Introduction
In 1876, Americans marked
their centennial as an independent nation with celebrations
ranging from small-town barbecues to big-city parades. The
festivities reached their apex in Philadelphia, historic site of
the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention, which
hosted the first World's Fair held in the United States. It was
also fitting in that anniversary year that the oldest existing
democracy should hold a presidential election—the capstone event
of American representative government which had endured even a
civil war. Amidst such jubilation, few would have dared to
predict that the selection of the nation’s chief executive would
itself become a challenge to the constitutional system of
government.
Although the Republicans still controlled most of the
national government, they stood on uncertain ground as the 1876
campaign season commenced. The Panic of 1873 and the ensuing
economic depression had allowed the Democrats to recapture the
House of Representatives in 1874 for the first time since before
the Civil War. As Northern white support for Reconstruction
waned and federal troops withdrew, white voters returned the
Democratic party to power in most Southern states as well. In
addition, several well-publicized and investigated scandals
involving prominent officials in the Grant administration
burdened the efforts of all Republicans in that election year.
Furthermore, the Republican party was increasingly divided.
From its inception in the mid-1850s the Republican party
consisted of diverse elements held together first by opposition
to the spread of slavery, then by preservation of the union and
the abolition of slavery, and finally by the reconstruction of
the union with basic civil rights for black Americans. By 1876
those unifying issues were gone or rapidly receding, causing
Republican factionalism to rise to the fore. Three major groups
made up the GOP: Stalwarts, or conservative supporters of
President Grant; moderate "half-breeds"; and liberal reformers,
many of whom had bolted the party in 1872.
The Republican
Nomination
The front-runner for the Republican
presidential nomination in 1876 was U.S. House minority leader
James G. Blaine of Maine, who had served previously as Speaker
of the House (1869-1875). Blaine was a talented politician who
had become leader of the moderate wing of the Republican party.
At first, the main obstacle on his way to the White House seemed
to be its current occupant, Ulysses S. Grant, who had indicated
in May 1875 that he would accept the nomination for a third
term, if offered. A few months later the new Congress
overwhelmingly passed a resolution reasserting the two-term
tradition, with Blaine voting in the affirmative.
The former speaker, however, became tarred with the taint of
corruption. It was alleged that as speaker he had influenced
legislation favorable to a railroad company in return for a
large cash payment for nearly worthless bonds. Rumors of the
Blaine scandal began to circulate in February 1876, gained
momentum after being leaked to the press by aides of two of his
Republican presidential rivals, Benjamin Bristow and Rutherford
Hayes, and culminated in a well-publicized House investigation
in late May. Evidence known as the "Mulligan Letters" seemed to
implicate Blaine, and his effort to defend himself was less than
candid. The House, however, took no action against him when it
lost jurisdiction upon his appointment to the U.S. Senate to
fill the remaining term of Lot Morrill who had replaced Bristow
as Grant’s treasury secretary.
Benjamin Bristow of Kentucky, the former treasury secretary,
had become the favored presidential candidate of the Republican
reform wing. Initially given a mandate by President Grant to
clean out the corrupt Treasury Department, Bristow earned
Grant’s enmity when his thoroughness in prosecuting the Whiskey
Ring scandals implicated the president’s personal secretary,
Orville Babcock. Unwilling to back down, Bristow resigned and
threw his hat into the presidential ring. While most 1872
Liberal Republicans returned to the Republican party to support
first Bristow, then Hayes, a few would back Democrat Samuel
Tilden, the reform governor of New York. Another leading
contender for the Republican nomination was Senator Oliver
Morton from the crucial swing-state of Indiana. But besides
uncertain health, his close ties to Grant made reformers uneasy,
while his Radical Reconstruction and inflationist views put off
conservatives.
The real surrogate for Grant was Senator Roscoe Conkling of
New York, who had received the president’s blessing when Grant
decided not to run again himself. As "boss" of the New York
Republicans, Conkling represented the type of "machine"
politician who was anathema to the civil service reformers. In
contrast, Rutherford Hayes had gained the deserved reputation as
a reformer during his two terms as governor of Ohio (1868-1872),
and had campaigned vigorously for Grant’s reelection in 1872.
After his inauguration for a third (non-consecutive) term in
January 1876, Hayes’s star rose as a presidential hopeful and he
was generally regarded as the top vice-presidential choice.
