Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 2 January 2005

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The political history of Warren County may be summed up in the statement that the majority of her voters were at first anti-Federalists, or Jeffersonian Republicans, and, in later years, Anti-Democratic. The names of the political parties to which a majority of the people belonged at different periods are anti-Federal, or Republican, from 1801 to 1828; National Republican, from 1828 to 1834; Whig, from 1834 to 1855; and Republican, from 1855 to the present time.

When new political parties were being formed, about 1828, the voters of Warren County were for awhile nearly equally divided between the Jackson and the anti-Jackson parties. At the October election in 1828, the Jackson candidates for the General Assembly and for Governor received a small majority, but at the Presidential election, in November of the same year, the Adams men succeeded in giving their candidate a majority of thirty-seven votes in the county. The next year, the county took its place among those which were thenceforward decidedly anti-Jackson.

The history of political parties in the two counties of Butler and Warren presents a curious subject for the sociologist. These two counties were created by the same act of the Legislature; they were settled about the same date; they lie side by side, and have the same fertile soil; for more than a quarter of a century, they were alike in politics, and gave similar majorities for the same State and national tickets, but about 1830, they separated in politics, and from that time forward have never given majorities for the same party. For fifty years, Butler has been decidedly Democratic, and Warren decidedly anti-Democratic.

The method of nominating candidates for office is a subject of interest and importance. Previous to 1828, candidates were generally placed before the people without the intervention of a party caucus, a political convention or a primary election; yet, in the bitter contest over the formation of a State government in 1802, the Republicans of Hamilton County nominated ten candidates for members of the convention called to form a constitution. After the establishment of a newspaper at Lebanon, the names of candidates for county offices and members of the Legislature were usually announced by themselves

In 1824, the leading men of the county, who had before been united in their efforts to elect Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, were for the first time divided in their choice for President. The name of Francis Dunlevy was placed on the Electoral ticket for John Quincy Adams; John Bigger and young Tom Corwin supported Henry Clay; Judge Kesling supported Andrew Jackson; and Thomas B. Ross, who preferred Crawford, in the absence of an Electoral ticket in Ohio for Crawford, also supported Jackson, while the friends of all the Presidential candidates united in the support of Jeremiah Morrow, who was that year a candidate for re-election to the office of Governor, and received nearly the whole vote of the county. It is worthy of note, too, that, although Henry Clay received fewer votes in the county than either Adams or Jackson, yet John Bigger, who was a supporter of Clay, and whose name was placed on the Clay Electoral ticket, was this same year elected a Representative of the county in the Legislature.

The first national political convention in the United States for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice President was held by the National Republican party at Baltimore, December 12, 1831. At that time, Warren and Butler Counties constituted a Congressional district, and, some weeks before the assembling of the Baltimore convention, there was held, at a tavern near the line separating the two counties, a mass meeting of the opponents of the administration of Jackson, at which Gov. Morrow was appointed to represent the district in the national convention. He accepted the appointment and attended the convention, which nominated Henry Clay and John Sergeant for President and Vice President.

In 1828, party lines were closely drawn between the Adams men and Jackson men. Rallying committees were appointed in the various townships for the purpose of getting out a full vote at the election for President. At that time and for many succeeding years, one of the most hotly contested questions at issue was which was the old Republican party. Both parties claimed to be the original Jeffersonian Republicans. Federalist, the name of the party to which Washington and Hamilton belonged, had long before become a term of reproach.

In 1828 or the year following, for the first time in the history of elections in the county, an effort was made to elect members of the Legislature as partisan supporters of a particular candidate for President, and a Jackson ticket was nominated at a caucus of the party leaders. This method of choosing members of the General Assembly seems to have been distasteful to the majority of the staid yeomanry at that time, but before many years elapsed, the Whigs, who controlled the county, began to make party nominations, both for legislators and county officers. At a large Whig mass meeting, held at Waynesville in 1840, John Probasco was nominated for the Legislature, and candidates were selected for county officers to be elected that year.

Nominations were made by the Whigs at mass meetings for several years. The balloting for candidates at these meetings was conducted in a loose manner, and there were abundant facilities for fraud. A living witness narrates having seen, in a mass meeting held in a grove north of Lebanon, one voter deposit forty tickets for his candidate in the hat which served as a ballot-box.

The political campaign of 1840 was one of peculiar interest to the Whigs of Warren County. The county furnished that year the successful candidates for Governor and member of Congress, while the successful candidate for President resided in the adjoining county of Hamilton. The bitter contest between the opposing parties began early in the spring, and was continued with increasing excitement until the Presidential election. Harrison and Tyler had been nominated at Harrisburg December 6, 1839. Corwin was nominated for Governor at a great mass meeting at Columbus, February 22, 1840. The public mind was soon put in commotion by mass meetings and mass conventions, some of which were of enormous size. A very large mass convention of the Whigs of the Fourth Congressional District, composed of the counties of Warren, Clinton and Highland, was held at Wilmington May 22. For two or three weeks before the meeting, local committees were at work throughout Warren to have a large delegation from the county in attendance, and their efforts were successful. It was estimated that there were 10,000 persons present at the convention, a large proportion being from Warren County. The people went on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and in log cabins and immense canoes placed on wheels, drawn by six horses. They carried banners, flags, coon-skins and kegs of hard cider, and sang doggerel ballads made for the occasion, accompanied with the noise of drums, fifes and fiddles. There were three large canoes and one log cabin from Warren County at the Wilmington convention. Nathaniel McLean, of Warren County, was President of the meeting, and Thomas Corwin was the orator. Before the address of Corwin, the main business before the convention was transacted. The people from the three counties, being separated into three meetings, appointed fifty delegates from each county for the purpose of nominating a candidate for Congress. The delegates, having met, reported to the convention that they had agreed upon ex-Gov. Jeremiah Morrow as the candidate for the unexpired term of Hon. Thomas Corwin, and also for the ensuing full term. This report was then unanimously confirmed by a vote of the whole convention. J. Milton Williams, Esq., of Warren County, had, in a speech in Wilmington the previous evening, declined being a candidate for Congress.

