How did the panic of 1893 affect the outcome of the election of 1896?

Many historians have argued that without the Panic of 1837, the Whigs are unlikely to have ever won a presidential election.

The Panic of 1837 allowed the nascent Whig party to win an overwhelming electoral victory in the presidential elections of 1840. The Party had formed early in the 1830s out of protest of Democrat President Jackson's war on the Second Bank of the United States.

Jackson's Bank Wars is considered by many historians to be the main catalyst of the Panic of 1837 - an economic crisis that saw over half of the country's banks shut down, the highest unemployment rates yet seen in the United States, and a depression that lasted until 1843.

Jackson had been succeeded to the presidency by his Vice-President Martin Van Buren in 1836, and Van Buren was inaugurated just 5 weeks before the outbreak of the Panic in May 1837. Van Buren and the Democrat party shouldered much of the blame for the crisis. Van Buren strongly believed that government intervention in monetary matters should be kept to a minimum, and so did little to alleviate the effects of the Panic. When the Panic worsened in 1839, he did take the step of pushing an Independent Treasury Bill through Congress, a legislative move that would to an extent decrease America's dependence on Britain for the state of her econonmy.

However, the two nation's economies were far more deeply intertwined, and the move had little effect on the crisis. As unemployment and poverty reached record levels, many grew disillusioned with Van Buren's approach. The Whig party were not regarded as a serious threat, and ven his own Democrat party were unenthusiastic about the incumbent President, and so the 1840 election was approached somewhat half-heartedly.

The Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, famously ran a "log-cabin" campaign - one that emphasised his nature as a hard-working, self-made man who knew the truths of poverty and the working life. Va Buren was portrayed as an effette, ineffective politican, out of touch and uninterested in the Panic.