Background
As President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes had caused heated tensions within the Republican Party. Hayes had moved away from party patronage by offering government jobs to Southern Democrats instead of Northern Republicans. His actions drew heavy criticism from those inside his party, such as Roscoe Conkling of New York and James G. Blaine of Maine. Hayes knew that he was not likely to win in the 1880 election, so he chose not to seek re-election. The rival factions within the Republican Party, the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds, eagerly anticipated the 1880 presidential election.
Read more about this topic: 1880 Republican National Convention
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)