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Blaine supported the Fourteenth Amendment, which
advanced the political rights of black Americans, and supported measures
stipulating that any military governments set up in Southern states
first have a plan on when and how to transition to civilian governments.
This stance highlights Blaine’s credentials as a key member of the
moderate, so-called “Half-Breed” faction of the Republican Party.
The Republicans who supported Grant, known as the Stalwarts, favored
stronger measures than did the Half-Breeds to enforce civil rights
legislation in the South. Half-Breeds, whose ranks also included
President Hayes, Rep. James A. Garfield, and Secretary of the Treasury
John Sherman, also favored some civil service reform, although some have
seen this stance more as a competition with the Stalwarts over patronage
jobs than as reform. On another political front, Blaine pushed for measures to prohibit public funds from being spent for parochial schools. These so-called Blaine Amendments have been described ever since as either a progressive separation of church and state or as a politically expedient, anti-Catholic measure. Blaine also supported a ban on Chinese immigration, a hot-button issue in 1880 in California, whose 12-member delegation, incidentally, voted unanimously for Blaine on the first ballot at the Chicago convention that year. |
