1855 Chicago mayoral election

none January 2025 September 2023 Chicago mayoral election, 1855 presidential no 1854 1856 March 8, 1855 File:Levi Boone (1).jpg Levi Boone Know Nothing 3,185 52.87% File:Isaac-milliken (1).jpg Isaac Lawrence Milliken Democratic Party (United States) 2,839 47.13% Mayor Isaac Lawrence Milliken Democratic Party (United States) Levi Boone Know Nothing In the 1855 Chicago mayoral election, Know Nothing candidate Levi Boone defeated Democratic incumbent Isaac Lawrence Milliken by a 5.75% margin. RaceID=486034 Our Campaigns http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=486034 2018-12-04 The election was held on March 8.Mayor Levi Day Boone Biography https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-levi-day-boone-biography/ www.chipublib.org 17 May 2020 Campaigning The mayoral election was unusual in that no candidate had entered the race until five days before the day of the election. The campaign for the municipal elections of 1855 began very early in the year, before any candidates had emerged for the mayoral race. Religious, ethnic, and political leaders debated for weeks on many issues. The race quickly took a nativist tone.Immigrants in the Valley: Irish, Germans, and Americans in the Upper Mississippi Country, 1830-1860 Portada Mark Wyman SIU Press, Nov 9, 2016 Topics included the role of foreigners on night police duty, controversy regarding the city's school fund, bar fights. Debate also arose from the split amongst Democrats around the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which would take an even more prominent role in the following year's election. One of the greatest controversies was about the state legislature's decision to allow a referendum for that June regarding possible prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Boone received support from a coalition of Know-Nothing and pro-temperance voters. Einhorn Robin Robin Einhorn Lager Beer Riot Encyclopedia of Chicago University of Chicago Press 2004 http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/703.html 2010-10-12 As was typical of his party, Boone's platform was anti-immigrant, anti-alcohol, and anti-catholic. Bridgeport: Politics UIC.edu https://lockzero.org.uic.edu/V.html 2018-12-04 January 17, 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20160117131939/https://lockzero.org.uic.edu/v.html dead Richard Lawrence Miller Lincoln and His World: Volume 4, The Path to the Presidency, 1854–1860 https://books.google.com/books?id=V0pLMk1BLNAC&pg=PA63 2012 McFarland 63–4 Boone had run for mayor once before, having been an unsuccessful candidate in the 1850 mayoral election.RaceID=486029 https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=486029 Our Campaigns December 3, 2018 Boone benefitted from an article published by the Chicago Tribune that blamed Milliken for an Irish beer riot and stoked fears by warning, "Every vote given for Milliken is a vote given for whisky, Jesuitism, for Irish rule, for crime and pauperism, and for the ruin of Chicago."Cowan Mimi Immigrants, Nativists, and the Making of Chicago, 1835-1893 https://dlib.bc.edu/islandora/object/bc-ir:104929/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf Boston College University Libraries 17 May 2020 2015 The management of 24 German saloons announced that their establishments would be closed on the day of the election.Goodspeed Weston A. The History of Cook County, Illinois Feb 6, 2017 Jazzybee Verlag This was a largely unprecedented move, and received praise from both by the press and from religious leaders. There were allegations that Irish and German voters from Bridgeport, which was then outside the city limits, were brought in to vote illegally for Milliken. Results 1855 Chicago mayoral election Know Nothing Levi Boone 3,185 52.87 Democratic Party (United States) Isaac Lawrence Milliken (incumbent) 2,839 47.13 6,024 Aftermath Boone's victory was also a victory for the burgeoning Know Nothing party, which had been established the previous year. Despite nearly half of Chicagoans being of foreign origin, Boone had won on a nativist platform.Fabulous Chicago by Emmett Dedmon Privately, Illinois politician (and future United States President) Abraham Lincoln was vehemently opposed to the platform upon which Boone had run; however, he did not publicly denounce it out of concern that doing so would alienate the support he needed in order to build a successful anti-slavery coalition in Illinois and to win the Illinois' United States Senate election three years later. In his term as mayor, Boone cracked down on immigrants. He barred them from working for the municipal government. He also enforced liquor policies which were perceived to target German immigrants, which led to the Lager Beer Riot. References collapsed 1855 Chicago Chicago Category:1850s in Chicago Category:March 1855