John Bell (February 18, 1796September 10, 1869) was an American politician, attorney, and planter who was a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1860.
One of Tennessee's most prominent antebellum politicians, Bell served in the House of Representatives from 1827 to 1841, and in the Senate from 1847 to 1859. He was Speaker of the House for the 23rd Congress (1834–1835), and briefly served as Secretary of War during the administration of William Henry Harrison (1841). In 1860, he ran for president as the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, a third party which took a neutral stance on the issue of slavery. He consistently battled Jackson's allies, namely James K. Polk, over issues such as the national bank and the election spoils system. Following the death of Hugh Lawson White in 1840, Bell became the acknowledged leader of Tennessee's Whigs. Bell was one of the few Southern politicians to oppose the expansion of slavery to the territories in the 1850s, and he campaigned vigorously against secession in the years leading up to the American Civil War. He graduated from Cumberland College (later renamed the University of Nashville) in 1814 and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1816 and established a prosperous practice in Franklin.
The division between Northern and Southern Whigs over the Kansas-Nebraska Act doomed the party, with Northern Whigs shifting to the new Republican Party. In early September 1856, he was selected to be a delegate to the 1856 National Whig Convention. The convention nominated former president Millard Fillmore, who had already been nominated by the American Party, or "Know Nothings". While he campaigned for Know Nothing candidates, Bell did not endorse many of the party's more controversial positions, such as its anti-Catholic stance. Bell was the only presidential candidate on the 1860 presidential election ballot that hailed from a future Confederate state.
left|thumb|[[Louis Maurer cartoon depicting the 1860 presidential election as a baseball game; L to R: Bell, Douglas, Breckinridge, and Lincoln]]
While Bell had supporters throughout the Northern states and the border states, most of his Northern allies had thrown their support behind Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln or Northern Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas. He had little support south of the border states, where Southern Democratic candidate John C. Breckinridge was the clear frontrunner. Southern Democratic newspapers slammed him as a friend of abolitionists and Republicans. The Nashville Union, referring to the Constitutional Union Party's noncommitted platform, derided Bell as "Nobody's man," who "stands on nobody's platform." and by Douglas in Missouri, and lost badly in Delaware, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. While Bell received less than 3% of the popular vote cast in Northern states, several of his electors were on fusion tickets with Douglas and Breckinridge electors, so this figure may not be representative of his actual support. Following the speech, he walked across the street to the law office of long-time Whig attorney Oliver Perry Temple, where Temple and several other pro-Union leaders had gathered. Among them were Brownlow, Perez Dickinson, and William Rule. Temple later recalled:<blockquote>Mr. Bell said, in a half-sad and half-complaining tone: "I see that none of my old friends were over to hear me speak." "No," said Mr. Brownlow, "we were not present, and did not intend being. We did not wish to witness the spectacle of your being surrounded by your enemies, who a few months ago were denouncing you as a traitor. We did not wish to hear these men shouting for you and see you in such a position." Mr. Brownlow then poured forth a torrent of abuse and denunciation of secession. Mr. Bell made no attempt to defend them, nor indeed to defend his own course. Temple surmised that Bell's decision to support the Confederacy was driven by panic, for "there was not a drop of disloyal blood in his veins."