President Harrison had anything but a tranquil administration. Soon after his inauguration bitter factional strife was developed, and he seemed never to be able to get into anything approaching close and sympathetic relations with the leaders of his party. He was much like Cleveland in his conscientious devotion to his public duties, and he was poorly equipped and had little taste for political direction. He was generally respected by the people of all parties, but he held the political leaders of his own faith at arm’s length. Senator Quay called upon him soon after his inauguration, expecting to receive the generous thanks of the President for his management of the desperate campaign that had given him and the party victory; but Quay’s political trust in his chieftain was greatly chilled as the President congratulated his Field Marshal that Providence had been with them in the contest and carried them safely through. While Quay is of the same old-school Presbyterian stock as Harrison, and had the training of his Presbyterian minister father, his faith in foreordination was not so rugged as to assume that Providence would have carried Harrison through if Quay had not exhausted all political resources, regular and irregular, to wrest New York from Cleveland and give Harrison the victory. Cameron, who had served in the Senate with Harrison, while he had entire faith in the integrity and ability of the new President, had no faith in his political usefulness, and from the start there were not the most cordial relations between the Pennsylvania Senators and the administration.

Harrison had failed to carry the popular majority over Cleveland, and the Republican majority in both Senate and House was regarded as too small for the present and future safety of the party. It was this political necessity that led to the admission of the six new States of North and South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming, which were expected to bring 12 additional Republican Senators, 7 additional Republican Congressmen, and 19 additional Republican electoral votes. How sadly the Republican leaders miscalculated on these new States is shown by the fact that Idaho and North Dakota voted for Weaver, while Montana and Wyoming were saved by nominal majorities, and all of these States, with the exception of North Dakota, voted against the Republican candidate for President in 1896.

The small Republican majority in the House was rapidly and ruthlessly increased by admitting Republican contestants regardless of the merits of their claims, and the whole policy of the Republican leadership, outside of Harrison himself, who did not inspire it, was to maintain Republican supremacy by might, regardless of right. Not only were six new States added, but a new Force bill was decided upon to restore Republican supremacy in the South. The attempt to revive such a measure was simply midsummer madness, as it was opposed by the entire conservative Republican element and arrayed the South in implacable hostility to the administration. Blaine had defeated the Force bill when it was urged under the Grant administration, and Senator J. Donald Cameron defeated it under the Harrison administration. Cameron had decided the contest between M. C. Butler, Democrat, and David T. Corbin, Republican, of South Carolina, in 1877. Corbin was one of the ablest of the South Carolina carpet-baggers, and was elected by the Republican Legislature, that had been finally dispersed by President Hayes refusing to support it, and Butler had been elected by the Hampton or Democratic Legislature.

There was a peculiar condition of affairs in South Carolina at the time. Patterson, the Republican Senator from that State, was a fugitive after the Hampton Government attained power, and Small, Cardoza, and a number of other colored leaders and officials in the State were under indictment for embezzlement and other frauds, and some of them had been convicted. On the other side, a number of Democratic citizens of South Carolina were under indictment in the Federal Courts for outrages perpetrated by them in the Ku Klux organization, and had the course of justice been permitted to go on without interruption, a large number of the leaders of both sides would have ended in prison. A truce was agreed upon, and finally an unwritten but well-maintained agreement was reached that there should be no further prosecution of the Ku Klux clan, and no further prosecution of Senator Patterson or any of the other Republicans who were then at the mercy of the Democrats. This was assented to by the Democrats on condition that Butler should be admitted to the Senate, and Cameron was the man who accomplished it.

When the new Force bill came up under the Harrison administration, Cameron was earnestly opposed to it, and he is entitled to the full credit of having defeated it. His Senatorial term expired on the 4th of March, 1891, and he was a candidate for re-election before a Republican Legislature that had been chosen in the fall of 1890, when the Democrats elected Pattison, Democrat, to his second term as Governor. It was expected that the vote on the Force bill would be had before the Senatorial election, and Cameron was threatened with defeat if he did not line up with the party in its favor. A majority of the considerate Republicans of Pennsylvania doubtless agreed with him, but he had many political enemies, and they would have been glad had he given them an opportunity to attack him as opposing the accepted policy of the party.

Some time before the Legislature met, Cameron requested me to meet him at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. He stated the case frankly; said he could command the Republican nomination for Senator without a doubt and by a large majority, but that if the Democrats would unite with the bolting Republicans, he might be defeated if a vote was reached on the Force bill before the Senatorial election and he voting against it. What he desired was the assurance that if Cameron was threatened with defeat by the Republicans because of his opposition to the Force bill, the Democrats should not permit him to be crucified for opposing and defeating a bill that they were most anxious to have defeated. Pattison had been elected Governor and William F. Harrity had been announced as the coming Secretary of the Commonwealth. I said to Cameron that both of them were within two squares of us and that I could ascertain their views in a very few minutes. I immediately called on Pattison and Harrity, presented the case to them, and they both authorized me to give the assurance to Senator Cameron that if he were opposed by Republicans because of his opposition to the Force bill, the Democrats would not permit him to be sacrificed for what they would regard as one of the bravest and most patriotic of his public acts. That assurance was given to Cameron, and he was then safe. It became well known to the anti-Cameron Republicans that the Democrats would not permit him to be sacrificed. The result was that Cameron was elected by Republican votes, although his position on the Force bill was well understood.

There were thus many disturbing elements in the Republican ranks, and one of the most serious was the McKinley Tariff bill of 1890. President McKinley was then chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Tariff bill of 1890 was known as the McKinley Tariff, but it is due to him to say that he was overruled in many of its most offensive features, and some of the most important schedules were made by the manufacturers interested, who had, in accordance with positive promises given them, made large contributions to the Republican campaign fund of 1888.

I happened to be a guest at a public dinner and seated beside McKinley a short time before the election of 1890, and soon after the McKinley bill had passed. He discussed the situation freely, and was evidently concerned as to the result of the coming election, as there was but little time after the passage of the bill for the people to understand it, but he was confident that it would be sustained. In that he was greatly mistaken, as the Republicans never suffered such a disastrous defeat as that of 1890, due almost wholly to the McKinley Tariff. True, the elections of 1891 showed that the Republicans had regained some of their losses of 1890, but when the Republican convention met to nominate a candidate the contest was regarded as at least doubtful by the more intelligent and considerate Republican leaders, and the political situation was greatly intensified by Blaine suddenly retiring from the Cabinet three days before the convention met. His letter of resignation was curt and emphatic. It was notice to the country that Blaine had ceased to be in sympathy with the Harrison administration.

The Republican convention met at Minneapolis on the 7th of June, with J. Sloat Fassett as temporary chairman and Governor William McKinley, of Ohio, as permanent president. When McKinley accepted the presidency of the convention he did not expect to be a candidate for nomination, but the swiftly changing events of American politics made him what was regarded as a hopeful candidate before a ballot was reached, and he was voted for by all of his Ohio delegates, excepting himself, who voted for Harrison. The 1st and only ballot resulted as follows:

Benjamin Harrison, Ind.535¹⁄₆
James G. Blaine, Maine182⁵⁄₆
Wm. McKinley, Jr., Ohio182
Thomas B. Reed, Maine4
Robert T. Lincoln, Illinois1