United States presidential election, 1880

United States presidential election, 1880

1876 ← November 2, 1880 → 1884

Nominee James A. Garfield Winfield Scott Hancock Party Republican Democratic Home state Ohio Pennsylvania Running mate Chester A. Arthur William Hayden English Electoral vote 214 155 States carried 19 19 Popular vote 4,446,158 4,444,260 Percentage 48.3% 48.2%

Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Hancock/English, Red denotes those won by Garfield/Arthur. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election Rutherford B. Hayes Republican Elected President James A. Garfield Republican

The United States presidential election of 1880 was largely seen as a referendum on the end of Reconstruction in Southern states carried out by the Republicans. There were no pressing issues of the day save tariffs, with the Republicans supporting higher tariffs and the Democrats supporting lower ones.

Incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek re-election, keeping a promise made during the 1876 campaign. The Republican Party eventually chose another Ohioan, James A. Garfield, as their standard-bearer. The Democratic Party meanwhile chose Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock as their nominee. Despite capturing fewer than 2,000 more popular votes than Hancock, Garfield was easily elected, capturing 214 of the 369 electoral votes cast. It is to date the smallest popular vote victory in American history.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Main article: 1880 Republican National Convention

Republican candidates:

• James A. Garfield, U.S. Senator-Elect from Ohio
• Ulysses S. Grant, former President of the United States from Illinois
• James G. Blaine, U.S. senator from Maine
• John Sherman, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from Ohio

Candidates gallery

• 

  Senator-elect James A. Garfield of Ohio

• 

  Former President Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois

• 

  Senator James G. Blaine of Maine

• 

  Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman of Ohio

Garfield/Arthur campaign poster

While President Hayes did not seek renomination, former President Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) openly sought nomination to a third term. He was indeed the front-runner going into the Republican Party convention in Chicago held on June 2-8. Grant's opponents supported a number of other candidates, including James G. Blaine of Maine and Ohio's John Sherman. James A. Garfield, who was representing the Ohio delegation, gave a major speech in support of Sherman, but soon found himself among those receiving delegate votes. On the 36th ballot, Garfield garnered 399 delegate votes, surpassing Grant (who had 306), Blaine (42), and Sherman to win the nomination. After Levi P. Morton backed out of the nomination to avoid a dispute, Chester A. Arthur (a close friend to U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling) was subsequently chosen as Garfield's running mate by a large margin over Elihu B. Washburne. The convention is noteworthy as it was the first at which delegates cast votes for an African-American, Blanche Bruce. This convention took the most ballots to choose its party's nominee for president than any other Republican convention.

Vice Presidential Ballot
Chester A. Arthur	468
Elihu B. Washburne	193
Marshall Jewell	44
Horace Maynard	30
Blanche Bruce	8
James L. Alcorn	4
Edmund J. Davis	2
Thomas Settle	1
Stewart L. Woodford	1

Democratic Party nomination

Main article: 1880 Democratic National Convention

Democratic candidates:

• Winfield Scott Hancock, U.S. Major General from Pennsylvania
• Thomas F. Bayard, U.S. senator from Delaware
• Samuel J. Randall, U.S. representative from Pennsylvania
• Henry B. Payne, former U.S. representative from Ohio
• Allen G. Thurman, U.S. senator from Ohio

Candidates gallery

• 

  Major General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania

• 

  Senator Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware

• 

  Representative Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania

• 

  Former Representative Henry B. Payne of Ohio

• 

  Senator Allen G. Thurman of Ohio

Hancock/English campaign poster

At the Democratic national convention in Cincinnati on June 22-24, 1880, Winfield Scott Hancock emerged as the leading candidate after Samuel J. Tilden of New York withdrew his name from consideration. On the first ballot, Hancock led with 171 votes to 153.5 for Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, 81 for Henry B. Payne of Ohio, 68.5 for Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and the rest scattered. On the next ballot, Tilden supporters pushed Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania to second place with 128.5 votes, but Hancock held such a commanding lead with 320 votes that masses of delegates bolted to him before the second ballot was recorded, giving him 705 votes and the nomination.

William Hayden English, an anti-Greenback Indiana banker, was nominated for vice-president. Historian Emma Lou Thornbrough suggests that, following the uncontested nomination of English as the vice-presidential candidate, the Democratic infatuation with the money question in Indiana ceased and "a political era had ended."

The Pennsylvanian who nominated Hancock said, "I present to the Convention one who on the battlefield was styled 'the superb,' yet whose first act when in command of Louisiana and Texas was to salute the Constitution by proclaiming that, 'the military rule shall ever be subservient to the civil power.' I nominated one whose name will suppress all faction and thrill the republic."

Presidential Ballot
Ballot	1st	2nd Before Shifts	2nd After Shifts
Winfield Scott Hancock	171	320	705
Thomas F. Bayard	153.5	112	2
Samuel J. Randall	6	128.5	0
Henry B. Payne	81	0	0
Allen G. Thurman	68.5	50	0
Others	247.5	124.5	31
Abstaining	10.5	3	0

Source: US President - D Convention. Our Campaigns. (August 26, 2009).

