Constitution Party (United States, 1952)
The Constitution Party was a conservative third party in the United States, founded in Chicago in the summer of 1952. For the 1952 presidential election, they nominated Douglas MacArthur for President and Vivian Kellems for Vice-President, without permission from General MacArthur.[1] The ticket won 17,205 votes; the vast majority of these votes came from Texas where the party was on the ballot.
The idea of a conservative-nationalist third party was the result of a split within a Nationalist Convention that convened over the July 4th weekend in Chicago. (see List of nationalist meetings and demonstrations in America) A month later the dissident members of the convention meet again in Chicago and held their first Constitution Party national convention.[2] The party was formed mainly as a rejection of the internationalist positions of the two major parties.
The Constitution Party also had a nationalist rival that year called the Christian Nationalist Party which was essentially was a one-man operation headed by Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith.
Later Presidential elections
By 1956 the party had expanded to the states of New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois. That year they nominated T. Coleman Andrews who was Eisenhower’s Internal Revenue Commissioner for President and California congressman Thomas H. Werdel for Vice President. In some states such as Virginia the party ran under the name the States' Rights Party.
In 1960 they nominated Brigadier General Merritt B. Curtis for President and Curtis B. Dall for Vice President.[3]
In the following presidential elections many of the supporters and activists of the Constitution Party moved on to back Senator Barry Goldwater--who won the Republican nomination in 1964--and Governor George Wallace who had his own third party in 1968 called the American Independent Party.[4]
See also
- Kenneth Goff, Colorado state chairman (1952)
- Mrs. Mary Kenney of Lincoln, Nebraska, state chairman (1952)
Notes
- ↑ Cross-Currents by Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, page 61
- ↑ Cross-Currents by Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, page 56
- ↑ Roads to Dominion: Right-wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, by Sara Diamond, pages 87-88
- ↑ Roads to Dominion: Right-wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, by Sara Diamond, page 90
