The 1956 National Convention of the Democratic Party nominated former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 for President and Senator

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Estes Kefauver

Estes Kefauver

Carey Estes Kefauver July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S...

 of Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 for Vice President. It was held in the International Amphitheatre

International Amphitheatre

The International Amphitheatre was an indoor arena, located in Chicago, Illinois, between 1934 and 1999. It was located on the west side of Halsted Street, at 42nd Street, on the city's south side, adjacent to the Union Stock Yards....

 on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois August 13–17 1956. Unsuccessful candidates for the presidential nomination included Gov. W. Averell Harriman

W. Averell Harriman

William Averell Harriman was an American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York...

 of New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

 of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, and Sen. Stuart Symington

Stuart Symington

William Stuart Symington was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.-Education and business career:...

 of Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

.

As the unsuccessful 1952 Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 presidential nominee, Stevenson had the highest stature of the active candidates and was easily renominated on the first ballot. Former President Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

, whose support for Stevenson in '52 helped secure him the nomination, was opposed to his renomination in 1956, instead favoring Harriman. It did no good, as Truman was no longer a sitting President, and Stevenson was nominated on the first ballot.

The convention was marked by a "free vote" for the vice-presidential nomination in which the winner, Kefauver, defeated Sen. John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 of Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. The vice-presidential vote, which required three separate ballots, was one of the last multi-ballot contests held at the quadrennial political convention of any major U.S. political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

.

The Democratic convention preceded the Republican convention in the Cow Palace

Cow Palace

Cow Palace is an indoor arena, in Daly City, California, situated on the city's border with neighboring San Francisco, notable as a sporting arena.-History:...

, San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. At the GOP gathering, incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

 was nominated for a second term.

NBC-TV assigned two of its reporters, Chet Huntley

Chet Huntley

Chester Robert "Chet" Huntley was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.-Early life:...

 and David Brinkley

David Brinkley

David McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997....

, to co-anchor their 1956 convention television coverage. The two men were so successful at this assignment that the network promoted them to anchor their evening news broadcast, the Huntley-Brinkley Report

Huntley-Brinkley Report

The Huntley-Brinkley Report was the NBC television network's flagship evening news program from October 29, 1956 until July 31, 1970. It was anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City, and David Brinkley in Washington, D.C...

(1956-1970).

The 1956 Democratic Platform

The Democrats favored greater reliance on the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, multilateral disarmament, more spending for programs relating to social welfare and agriculture, "a full and integrated program of development, protection, management and conservation of natural resources" and the use of peaceful atomic energy

With regard to the growing issue of civil rights

African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)

The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...

, the platform called for voting rights, equal employment opportunities, and the desegregation

Desegregation

Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...

 of public schools.

The Presidential vote

The roll call, as reported in Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, pp. 294-298:

Presidential Balloting, DNC 1956
Contender	Vote
Former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson	905.5 (65.9%)
New York Governor W. Averell Harriman W. Averell Harriman William Averell Harriman was an American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York...	210 (15.31%)
Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...  of Texas Texas Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...	80 (5.83%)
Missouri Senator Stuart Symington Stuart Symington William Stuart Symington was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.-Education and business career:...	45.5 (3.32%)
Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler Happy Chandler Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler, Sr. was a politician from the US state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. Senate and served as its 44th and 49th governor. Aside from his political positions, he also served as the second Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1945 to 1951 and...	36.5 (2.66%)
Georgia Congressman James C. Davis James C. Davis James Curran Davis was a politician from the state of Georgia.Davis was born in Franklin, Georgia. He attended Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia and Emory College in Oxford, Georgia. During World War I, Davis served in the United States Marine Corps...	33 (2.41%)
Former Virginia Governor John S. Battle John S. Battle John Stewart Battle was an American politician and the 56th Governor of Virginia from 1950 to 1954.Battle was born in 1890 in New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina. He earned an associate's degree from Mars Hill College , in North Carolina...	32.5 (2.37%)
South Carolina Governor George Bell Timmerman	23.5 (1.71%)
Ohio Governor Frank J. Lausche Frank J. Lausche Frank John Lausche was a Democratic politician from Ohio. He served as the 47th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as the 55th and 57th Governor of Ohio, and as a United States Senator from Ohio for two terms .-Biography:His family originates from Slovenia. After serving in the U.S...	5.5 (0.4%)

Vice-Presidential Nomination

The highlight of the 1956 Democratic Convention came when Stevenson, in an effort to create excitement for the ticket, made the surprise announcement that the convention's delegates would choose his running mate. This set off a desperate scramble among several candidates to win the nomination; a good deal of the excitement of the vice-presidential race came from the fact that the candidates had only one hectic day to campaign among the delegates before the voting began. The two leading contenders were Senator Kefauver, who retained the support of his primary delegates, and young Senator John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 of Massachusetts, who was relatively unknown at that point. Kennedy surprised the experts by surging into the lead on the second ballot; at one point he was only 15 votes shy of winning. However, a number of states then left their "favorite son" candidates and switched to Kefauver, giving him the victory. Kennedy then gave a gracious concession speech. The defeat was actually a boost for Kennedy's long-term presidential chances; by coming so close to defeating Kefauver he gained much favorable national publicity, yet by losing to Kefauver he avoided any blame for Stevenson's expected loss to Eisenhower in November. The vote totals in the vice presidential balloting are recorded in the following table, which also comes from Bain & Parris.

Vice Presidential candidates:

Vice Presidential Balloting, DNC 1956
Contender: Ballot	1	2 before shifts	2 after shifts
Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver Estes Kefauver Carey Estes Kefauver July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S...	466.5	551.5	755.5
Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....	294.5	618	589
Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, Sr. Albert Gore, Sr. Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Sr. was an American politician, serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party from Tennessee....	178	110.5	13.5
New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Robert Ferdinand Wagner II, usually known as Robert F. Wagner, Jr. served three terms as the mayor of New York City, from 1954 through 1965.-Biography:...	162.5	9.5	6
Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...	134	74.5	2
North Carolina Governor Luther Hodges	40	0.5	0
Pitt Tyson Maner of Alabama	33	0	0
Florida Governor LeRoy Collins LeRoy Collins Thomas LeRoy Collins was the 33rd Governor of Florida.-Early life:Collins was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, where he attended Leon High School. He went on to attend the Eastman Business College in New York and then went on to the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama to...	29	0	0
New Mexico Senator Clinton Anderson	16	0	0
Tennessee Governor Frank G. Clement Frank G. Clement Frank Goad Clement served as Governor of Tennessee from 1953 to 1959, and again from 1963 to 1967.-Early life:...	14	0	0
California Attorney General Pat Brown Pat Brown Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the 32nd Governor of California, serving from 1959 to 1967, and the father of current Governor of California Jerry Brown.-Background:...	1	0	0
Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson	1	0	0
Missouri Senator Stuart Symington Stuart Symington William Stuart Symington was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.-Education and business career:...	1	0	0

Election outcome

On November 6, Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver lost the election to President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon in a landslide.

External links

• Democratic Party Platform of 1956, The American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara)