Charles Evans Hughes - Presidential Candidate

Presidential Candidate

Hughes resigned from the Supreme Court on June 10, 1916, to be the Republican candidate for President in 1916. He was also endorsed by the Progressive Party, thanks to the support given to him former President Theodore Roosevelt. Other Republican figures such as former President William Howard Taft endorsed Hughes and felt the accomplishments he made as Governor of New York would establish him as formidable progressive alternative to Wilson. Many former leaders of the Progressive Party, however, endorsed Wilson because Hughes opposed the Adamson Act, the Sixteenth Amendment and diverted his focus away from progressive issues during the course of the campaign. Hughes was defeated by Woodrow Wilson in a close election (separated by 23 electoral votes and 594,188 popular votes). The election hinged on California, where Wilson managed to win by 3,800 votes and its 13 electoral votes and thus Wilson was returned for a second term; Hughes had lost the endorsement of the California governor and Roosevelt's 1912 Progressive running mate Hiram Johnson when he failed to show up for an appointment with him.

Despite coming close to winning the presidency, Hughes did not seek the Republican nomination again in 1920. Hughes also advocated ways to prevent the return of President Wilson's expanded government control over important industries such as the nation's railroads, which he felt would lead to the eventual destruction of individualism and political self-rule. After Robert LaFollette's Progressive Party advocated the return of such regulations during the 1924 US Presidential election, Hughes shifted rightwards believing that the federal bureaucracy should now have limited powers over individual liberties and property rights and that common law should be strictly enforced.