United States presidential election, 1884

The U.S. presidential election of 1884 featured excessive mudslinging and personal acrimony. On November 4, 1884, New York Governor Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated Republican US Senator James G. Blaine of Maine to become the first Democrat elected to the Presidency since the election of 1856, before the American Civil War. New York decided the election, awarding Governor Cleveland the state's 36 electors by a margin of just 1047 of 1,167,003 votes cast.

Nominations

Republican Party

Although he almost certainly would have won the Republican nomination, incumbent President Chester A. Arthur did not seek it in 1884. Suffering quite privately from Bright's disease, he would die less than two years later.

The Republicans convened in Chicago, Illinois with US Senator and former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine of Maine, President Chester Arthur, and Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont leading the contest. Blaine led on the first ballot, with Arthur in second, and Edmunds in third. This order did not change on successive ballots as Blaine increased his lead, and he won a majority on the fourth ballot.

After nominating Blaine, convention chose Senator John A. Logan of Illinois as the vice-presidential nominee.

Democratic Party

The Democratic Party convention (also in Chicago) chose New York Governor Grover Cleveland as its Presidential nominee. He defeated a host of candidates who failed to claim the nomination in previous attempts, including Thomas F. Bayard, Thomas A. Hendricks, Allen G. Thurman, and Samuel J. Randall. Thomas A. Hendricks, however, did get the nomination for Vice President of the United States.

Greenback Party

The Greenback Labor Party dropped “Labor” from its name and chose Civil War hero Benjamin Franklin Butler as its Presidential nominee and Absolom M. West for Vice President.

Prohibition Party

The Prohibitionists chose their third Presidential ticket with John St. John for President and William Daniel for Vice President. The straightforward single-issue Prohibition Party platform advocated for the criminalization of alcoholic beverages.

General election

Campaign

The issue of personal character marked this campaign. Former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine, had been prevented from getting the Republican presidential nomination during the previous two elections because of the stigma of the “Mulligan letters”: in 1876, a Boston bookkeeper named James Mulligan had located some letters showing that Blaine had sold his influence in Congress to various businesses. In just one deal, he had received $110,150 from the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad for, among other things, securing a federal land grant. New York Governor Grover Cleveland, on the other hand, was known as “Grover the Good” for his personal integrity; in the space of the three previous years he had become, successively the Mayor of Buffalo and then the Governor of the state, cleaning up large amounts of Tammany Hall's graft.

Thus, it was a huge shock when, on July 21st, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph reported that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock, that the child had gone to an orphanage, and that the mother had been driven to an asylum. Cleveland's campaign decided that candor was the best approach to this scandal: they admitted that Cleveland had formed an “illicit connection” with the mother and that a child had been born and given the Cleveland surname. They also noted that there was no proof that Cleveland was the father, and claimed that, by assuming responsibility and finding a home for the child, he was merely doing his duty. Finally, they showed that the mother had not been forced into an asylum; her whereabouts were unknown. The Cleveland campaign's approach worked and the race remained close through Election Day. In fact, many Republican reformers, put off by Blaine's scandals, worked for the election of Cleveland; these reformers were known as “Mugwumps”.

In the final week of the campaign, Blaine's campaign suffered a catastrophe. A group of New York preachers visited Blaine and made a speech castigating the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Burchard, made this fatal statement: “We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure that it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York state and the election.

Results

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

References

Primary sources

External links

1884 popular vote by counties
Wrong way elections table at the Center for Range Voting

Navigation

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