Pierce proceeded to commit what Roseboom calls "one of the costliest blunders in White House history", when in January of 1854, he was persuaded to agree to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Senators Douglas, Atchison, and others sold it to Pierce as a matter of popular sovereignty (each territory deciding for itself whether or not to ban slavery, rather than the national government deciding); however, this produced a firestorm of protest among antislavery men in the North.
Several other expansionist-supporting measures were also shot down--Pierce vetoed a rivers and harbors bill (as had Polk done before him), frowned on land grants for western railroads, and the Democratic Senate killed a popular homestead bill. With Whiggery disintegrating, and the Democrats not sympathetic to their region, the Northwest was the birthplace of the new Republican Party.
Roseboom says that the Republicans were never a third party, as "its transmutation from Whiggery was immediate. Whig policies, however, were soft-pedaled", and the "crusading zeal and humanitarian idealism of the new reform movement came chiefly from the Liberty and Free Soil Men". The Republicans held their first convention in June of 1856. The platform denied the legal existence of slavery in the territories, and urged Congress to prohibit in the territories "those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery". A long resolution blamed President Pierce for the problems in Kansas. John C. Fremont was nominated as the Republican candidate for president.
The Democrats also met in June and nominated James Buchanan on the 17th ballot. Pierce wanted renomination and was close behind Buchanan at first, but Roseboom states that "his availability had been destroyed by the Kansas situation and his lack of the forceful qualities Americans expect in a president". The 1856 campaign was an exciting one and Buchanan won 174-114 over Fremont, with Fillmore polling 21% of the vote as the "American Party" candidate.
Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Supreme Court issued the infamous Dred Scott decision, upholding the Southern view that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. Battle lines were drawn, and the country and its parties became hopelessly divided.
The 1860 campaign consisted in effect of two separate elections--Lincoln vs. Douglas in the North, and Bell vs. Breckinridge in the South. Lincoln was easily elected, and Douglas won only seven electoral votes despite receiving 30% of the popular vote.
Democratic hopes were high in 1864, but Union military successes shortly before the election turned the tide, and Lincoln won re-election 212-21 over McClellan.
The Republicans turned to General Grant in 1868, and Grant soundly defeated the Democrat Seymour 214-80. Grant was ill-suited to govern, and made some horrible choices for his cabinet. Nevertheless, he was renominated without opposition in 1872, while the Democrats nominated newspaperman Horace Greeley. Roseboom reports that the 1872 campaign was a strange one:
"Never in American history have two more unfit men been offered to the country for the highest office. The simple soldier, inexperienced in statecraft, impervious to sound advice, and oblivious to his own blundering, was pitted against the vain, erratic, reforming editor whose goodness of heart could not make up for his sad lack of judgment. The man of no ideas was running against the man of too many."
Grant won in a landslide, receiving 286 electoral votes. The remaining 63 went to a variety of candidates, following Greeley's death after the election but before the meeting of the electoral college.
Grant's second term was marked by scandal and the Republicans looked elsewhere for a candidate in 1876, although Grant would have accepted a third term. The general election ended up being between the Republican Hayes and the Democrat Tilden. Voting irregularities in several states kept the outcome of the election in doubt for months. Although Tilden won the popular vote with about 51.5%, the initial electoral count had Hayes ahead 185-184.
Because of the disputes, the issue became one of how to decide which electors would be allowed to cast a vote. The constitution says that the president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the two houses, "open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted", but it doesn't specifically give the president of the Senate authority to decide which of two competing sets of electors from a state should be recognized.
After long discussion, a joint committee of the two houses came up with a plan for an Electoral Commission, to consist of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Supreme Court justices. The House and Senate were controlled by different parties, so the ten members from these bodies were split five-five between the parties. The Supreme Court justices were to be two from each party, with those four to choose a fifth member. This fifth member was the deciding vote, and he voted for Hayes.
The plan provided that both houses of Congress could override the Electoral Commissions's ruling. The alarming possibility arose of a fiibuster by Democrats in the House, which would delay the inauguration of the president, thereby creating a constitutional crisis. Some last-minute negotiations and assurances took place, and finally on March second the tabulation was finished upholding the 185-184 result. Hayes was then sworn in the next day.
Hayes was competent and named "an unusually able cabinet with small regard for party orthodoxy". He withdrew the last two carpetbag governments from the South. However, Hayes angered too many by his Southern policy and his attempts at civil service reform, and he was not considered for a second term.
Grant returned from a leisurely trip around the world and seemed to have regained his popularity in 1880. He was a leading contender for the Republican nomination, with James Garfield leading the opposition. As chairman of the rules committee, Garfield got a rule through which recognized the right of delegates to vote individually, in contrast to the unit rule which the Grant men desired. This freed up delegates from the big states to vote their conscience, which was fatal to Grant's chances. The platform lauded the Hayes administration, although nobody bothered to suggest that he be given another term.
Even without the unit rule, Grant received more votes than any other candidate on the first ballot, with his 304 votes leading Blaine at 284 and Sherman at 93. The Grant opposition finally united on Garfield, who had been serving as Sherman's campaign manager and whose nominating speech for Sherman had been well-received. Garfield was finally nominated on the 36th ballot. The Grant forces were offered the VP nomination and they chose Chester A. Arthur.
The Democratic convention was a "dull affair", and the campaign of 1880 was "barren of issues and devoid of drama". Garfield won 214-155 over Hancock; however, the popular vote margin was only 48.3% to 48.2%.
Garfield promptly destroyed all party unity with his cabinet appointments, which failed to satisfy the expectations of the various factions of the Republican party. Garfield was shot on July second by a mentally deranged man, and Arthur took office. Civil service reform came to fruition under Arthur, for which he deserves credit.
Nevertheless, James G. Blaine outpolled Arthur 334-278 on the first ballot at the 1884 Republican convention, and Blaine was eventually nominated. The Democratic convention nominated New York governor Grover Cleveland on the second ballot. Cleveland won the electoral vote by 219-182, thanks to outpolling Blaine by 1,149 votes in New York, giving him that state's 36 electoral votes. Perhaps it wass the rain in New York which kept the rural folks who tended to vote Republican away from the pools. At any rate, Roseboom says that it was clearly time for a change:
"For years corruption and a vicious spoils system had been undermining confidence in democratic government. The election was a contest to see whether a sentimental loyalty to a party in power which had long promised reform but had performed slowly and half-heartedly for its own presidents, and whose candidate was now suspect, should triumph over a party whose chief pledge was a candidate of unquestioned integrity with a record to match. The majority of voters decided that the party that had saved the Union should no longer misgovern it."
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