1880 Republican National Convention - Pre-convention Politics

Pre-convention Politics

In January, caucuses were held in local districts to pick delegates. The state conventions would then select a number of these delegates to represent the state at the national convention. Prior to the convention, there was a great deal of machine politics conducted by the candidates. John Sherman utilized his self-appointed Treasury Department employees to meet up at local caucuses across the South to guarantee a loyal state delegation. State-level bosses, like Roscoe Conkling, used the state conventions to pick delegates that were politically allied to a particular candidate. In the state delegate-selection convention at Utica, New York, Grant's supporters carried only a 217-180 majority over Blaine supporters, but Conkling passed a resolution declaring that,

Conkling commanded delegates to follow the resolution, and if they were to violate it, he guaranteed they would be victims of political revenge and personal dishonor. However, in Chicago, there were a number of New York delegates who went against the resolution and publicly expressed their support for Blaine. J. Donald Cameron used similar tactics to intimidate dissenters in the Pennsylvania state convention. The third member of the "triumvirate", John A. Logan, literally locked out Blaine supporters from the Illinois state convention, and replaced them with personally chosen Grant supporters.

By May 29, four days before the opening of the convention, trainloads upon trainloads of delegates, lobbyists, reporters, and campaign followers had arrived at the Union and Dearborn railway stations in Chicago. Candidate supporters channeled through the Chicago streets with daily parades and rallies. Pre-convention possible outcomes of the voting were published by a number of sources. One, from the Albany Evening Journal, predicted Blaine with 277 votes, Grant with 317, Sherman with 106, and 49 for the other candidates. All of these predicted candidate vote totals were short of the 379 needed to win. Many in Chicago knew that a victor, most probably Grant, would only be determined if the unit rule, which postulated that all delegates from a particular state must vote for the candidate preferred by that state's delegation, was to be in effect. If that was not the case, then a long deadlock would result until one side succumbed to the other.

Before any voting began, the delegates had to vote on the important matter of the unit rule. Prior to the start of the convention, James Garfield noted, "I regard it as being more important than even the choice of a candidate." If the rule was supported by a majority of the delegates, then state party bosses, like the members of the "triumvirate", would be able to solidify Grant's nomination bid. If Conkling and the other Stalwart bosses had their way, the nearly sixty dissenters from the states represented by the "triumvirate" would be silenced. Unfortunately for Half-Breeds, J. Donald Cameron was chairman of the Republican National Committee. Cameron planned to exercise his power to adopt new rules for the convention, and also suppress any dissenters of the unit rule. His plan was leaked, and within days, almost all the delegates in Chicago knew about it. Supporters of the Sherman and Blaine campaigns knew that they had to prevent Cameron from exercising his power. Blaine's forces agreed that they could only prevent Cameron from imposing the unit rule by removing him as the chair of the Republican National Committee.

At 7:00 P.M. on May 31, J. Donald Cameron convened the Republican National Committee's last meeting before the opening of the convention. Of the forty-six men at the meeting, Cameron counted only sixteen allies. The rest of the men were anti-Grant delegates who had decided to gang up on Cameron. Colorado senator Jerome B. Chaffee was the first to bring up the unit rule at the meeting. Chaffee handed Cameron a handwritten motion that was orchestrated by William E. Chandler. Cameron expected this, and knew he had to find some fault in Chaffee's motion. Cameron called Chaffee's motion out of order. Upon being questioned by Chaffee, Cameron explained that the committee could only appoint a temporary chairman to the convention, and could not vote on the unit rule issue (which he said belonged to the Rules Committee). Cameron then used George Cornelius Gorham, a California Stalwart delegate who as secretary of the United States Senate had become an expert on parliamentary procedure, to justify his ruling. One by one, anti-Grant delegates unsuccessfully tried to appeal Cameron's motion. Gorham proclaimed that as committee chairman, Cameron could do "as he saw fit." Marshall Jewell, a Connecticut delegate member who had served in Grant's administration as Postmaster General, spoke up against Cameron's rulings. Cameron did not comment, and then called for a brief recess. After the recess, he acknowledged a motion from William E. Chandler to elect George Frisbie Hoar, a neutral senator and delegate from Massachusetts, as the convention's temporary chairman.

The committee voted 29-17 in favor of electing Hoar as temporary chairman of the convention. At midnight, the committee was adjourned, and the members scheduled to continue the meeting the following morning. News of Cameron's behavior had spread overnight, throughout town. His hardliner strategy had failed, and Conkling and other Grant managers sought to control the situation before it became any worse. The next morning, Conkling asked his trusted colleague, Chester A. Arthur, to solve the problem. Arthur assessed the situation and drew up a compromise. He met Chandler and the rest of the anti-Grant cabal at the entrance of the committee's suite. Arthur acknowledged that the Grant men had rejected Senator Hoar as the temporary convention chairman the day before, but said that the Grant men might perhaps reconsider. He proposed that the delegates decide on the unit rule in a free vote, and in return, Don Cameron would be restored as the chairman of the national committee. After discussing for a number of minutes, the two men came to an agreement. Arthur was confident that since Chandler, the leader of Blaine's campaign, had accepted the deal, then "it would be agreed by the Grant men." Chandler then discussed the compromise deal with the thirty anti-Grant committee members, and also James Garfield, who had previously expressed his opposition to the unit rule. 23 out of 30 anti-Grant men agreed to the terms, and Garfield commented that the proposition "must be accepted" in "spirit of reconciliation."

The committee reconvened again on the afternoon of June 1, with J. Donald Cameron sitting as the committee chairman. Arthur made a number of motions, indicating that the Grant men from New York and Pennsylvania would support Senator Hoar's appointment as the temporary chairman of the convention. No one objected and the motions were accepted. The meeting was then adjourned. A reporter from the New York Tribune later remarked that the Grant followers had been "saved from utter ruin by the excellent management of General Arthur...."