1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee

The 1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 6, 1900. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1900 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 12 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee

November 6, 1900

Nominee William J. Bryan William McKinley Party Democratic Republican Home state Nebraska Ohio Running mate Adlai Stevenson I Theodore Roosevelt Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 145,240 123,108 Percentage 53.03% 44.95%

County Results Bryan   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% McKinley   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%

President before election William McKinley Republican Elected President William McKinley Republican

Background

For over a century after the Civil War, Tennessee’s white citizenry was divided according to partisan loyalties established in that war. Unionist regions covering almost all of East Tennessee, Kentucky Pennyroyal-allied Macon County, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne[1] voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the “war party” who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.[2] Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state’s secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction.[3] After the state’s white landowning class re-established its rule in the early 1870s, blacks and Unionist whites combined to give a competitive political system for two decades,[4] although in this era the Republicans could only capture statewide offices when the Democratic Party was divided on this issue of payment of state debt.[4]

White Democrats in West Tennessee were always aiming to eliminate black political influence, which they first attempted to do by election fraud in the middle 1880s and did so much more successfully at the end of that decade by instituting in counties with significant black populations a secret ballot that prevented illiterates voting,[5] and a poll tax throughout the state, which cut turnout by at least a third in the 1890s.[6] Although the poll tax was supposedly relaxed or paid by party officials in Unionist Republican areas,[6] turnout would continue to decline seriously in later years, although overall presidential partisan percentages did not change substantially as the GOP attempted to attract Democrats who would benefit from tariffs.[7]

For the 1900 presidential election, a rematch of the fiercely contested 1896 campaign, neither Republican William McKinley nor Democrat William Jennings Bryan campaigned in Tennessee, and by the fourth week of October the state was generally contested, as it had consistently gone since 1872, to the Democrats.[8]

Vote

Bryan ultimately carried Tennessee by a margin of 8.08 percent, an increase of 2.32 percent on his 1896 margin over McKinley, a small change but a substantial one given the extremely deep partisan loyalties of white Tennesseeans. His increased margin reflected more complete black disenfranchisement and reduced suspicion of his free-silver policies in the major urban areas, which saw him carry normally Republican Knox County.

Results

1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee[9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	William Jennings Bryan	145,240	53.03%	12
	Republican	William McKinley	123,108	44.95%	0
	Prohibition	John Woolley	3,844	1.40%	0
	Populist	Wharton Barker	1,322	0.48%	0
	Social Democratic	Eugene Debs	346	0.13%	0
Totals			273,860	100.00%	12
Voter turnout					—

