Unless I counted wrong, it looks like 8 Presidents and 3 losers.
Interesting read, thanks.
I thought James K. Polk and Coolidge were also elected in a contested convention.
Garfield ended up with Chester Arthur as his VP. Arthur was ineligible to be President. His daughter witnessed him burning papers near the end of his life that were said to have proven that.
Robert Todd Lincoln is involved in the story. Interestingly, Lincoln was at the deathbed of three out of four assassinated Presidents. He attended his father, of course. He was in the train station when Garfield was shot and he served on McKinley’s cabinet.
No party has ever considered a ‘plurality wins’ rule. The only alternative to a majority has been a super-majority. The Democrats had a ‘two-thirds wins’ rule until 1936.
It would be interesting to know if there has ever been a candidate who dominated his fellow candidates but came up just short, but still had the nomination given to someone else.
The difference between some of those conventions and now is the primary system. The contested conventions before the 20th century did not involve primary elections. It is one thing to decide a nominee based solely on conventioneer votes, another to disavow the state primary voters’ wishes and pull some new candidate out of their orifices and foist him on the electorate.
Great catch!