Rounding out the field was Governor John Hartranft, favorite-son
of the politically significant state of Pennsylvania.
The Republican National Convention in Cincinnati on June
14-16 marked the first time since 1860 that the Republican
nominee was not known ahead of time. Delegates to the 1876
convention adopted a platform endorsing equal rights under the
law and the Constitution, the separation of church and public
school, a protective tariff, conservation of public lands, and
pensions for Union veterans. The Blaine scandal had been
seemingly resolved and had faded from the newspapers. A rousing
nomination speech by Robert Ingersoll generated a frenzy for
Blaine, "a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers
won upon the field." Spinning vice into virtue, the
silver-tongued Ingersoll depicted Blaine as "a plumed knight …
[who] threw his shining lance … against the brazen foreheads of
the defamers of his country and the malingers of his honor."
To Blaine’s detriment, though, after the nominating speeches
the convention adjourned until the next day, thus allowing the
excitement for Maine’s new senator to wane and his rivals’
deputies to take counter-measures. Hayes’s men gained the
promised support of the Bristow and Morton delegates if their
candidates were unable to break through the Blaine bloc on the
early ballots. The Morton forces were assured of high judicial
office for John Marshall Harlan (whom Hayes later named to the
Supreme Court), while the Blaine, Conkling, and Hartranft
factions were kept in the dark. Hayes had several advantages: he
was acceptable to both reformers and Grant loyalists; he had no
negative traits like other candidates; his campaign managers
were skilled and effective; and his partisans filled the
convention hall in Cincinnati (a locale originally expected to
benefit Bristow and Morton).
With 378 needed for nomination, Blaine led on the first
ballot with 285, followed by Morton with 124, Bristow with 113,
Conkling with 99, Hayes with 61, Hartranft with 58, and
scattered votes for a few others. That pattern held steady
through the fourth ballot, except for Bristow with 126 votes
taking over second place from Morton who dropped to 108. On the
fifth ballot, the Bristow and Morton delegates began shifting to
Hayes, who edged out Blaine on the seventh ballot, 384 to 351
(with 21 for Bristow), to win the nomination. The convention
then named Congressman William Wheeler of New York as the
Republican vice-presidential nominee. Wheeler had received 3
votes for president and had led a special House committee, but
was so obscure that Hayes had not known of him until a few
months before the convention. In his letter of acceptance, Hayes
endorsed the party’s platform and promised to serve only one
term (a reform popular with Republicans of Whig inclinations,
and seen as a way to undercut the patronage system).
The Democratic
Nomination
Meanwhile, the Democrats
believed, with justification, that they had their best chance of
recapturing the White House in twenty years. The elections of
1874 had resulted not only in a Democratic House, but in the
elevation of a new set of party leaders, including Governor
Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Most of Tilden’s political career
had been spent behind the scenes as chair of the New York
Democratic party (1866-1874) and national campaign manager for
Horatio Seymour’s unsuccessful 1868 presidential bid. Tilden
used his authority as party chair to help topple William Tweed,
the corrupt political boss of New York City, then won a seat in
the state legislature in 1872. As governor he solidified his
record as a reformer by prosecuting the Canal Ring. Tilden’s
stature as a reform governor of the nation’s most populous state
made him the Democrats’ obvious choice for their standard-bearer
in 1876.
The Democratic National Convention took place on June 27-29
in St. Louis, the first national party convention site west of
the Mississippi River. Tilden easily won the necessary
two-thirds of the delegate vote on the first ballot, getting 535
votes to 140½ for Governor Thomas Hendricks of Indiana and 75
for General Winfield Hancock. The result was made unanimous on
the second ballot, then Hendricks was selected as the
vice-presidential nominee. Hailing from the pivotal state of
Indiana, Hendricks’ support of soft-money balanced Tilden’s
hard-money stance on the divisive "money question." The
Democratic platform demanded repeal of the 1875
specie-resumption act (which ensured that paper currency would
be backed by gold—primarily—or silver); condemned Grant
administration malfeasance; reaffirmed the Reconstruction
Constitutional amendments, while denouncing Congressional
Reconstruction as unjustly coercive and corrupt; and supported a
tariff for revenue only, conservation of public lands, and civil
service reform.
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