Results by county

County	William Jennings Bryan[10] Democratic		William McKinley[10] Republican		John Granville Woolley[10] Prohibition		Wharton Barker[10] Populist		Eugene Victor Debs[10] Social Democratic		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Anderson	732	26.73%	1,997	72.91%	10	0.37%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,265	-46.18%	2,739
Bedford	2,176	60.70%	1,357	37.85%	42	1.17%	10	0.28%	0	0.00%	819	22.85%	3,585
Benton	1,385	63.77%	720	33.15%	25	1.15%	42	1.93%	0	0.00%	665	30.62%	2,172
Bledsoe	498	40.32%	734	59.43%	3	0.24%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-236	-19.11%	1,235
Blount	825	26.74%	2,201	71.35%	59	1.91%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,376	-44.60%	3,085
Bradley	909	35.51%	1,579	61.68%	72	2.81%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-670	-26.17%	2,560
Campbell	479	17.54%	2,189	80.15%	42	1.54%	0	0.00%	21	0.77%	-1,710	-62.61%	2,731
Cannon	1,213	60.95%	775	38.94%	2	0.10%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	438	22.01%	1,990
Carroll	1,931	41.64%	2,516	54.26%	55	1.19%	135	2.91%	0	0.00%	-585	-12.62%	4,637
Carter	408	12.72%	2,763	86.13%	37	1.15%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-2,355	-73.41%	3,208
Cheatham	1,190	71.82%	440	26.55%	24	1.45%	3	0.18%	0	0.00%	750	45.26%	1,657
Chester	894	53.21%	702	41.79%	8	0.48%	76	4.52%	0	0.00%	192	11.43%	1,680
Claiborne	770	43.68%	987	55.98%	6	0.34%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-217	-12.31%	1,763
Clay	830	61.25%	498	36.75%	12	0.89%	11	0.81%	4	0.30%	332	24.50%	1,355
Cocke	1,001	29.69%	2,360	70.01%	10	0.30%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,359	-40.31%	3,371
Coffee	1,660	70.34%	624	26.44%	45	1.91%	2	0.08%	29	1.23%	1,036	43.90%	2,360
Crockett	1,428	56.62%	1,050	41.63%	41	1.63%	0	0.00%	3	0.12%	378	14.99%	2,522
Cumberland	405	34.67%	750	64.21%	13	1.11%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-345	-29.54%	1,168
Davidson	6,869	70.81%	2,501	25.78%	232	2.39%	31	0.32%	67	0.69%	4,368	45.03%	9,700
DeKalb	1,528	50.43%	1,442	47.59%	60	1.98%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	86	2.84%	3,030
Decatur	909	50.53%	890	49.47%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	19	1.06%	1,799
Dickson	1,691	62.47%	964	35.61%	39	1.44%	10	0.37%	3	0.11%	727	26.86%	2,707
Dyer	1,975	71.87%	728	26.49%	45	1.64%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	1,247	45.38%	2,748
Fayette	2,282	71.31%	885	27.66%	20	0.63%	12	0.38%	1	0.03%	1,397	43.66%	3,200
Fentress	320	29.01%	782	70.90%	1	0.09%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-462	-41.89%	1,103
Franklin	2,196	76.49%	613	21.35%	62	2.16%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	1,583	55.14%	2,871
Gibson	3,376	64.97%	1,509	29.04%	257	4.95%	54	1.04%	0	0.00%	1,867	35.93%	5,196
Giles	2,790	61.43%	1,703	37.49%	26	0.57%	23	0.51%	0	0.00%	1,087	23.93%	4,542
Grainger	960	34.68%	1,802	65.10%	6	0.22%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-842	-30.42%	2,768
Greene	2,868	47.89%	3,091	51.61%	30	0.50%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-223	-3.72%	5,989
Grundy	852	69.72%	357	29.21%	13	1.06%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	495	40.51%	1,222
Hamblen	959	41.52%	1,322	57.23%	29	1.26%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-363	-15.71%	2,310
Hamilton	3,188	42.57%	3,943	52.66%	257	3.43%	39	0.52%	61	0.81%	-755	-10.08%	7,488
Hancock	382	21.09%	1,429	78.91%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,047	-57.81%	1,811
Hardeman	1,974	59.42%	1,336	40.22%	3	0.09%	9	0.27%	0	0.00%	638	19.21%	3,322
Hardin	1,159	45.88%	1,367	54.12%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-208	-8.23%	2,526
Hawkins	1,867	42.38%	2,515	57.09%	22	0.50%	1	0.02%	0	0.00%	-648	-14.71%	4,405
Haywood	1,452	85.87%	214	12.66%	16	0.95%	4	0.24%	5	0.30%	1,238	73.21%	1,691
Henderson	1,308	39.87%	1,925	58.67%	42	1.28%	6	0.18%	0	0.00%	-617	-18.81%	3,281
Henry	2,605	70.92%	929	25.29%	103	2.80%	26	0.71%	10	0.27%	1,676	45.63%	3,673
Hickman	1,292	58.22%	894	40.29%	9	0.41%	24	1.08%	0	0.00%	398	17.94%	2,219
Houston	738	66.85%	341	30.89%	25	2.26%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	397	35.96%	1,104
Humphreys	1,561	69.78%	614	27.45%	54	2.41%	4	0.18%	4	0.18%	947	42.33%	2,237
Jackson	1,479	61.12%	935	38.64%	0	0.00%	6	0.25%	0	0.00%	544	22.48%	2,420
James	283	32.01%	598	67.65%	3	0.34%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-315	-35.63%	884
Jefferson	816	25.67%	2,347	73.83%	16	0.50%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,531	-48.16%	3,179
Johnson	189	10.42%	1,618	89.20%	7	0.39%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,429	-78.78%	1,814
Knox	4,389	51.08%	3,982	46.35%	120	1.40%	47	0.55%	54	0.63%	407	4.74%	8,592
Lake	558	73.52%	201	26.48%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	357	47.04%	759
Lauderdale	1,807	78.46%	437	18.98%	24	1.04%	35	1.52%	0	0.00%	1,370	59.49%	2,303
Lawrence	1,480	52.73%	1,327	47.27%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	153	5.45%	2,807
