With the speeches presenting candidates to the convention, the real business of the week began. Senator Conkling aroused a tempest of enthusiasm for General Grant in a famous speech which began with the lines,
When asked what state he hails from,
Our sole reply shall be,
He comes from Appomattox
And its famous apple tree.
Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led, Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1]
There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group.
The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful, modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly favorable light.[2]
As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather than for classes, wider suffrage,—all these were advocated in concise and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.
Among the Democrats, the all important question was whether Tilden would be a candidate again. He naturally wished for a renomination and an opportunity to prove by an election that he had been "fraudulently" deprived of the presidency in 1876. The party, likewise, seemed to need his services, as no other leader of equal prominence had appeared. On the other hand, his health had rapidly failed since 1876 and it was apparent that he was unequal to the exacting labors of the presidency. Not until just before the meeting of the convention, however, did he make known his wishes and then he declared that he desired nothing so much as an honorable discharge from public service and that he "renounced" the renomination. The party took him at his word and turned to the adoption of a platform and the choice of another leader.
The platform reflected the bitterness of the party over the "great fraud" of 1876-1877 and advocated tariff for revenue only, civil service reform and the restriction of Chinese immigration. In other words, except for the usual self-congratulation and the denunciation of the opposition, the Democratic platform closely resembled that of the Republicans. The convention then nominated for the presidency General Winfield S. Hancock, a modest, brave Union soldier, of whom Grant once said, "his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible." He was not an experienced politician, but was popular even in the South.
On the whole the Democratic convention was much less interesting than its Republican predecessor. There were no fierce factional quarrels to arouse the emotions to concert pitch. The applause spurted out here and there like the "jets from a splitting hose" in the "Ki yi yi yi" which characterized the cheers of the lower wards of New York, in contrast to the rolling billows of applause which formed so memorable an element in the opposition gathering. The New York Tribune, although hostile to everything Democratic, perhaps stated the fact when it commented on the lack of enthusiasm. The convention, the Tribune noted, was well-behaved, but a mob without leaders; there were no Conklings or Garfields or Logans, only John Kelleys and Wade Hamptons.
The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded. General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes in California, the result probably of the Morey letter.