Last night's debate had me thinking if this has ever happened before. Has a candidate ever said they would try to jail their opponent or is there an example of an opponent being jailed?
Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party, received over 3 percent of the popular vote in 1920 despite being in prison. He'd been arrested in 1918 and convicted of sedition for fighting the draft during World War I.
Debs was a highly visible figure, and President Wilson considered granting him clemency in 1919, but decided against it and vowed later that he would never grant Debs a pardon. President Harding commuted his sentence to time served in December 1921 but also refused Debs a pardon.
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Ah. There was William Sylvester Taylor, elected as governor of Kentucky in a hotly disputed election in 1899. The losing candidate, William Goebel, picked up a stray bullet and, as he was on his deathbed, the legislature declared him the legally elected governor. Goebel died, the courts declared Goebel's lieutenant governor, John C.W. Beckham, the new governor, and Taylor left Kentucky for Indiana, "under threat of indictment." There was at least one (unsuccessful) attempt to extradite him. Taylor was pardoned in 1909.
Whether or not he was actually guilty is unclear.
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