Lewis	400	66.23%	202	33.44%	2	0.33%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	198	32.78%	604
Lincoln	2,463	72.19%	728	21.34%	168	4.92%	53	1.55%	0	0.00%	1,735	50.85%	3,412
Loudon	512	31.28%	1,116	68.17%	7	0.43%	2	0.12%	0	0.00%	-604	-36.90%	1,637
Macon	871	39.66%	1,325	60.34%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-454	-20.67%	2,196
Madison	2,379	64.84%	1,147	31.26%	15	0.41%	123	3.35%	5	0.14%	1,232	33.58%	3,669
Marion	1,234	43.73%	1,585	56.17%	3	0.11%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-351	-12.44%	2,822
Marshall	2,184	69.27%	763	24.20%	95	3.01%	111	3.52%	0	0.00%	1,421	45.07%	3,153
Maury	3,325	56.42%	2,491	42.27%	53	0.90%	24	0.41%	0	0.00%	834	14.15%	5,893
McMinn	1,289	37.90%	2,057	60.48%	52	1.53%	3	0.09%	0	0.00%	-768	-22.58%	3,401
McNairy	1,443	48.37%	1,498	50.22%	7	0.23%	35	1.17%	0	0.00%	-55	-1.84%	2,983
Meigs	701	52.83%	619	46.65%	2	0.15%	5	0.38%	0	0.00%	82	6.18%	1,327
Monroe	1,634	47.40%	1,743	50.57%	69	2.00%	1	0.03%	0	0.00%	-109	-3.16%	3,447
Montgomery	2,248	51.30%	1,815	41.42%	318	7.26%	1	0.02%	0	0.00%	433	9.88%	4,382
Moore	838	91.09%	66	7.17%	16	1.74%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	772	83.91%	920
Morgan	421	28.45%	1,053	71.15%	6	0.41%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-632	-42.70%	1,480
Obion	2,722	74.78%	771	21.18%	127	3.49%	20	0.55%	0	0.00%	1,951	53.60%	3,640
Overton	1,443	65.38%	764	34.62%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	679	30.77%	2,207
Perry	851	57.89%	608	41.36%	0	0.00%	11	0.75%	0	0.00%	243	16.53%	1,470
Pickett	345	40.16%	514	59.84%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-169	-19.67%	859
Polk	737	44.83%	906	55.11%	0	0.00%	1	0.06%	0	0.00%	-169	-10.28%	1,644
Putnam	1,452	57.76%	1,058	42.08%	4	0.16%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	394	15.67%	2,514
Rhea	798	47.93%	832	49.97%	33	1.98%	1	0.06%	1	0.06%	-34	-2.04%	1,665
Roane	740	22.06%	2,429	72.42%	148	4.41%	14	0.42%	23	0.69%	-1,689	-50.36%	3,354
Robertson	2,564	68.10%	1,128	29.96%	67	1.78%	6	0.16%	0	0.00%	1,436	38.14%	3,765
Rutherford	2,517	62.29%	1,429	35.36%	13	0.32%	82	2.03%	0	0.00%	1,088	26.92%	4,041
Scott	171	10.23%	1,498	89.59%	3	0.18%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-1,327	-79.37%	1,672
Sequatchie	375	62.71%	216	36.12%	7	1.17%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	159	26.59%	598
Sevier	382	12.81%	2,595	86.99%	6	0.20%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-2,213	-74.19%	2,983
Shelby	5,143	62.50%	2,961	35.98%	42	0.51%	32	0.39%	51	0.62%	2,182	26.52%	8,229
Smith	1,940	61.16%	1,118	35.25%	80	2.52%	34	1.07%	0	0.00%	822	25.91%	3,172
Stewart	1,577	65.93%	793	33.15%	20	0.84%	2	0.08%	0	0.00%	784	32.78%	2,392
Sullivan	2,421	57.42%	1,739	41.25%	55	1.30%	1	0.02%	0	0.00%	682	16.18%	4,216
Sumner	2,589	75.68%	776	22.68%	26	0.76%	26	0.76%	4	0.12%	1,813	53.00%	3,421
Tipton	1,887	58.55%	1,308	40.58%	8	0.25%	20	0.62%	0	0.00%	579	17.96%	3,223
Trousdale	675	72.82%	222	23.95%	3	0.32%	27	2.91%	0	0.00%	453	48.87%	927
Unicoi	76	8.29%	822	89.64%	19	2.07%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-746	-81.35%	917
Union	566	27.22%	1,501	72.20%	12	0.58%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	-935	-44.97%	2,079
Van Buren	425	73.40%	153	26.42%	1	0.17%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	272	46.98%	579
Warren	1,926	74.13%	672	25.87%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	1,254	48.27%	2,598
Washington	1,496	36.98%	2,488	61.51%	60	1.48%	1	0.02%	0	0.00%	-992	-24.52%	4,045
Wayne	576	28.94%	1,405	70.60%	8	0.40%	1	0.05%	0	0.00%	-829	-41.66%	1,990
Weakley	3,609	62.74%	1,990	34.60%	123	2.14%	30	0.52%	0	0.00%	1,619	28.15%	5,752
White	1,658	70.92%	656	28.06%	24	1.03%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	1,002	42.86%	2,338
Williamson	2,136	72.98%	704	24.05%	49	1.67%	38	1.30%	0	0.00%	1,432	48.92%	2,927
Wilson	2,674	70.20%	1,061	27.86%	66	1.73%	8	0.21%	0	0.00%	1,613	42.35%	3,809
Totals	145,249	53.04%	123,108	44.95%	3,844	1.40%	1,323	0.48%	346	0.13%	22,141	8.08%	273,870

Notes

References

1. Wright, John K.; ‘Voting Habits in the United States: A Note on Two Maps’; Geographical Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (October 1932), pp. 666-672
2. Key (Jr.), Valdimer Orlando; Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York, 1949), pp. 282-283
3. Lyons, William; Scheb (II), John M. and Stair Billy; Government and Politics in Tennessee, pp. 183-184 ISBN 1572331410
4. Kousser, J. Morgan; The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910, p. 104 ISBN 0-300-01973-4
5. Kousser; The Shaping of Southern Politics, p. 110
6. Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics, p. 118
7. Kousser; The Shaping of Southern Politics, p. 104
8. ‘Summary of the States Generally Conceded to McKinley or Bryan by Impartial Observers’; The Boston Globe, October 21, 1900, p. 33
9. Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; Presidential General Election Results – Tennessee
10. Géoelections; Popular Vote at the Presidential Election for 1900 (.xlsx file for €30)