Vice Presidential Ballot
William Hayden English	738

Source: US Vice President - D Convention. Our Campaigns. (August 26, 2009).

Greenback Party nomination

Dissatisfied with the fiscal policies of both parties, the Greenback Party, a minor force in the 1876 election, returned with James B. Weaver as its Presidential nominee and Benjamin J. Chambers as his running mate.

American Party nomination

The distrust of the Masonic movement had led to the creation of a new nativist political party, reusing the old name of the American Party. Former Civil War general John W. Phelps, the head of the Vermont Anti-Masonic movement, was nominated for president and former Kansas senator Samuel C. Pomeroy was nominated for vice-president.

General election

Campaign

Political cartoon

Democrats began by attacking the contested 1876 election, with Republicans bringing up the Civil War again, but the campaign soon shifted to personality. Garfield campaigned as a hard-working, self-made man. Republicans avoided direct attacks on Hancock, who was widely-respected for his service at Gettysburg, but claimed that the general would act as a figurehead for corrupt Democrats, like the ones who tried to defame Garfield with the Morey letter. The Democrats campaigned on Republican corruption, attacking Garfield and especially his running mate Arthur.

The end of the effects of the Panic of 1873 combined with a well-funded and well-run campaign gave the advantage to Garfield.

Results

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Pct		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Elect. vote
James A. Garfield	Republican	Ohio	4,446,158	48.3%	214(b)	Chester A. Arthur	New York	214(b)
Winfield Scott Hancock	Democratic	Pennsylvania	4,444,260	48.2%	155(a)	William Hayden English	Indiana	155(a)
James B. Weaver	Greenback	Iowa	305,997	3.3%	0	Benjamin J. Chambers	Texas	0
Neal S. Dow	Prohibition	Maine	9,674	0.1%	0	Henry Adams Thompson	Ohio	0
John W. Phelps	American	Vermont	631	0.0%	0	Samuel C. Pomeroy	Kansas	0
Other			3,700	0.0%	—	Other		—
Total			9,210,420	100%	369			369
Needed to win					185			185

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1880 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

^(a) See “Georgia's vote” below.
^(b) See “California's vote” below.

Georgia's vote

According to Article II, Section 1, clause 3 of the Constitution, "The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States." In 1792, Congress had set the date for the Electoral College to vote at the first Wednesday in December, and it was still set to that day in 1880, when it fell on December 1. However, Georgia's electors failed to cast their ballots on December 1, instead voting on the following Wednesday, December 8. Congress chose to count Georgia's vote in the official tally, but it is arguable that Georgia's electoral vote was constitutionally invalid, and thus that Hancock's electoral vote should have been 144, not 155.

California's vote

In this year, California's electoral votes were split between the two candidates, with Garfield getting one and Hancock getting five, giving Garfield nineteen states plus one electoral vote. It is speculated that Garfield lost electoral votes in California due to a letter written by Senator James G. Blaine, Garfield's primary supporter, before the election that allegedly favored Chinese immigration. Many in the western states were against Chinese immigration, claiming that the Chinese were limiting the growth of the Pacific coast.

Notably, Garfield won the presidency without California. No presidential candidate managed to reproduce this feat until Woodrow Wilson's victory in the 1912 election, and no Republican presidential candidate managed to reproduce this feat until George W. Bush's victory in the 2000 election.

See also

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States (1865–1918)
• Third Party System

External links

• 1880 popular vote by counties
• Garfield and Arthur campaign handkerchief, 1880, in the Staten Island Historical Society Online Collections Database
• Harp Week
• Caricature by Joseph Keppler of 1880 Presidential Candidates
• How close was the 1880 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bibliography

• Ackerman, Kenneth D. Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield (2003), 551pp excerpt and text search
• Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1880 (1881), large compendium of facts, covers every state online
• Barlow, William R. "Cincinnati Hosts the Democrats in 1880,: Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin, 1964, Vol. 22 Issue 3, pp 145-161, the national convention
• Clancy, Herbert J. The Presidential election of 1880 (1958), standard scholarly narrative
• Joens, David. "Ulysses S. Grant, Illinois, and the Election of 1880," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Dec 2004, Vol. 97 Issue 4, pp 310–330
• Jordan, David A. Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life. (1989)
• Lause, Mark A. The Civil War's Last Campaign: James B. Weaver, the Greenback-Labor Party and the Politics of Race and Section (2001)
• Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896 (1969) online edition
• Peskin, Allan. "The Election of 1880," Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1980, Vol. 4 Issue 2, pp 172–181
• Peskin, Allan. Garfield: A Biography, (1978). ISBN 0-87338-210-2 dexcerpt and text search
• Phillipp, Ernest Joseph. The presidential election of 1880 (1917), old scholarship complete text online
• Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. ed. History of American Presidential Elections. 4 vols. (1971). vol. 2 covers 1880
• Summers, Mark Wahlgren. Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics (2003) excerpt and text search
• Taylor, John M. "General Hancock: Soldier of the Gilded Age," . Pennsylvania History, Spring 1965, Vol. 32 Issue 2, pp187–196, on Hancock as politician