced land seizures were anathema to the nation’s Christian status. He was unsuccessful. As an activist, he has also supported the abolitionist movement and given money to various anti-slavery causes. While skeptical of the Liberty Party, he agrees with them regarding the Texas issue and worries that the whole rebellion is a slaver conspiracy. Frelinghuysen is also one of the first national advocates for temperance, pointing to increasing crime and the nation’s growing immigrant community as a threat to Christianity’s survival. In particular, he has pointed to the Pope and Catholicism as an invading force that must be destroyed. He has joined with Clay in stirring up nativist feelings among the populace, though Frelinghuysen’s militant views on immigration are thought to be genuine. On all other issues, Frelinghuysen is a standard Whig. He supports internal improvements and a national bank.

• Party Affiliation: Liberty Party
  
• Notable Positions: Abolitionist, Publisher of The Philanthropist newspaper, Representative to the Alabama Legislature
  
• Biography: James Gillespie Birney grew up witnessing slavery from a variety of perspectives. As the son of Irish Episcopalian, he saw his father fight to prevent Kentucky from joining as a slave state. When the effort proved unsuccessful, Birney’s father reluctantly bought several slaves, claiming that Kentucky’s economy had made it unavoidable. He then spent the next few years pushing for humane treatment of blacks and took his son to see slaveowner cruelty. For his part, Birney accepted the lessons of his father and eventually moved to Alabama, where he became one of the state’s wealthiest lawyers and plantation owners, known for advocating gradual emancipation and better working conditions for slaves. In Danville, he used a public letters campaign to get the city’s slaveowners to agree to emancipate their current slaves. He briefly worked for Henry Clay was a member of the South’s social elite until Birney had a sudden spiritual awakening. Citing religious obligations, he cut off all ties with the slaveowning aristocracy, sold his plantation, and moved to Illinois, because he did not want his children growing up in a slave state. He resigned from his position on the American Colonization Society, citing its cooperation with slaveowners, and has since been a prominent activist and writer within the abolitionist community.
  
• Platform: Though he once advocated for gradual emancipation, Birney has changed his position and declared that immediate emancipation is a Christian necessity. Birney hopes to emancipate all slaves and grant them equal rights under the law. He then hopes to deport most of them to Africa, believing them to be impossible to integrate. He does not support the Fugitive Slave Act and, in 1837, hired Salmon P. Chase to defend one of his servants, who turned out to be a fugitive slave. Birney is also an unrepentant supporter of John Quincy Adams who believes that Adams’s conservative values are needed to preserve the Union and make it stronger. However, he refused to support Adams after he joined the Whig Party because he considered Henry Clay and his unapologetic support of slavery to be too repugnant. Birney supports an independent Treasury over a National Bank and free trade over tariffs. He also supports extensive internal improvements to the United States’s infrastructure. He supports temperance and improved access to public education.Though he was once a Freemason, he now considers the organization evil. Internationally, Birney has expanded his beliefs in emancipation to foreign policy and hopes to use American might to free all those suffering under foreign rule. During the Greek Revolution, he wrote passionately on the America’s need to support the effort. He does not, however, support the annexation of Texas and has written to the Mexican legislature urging them to put down the slaveowner revolt.

• Party Affiliation: Liberty Party
  
• Notable Positions: United States Senator from Ohio, Assemblyman in the Ohio House of Representatives
  
• Biography: Thomas Morris is Ohio’s first abolitionist politician and a prominent advocate for the poor. The fifth child of a small family of Pennsylvania farmers, Morris left home at the age of twenty to join a roving band of Baptists that hoped to settle near Cincinnati. There, he was sent to debtor’s prison and witnessed the system’s unfairness first-hand. Between 1808 and 1832, Morris served the Ohio House of Representatives as a populist and people’s advocate. In 1809, he was appointed to Ohio’s Supreme Court, only to have the legislature unilaterally revoke the position the next day. Morris blamed wealthy interests for the embarrassment. In 1832, Morris was appointed to serve in the United States Senate. When his party, the Democrats, refused to renominate him, Morris used the opportunity to defend former slaves from the Fugitive Slave Act. He has recently suffered "a severe attack of apoplexy” and is expected to die soon.
  
• Platform: Morris is Jacksonian who had been effectively expelled from his party over the issue of slavery. Unlike many countrymen, Morris considers slavery an unmitigated evil that must be abolished immediately. As a Senator, Morris led the effort to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and sought to restrict the application of the Fugitive Slave Act. He has spent his post-political career thwarting Southern states from reclaiming runaway slaves. He supports keeping former slaves in the United States, but segregating them into their own communities to prevent public shock and upheaval. Morris opposes admitting Texas under any circumstances because it would expand slavery’s borders. On all other affairs, Morris is a Jacksonian. He spent his career in state politics trying to abolish debtor's prison. He also campaigned on ending corruption and expanding democratic practices across the state.

QuoProQuid has issued a correction as of 17:56 on Feb 21, 2016