The largest mass meeting held in the United States in this campaign, noted for monster assemblies, was at Dayton, where the body of people assembled covered ten acres by actual measurement. Thousands of the Whigs of Warren County attended this immense gathering. In September, Gen. Harrison, Gov. Thomas Metcalfe, of Kentucky, and others, addressed a Whig meeting in a grove north of Lebanon, at which about five thousand were present. Gov. Wilson Shannon and Senator William Allen addressed a Democratic meeting at the same place in this campaign. It was during this campaign that Corwin, the Whig candidate for Governor, became most widely known as a popular and effective political speaker. One of the best of the poetic effusions of this memorable political contest was by John W. Van Cleve, of Dayton, and was sung to a popular air. The opening stanza was:

"Success to you, Tom Corwin!
Tom Corwin, our hearts love you!
Ohio has no nobler son,
In worth there's none above you,
And she will soon bestow
On you her highest honor.
And then our State will proudly show
Without a stain upon her."

STATISTICS OF VOTES IN WARREN COUNTY.

1803—At the first election for Governor, Warren was a part of Hamilton County.
1805—For Governor, Edward Tiffin, Republican, 473; no votes for any opponent returned.
1807—For Governor, Nathaniel Massie, Republican, 281; Return J. Meigs, Jr., Federalist, 136; total, 417.
1808—For Governor, Thomas Worthington, Republican, 460; Samuel Huntington, Federalist, 263; Thomas Kirker, Federalist, 64; total, 787.
1810—For Governor, Thomas Worthington, Republican, 538; Return J. Meigs, Jr., Federalist, 170; total, 708.
1812—For Governor, Return J. Meigs, Jr., War Federalist, 472; Thomas Scott, Anti-Federalist, 268; total, 740.
1814—For Governor, Thomas Worthington, Republican, 563; Othniel Looker, War Federalist, 271; total, 834.
1816—For Governor, Thomas Worthington, Republican, 1,340; James Dun-lap, Federalist, 95; total, 1,435.
1818—For Governor, Ethan Allen Brown, 1,098; James Dunlap, 207; total, 1,305.
1820—For Governor, Ethan Allen Brown, 891; Jeremiah Morrow, 281; William Henry Harrison, 3; total, 1,175.
[Neither Senator Morrow nor Gen. Harrison had consented to be candidates in opposition to the re-election of Gov. Brown.]
1822—For Governor, Jeremiah Morrow, Republican, 1,105; Allen Trimble, Republican, 189; William W. Irvin, Republican, 2; total, 1,296.
1824—For Governor, Jeremiah Morrow, Republican, 2,376; Allen Trimble, Republican, 144; total, 2,520. For President, Andrew Jackson, 750; J. Q. Adams, 602; Henry Clay, 311; total, 1,563.
1826—For Governor, Allen Trimble, Republican, 1,626; John Bigger, Republican, 517; Alexander Campbell, Republican, 23; Benjamin Tappan, Republican, 47; total, 2,213.
1828—For Governor, Allen Trimble, National Republican, 1,358; John W. Campbell, Democrat, 1,420; total, 2,778. For President, John Q. Adams, National Republican, 1,833; Andrew Jackson. Democrat, 1,796; total, 3,629.
1830—For Governor, Duncan McArthur, National Republican, 1,422; Robert. Lucas, Democrat, 1,128; total, 2,550.
1832—For President. Henry Clay, National Republican, 2,107; Andrew Jackson, Democrat, 1,735; William Wirt, Anti-Masonic, ——; total, 3,842.
1834—For Governor, James Findlay, Whig, 1,684; Robert Lucas, Democrat, 1,122; total, 2,806.
1836—For President, William Henry Harrison, Whig, 2,260; Martin Van Buren, Democrat, 1,326; total, 3,586.
1838—For Governor, Joseph Vance, Whig, 1,718; Wilson Shannon, Democrat, 1,019; total, 2,737.
1840—For Governor, Thomas Corwin, Whig, 2,752; Wilson Shannon, Democrat, 1,631; total, 4,383. Vote for President, William Henry Harrison, Whig,. 2,814; Martin Van Buren, Democrat, 1,504; James G. Birney, Abolition, 6; total, 4,324.
1842—For Governor, Thomas Corwin, Whig, 2,525; Wilson Shannon, Democrat, 1,643; Leicester King, Abolition, 7; total, 4,175.
1844—For Governor, Mordecai Bartley, Whig, 2,722; David Tod, Democrat, 1,800; Leicester King, Abolition, 94; total, 4,616. For President, Henry Clay, Whig, 2,822; James K. Polk, Democrat, 1,795; James G. Birney, Abolition, 85; total, 4,702.
1846—For Governor, William Bebb, Whig, 2,61 ; David Tod, Democrat, 1,608; Samuel Lewis, Abolition, 132 total, 4,357.