U.S. political event held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The 1936 Democratic National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 23 to 27, 1936. The convention resulted in the nomination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John N. Garner for reelection.
Changes to rules.
At the 1936 Democratic Convention, the rule requiring candidates for president and vice president to have a majority of two-thirds of the delegates votes to win nomination, which had existed since 1832, was abolished.
Roosevelt had long pushed for the rule's abolition, in part due to past deadlocks: for example, the 1924 convention had required 103 ballots over roughly two weeks to nominate John W. Davis.
The conventioneers provided that a simple majority of delegates would be required to win nomination, allowing for candidates to more easily be nominated and thus produce less balloting. In this regard, only one Democratic Convention after 1932 has required multiple ballots (that of 1952, which required three).
This also began the decline of the South's clout at Democratic conventions, making it easier for the Democrats to begin adopting civil rights and other liberal ideas into their platforms, since the two-thirds rule had long given the South a "de facto" veto power on presidential nominees.
With the rule's abolition, Missouri Senator Bennett Champ Clark noted that "the Democratic Party is no longer a sectional party, it has become a great national party." Southern Democrats would continue to decline in power, ultimately leading to the Dixiecrat movement and Nixon's 1968 Southern strategy.
South Carolina Senator Ellison D. Smith walked out of the convention once he saw that a black minister, Marshall L. Shepard, was going to deliver the invocation.
Results.
The Balloting:
President Roosevelt and Vice President Garner were renominated by acclamation without need for a roll-call vote.
In his acceptance speech on June 27 at the adjacent Franklin Field, Roosevelt remarked, "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
References.
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