James Garfield’s Presidency Part 2: Election

Part of a series.

Grant had the ability to cultivate friends and allies. Conkling, Logan, and the “306” epitomized Grant’s ability to bind men to him. At the same time, those not in Grant’s orbit were at best treated as suspect, and at worst ostracized. Grant’s hatred of Hayes was well known. Men wondered if Grant would even support Garfield. After all, the Democrats nominated one of Grant’s commanders, Winfield Scott Hancock. Making it worse, when Grant came to Chicago Cameron and Logan met him, and neither had kind words for Blaine and Sherman, who they thought had vaulted a non-entity into the limelight. The pair even promised that Garfield would lose and Grant would be selected in 1884. Grant for his part gave no opinion save that he was “not at all displeased” with Garfield, and he appreciated “the friendship of the 300 true men.” Tellingly, Grant did not openly endorse Garfield. He instead left to meet veterans in Wisconsin. At that meeting, Grant praised Conkling and had little to say about Garfield.

Garfield was in a bind. He needed Conkling’s support to win, but that support could alienate his allies. His first step was trying to get Levi Morton, a Conkling man, as vice-president. Conkling prevented that, but Arthur surprisingly took Garfield up on his offer. It was until then supposed that Arthur was a mere Conkling crony. The gesture, given the office’s limited power as compared to cabinet posts, did nothing though to warm Conkling. Meanwhile, Grant traveled west to hunt in Kansas, inspect mines in Colorado, and camp in Arizona. He stayed mostly quiet, although it was leaked by Grant’s Kansas host and army friend L. G. Entwright that Grant “could not conceal his disgust for Conkling, Logan, and others who had so recklessly miscalculated and overestimated his strength.” Grant would later say, “I can’t afford to be defeated. They should not have placed me in nomination unless they felt sure of my success.” As to Garfield, in private Grant was not sure if he could win since he “had rather too many volumes of Congressional debates behind him to make a smooth and successful canvass on.”

Garfield’s surrogates were hard at work, though. Thousands of copies of Garfield’s speeches were printed, and an unusually high number of biographies were published. Marshall Jewell ordered the printing of 20,000 likenesses of him. Yet, Grant was still out west and Conkling was unmoved. Stephen Dorsey pushed Garfield into meeting Conkling in the “Fifth Avenue Summit.” The wounds were healed, Conkling was promised his share of spoils and satisfied. Days later, Grant wrote Logan, “I will be going east the latter part of Sept. and will gladly attend any meeting intended to further the success of the ticket headed by Garfield & Arthur.” Yet what was said and promised to Conkling in the “Fifth Avenue Summit” would be debated after. It appears, though, Conkling assumed too much and Garfield remained repulsed by the Stalwarts and uneasy with the alliance.

Garfield’s platform was a safe one. He supported black male voting rights, the supremacy of the federal government over the states, popular education, a protective tariff, civil service reform, and internal improvements. There was opposition to free silver and greenbacks, as well as easy Chinese immigration and government aid to religious schools, the last being a sop to the party’s anti-Catholic proclivities. Garfield’s positions were not far off from what Grant’s would have been. Indeed, his silence on worker’s rights, women’s suffrage, taxes, and frontier issues aligned with Conkling’s resistance to any reform that would anger the Republican Party’s many wealthy backers.

Among the Stalwarts at the summit was Charles Guiteau, a failed lawyer considered so sexually unattractive that the free love Oneida colony spurned him. In the colony, to be refused became known as being “Guiteaued.” In 1872 Guiteau gave a speech against Grant. Whatever Guiteau’s faults, he was persistent, and gained the friendly acquaintance of Arthur, and managed to write a decent speech called “Garfield vs. Hancock.” Guiteau leaned heavily on the war, with the exhortation “Ye men whose sons perished in the war! What say you to this issue? Shall we have an other war? Shall our national treasury be controlled by ex-rebels and their Northern allies, to the end that millions of dollars of southern war claims be liquidated?”

Emory Storrs, a Chicago lawyer and Stalwart who knew Guiteau, recalled he “came up to me, and, patting me on the arm or shoulder, said that I was on the right track” and added that he seemed in “apparently excellent spirits, rather exultant in his manner.” Considering his few connections and odd demeanor, Guiteau had done well in his first political foray. But like Conckling, he overestimated what was promised and, what was worse, who his friends were. Arthur and Storrs were nice enough to him, but hardly allies. His speech, however well received in print, was a dud on the stump. Weather often intervened and at one key moment in New York City he froze. Only in Vermont, a safe Republican stronghold, did he have any success.

While Guiteau schemed, Garfield received a long awaited letter from Grant. He agreed to meet in public in Ohio and added “I feel a very deep interest in the success of the Republican ticket … and have never failed to say a word in favor of the party, and its candidate, when I felt that I could do any good.” Along the way to meet Garfield, Grant would stump for him, a first by a former president.

All agreed Hancock would be a tough candidate to beat. Hancock’s war record made it nigh impossible for Republicans to wave the bloody shirt with the old effectiveness. For many, Hancock was the man who won Gettysburg, and he was among Grant’s favorite commanders during his 1864 battles in Virginia. But if anyone could hobble Hancock, it was Grant. During Reconstruction, Hancock favored a soft policy. Grant thought this was because in 1864 Hancock heard rumors that he was an emerging Democratic favorite, and planned to win over the South. In 1867 Grant removed Hancock. The latter reported to Grant but refused a personal meeting, and they barely said hello on the streets. According to Grant, he warned Hancock of Andrew Johnson’s southern sympathies, Hancock replied “Well, I am opposed to nigger domination.” Grant responded, “General, it is not a question of nigger domination. Four million ex-slaves, without education or property, can hardly dominate 30,000,000 of whites with all the education and property. It is a question of doing our sworn duty.” In 1880 Grant said, “He is crazy to be President. He is ambitious, vain, and weak. They will easily control him.” Grant’s comments were published in the Cincinnati Gazette and were effective. Hancock was stung but made no response. It is possible, some of it was fabricated; particularly Grant’s claim that as early as fall of 1864 Hancock was refusing to continue their friendship.

At Warren, Ohio, Grant and Conkling spoke to some 12,000 people. Then the pair went to see Garfield. Curiously, before the meeting Grant told Conckling “Well, I never like to give a man the benefit of the knowledge that I dislike him.” “I do” Conkling shot back and then told a story about the depths of his spite. Whether during the exchange, the pair had Garfield on their minds in unclear. At any rate, when Garfield met Conkling he shook his hand and proclaimed “Conkling, you have saved me. Whatever man can do for man, that will I do for you!” At Garfield’s Mentor home, they spoke to 200 townsfolk. Interestingly, only Logan gave a nod to Garfield as “our illustrious friend…whom we expect to make the President of the United States next November.”

The meeting was meant to create good will between former foes, but rumors of a “Treaty of Mentor” spread, with charges of corruption, the very kind Garfield pledged to fight. Either way, Conkling used his fine oratory on the stump in the days after, drawing large crowds. Grant was received in New York City by a six-mile-long parade with 60,000 veterans and party men, seen by an estimated 300,000 spectators. The event was complete with torches, music, speeches, free food, and fireworks.

Garfield was elected on the narrowest of margins. Hancock weathered critiques of his war record well, and he was among the best regarded presidential losers, popular even with many Republicans. The Senate though was deadlocked with thirty-seven votes in each party, making Arthur a man of great importance. Yet, through it all, Conkling and Blaine never reconciled and both expected much from Garfield. The stage was set for one of America’s shortest and most tumultuous presidencies.