The Big Three Battlegrounds

 

Grant’s own activity aside, the states represented by the Triumvirate–Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois–were the most significant and telling battlegrounds of the effort on his behalf.


Senator Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania.

 How things unfolded in Senator Cameron’s Pennsylvania in particular reveals the tenor and tone of the campaign. In February, Grant’s supporters narrowly won at the Pennsylvania state convention in Harrisburg, but the victory was the result of a selection process that hinged on the unit rule, a winner-take-all tactic that would require delegates to vote in blocks, no matter how close the vote. Justifiably or not, the victory became a rallying cry for Grant’s opponents, who denounced the process as unfair.

 

First, party canvasses, held in late 1879, selected Cameron-allied county committeemen. The committeemen, in turn, scheduled the state convention for just over a month later. This “snap convention” strategy, as it was known, was a common method of the period to preclude county conventions where opponents–in this case, Blaine supporters–could organize and do battle. Thirty county conventions were held anyway, with mixed results: some delegations were selected for Blaine, others for Grant, though the Blaine delegations were divided over how best to oppose Cameron.
The delegations convened at the state convention in Harrisburg, where Cameron’s forces narrowly won. The state delegation, even though many of the delegates supported Blaine, was instructed to vote for Grant as a unit at the national convention. Washburne glossed over the implications of the narrow win in a February letter to the ex-president. “The Blaine men seem to have taken courage from…Pennsylvania, but I cannot see from what standpoint…They made a stubborn fight and were beaten.”
The fight was not over, however. Cameron’s methods generated intense criticism in the anti-Grant Pennsylvania press, and newspapers in other battleground states picked up the sentiment. Within weeks there was open party revolt in Pennsylvania. New, unofficial county primaries and county conventions were held around the state, themselves fomenting new intra-party fights on that level.



In a key development, Republican reformers in Philadelphia joined with city boss Jim McManes to openly declare against the unit rule, emboldening other Grant-pledged but unsupportive delegates to do likewise. As a result, about 20 of Pennsylvania’s 58 delegates to the national convention expressed their opposition to Grant, even though they had been instructed by Cameron’s operatives to support the general no matter what their personal sentiment. It was widely depicted as a dramatic declaration of conscience, and probably was for some of the delegates. However, according to historian Robert Harrison, others, including McManes, were motivated by personality clashes with Cameron and/or fears that they would lose power and patronage if, saddled with what they believed would be an unpopular Grant ticket, the party was beaten in November.


Cameron supported Grant in the key state of Pennsylvania.


Blaine’s supporters put up fierce fights with Grant’s forces in Pennsylvania and other key states in 1880

 Blaine’s defeat in Pennsylvania, according to the otherwise strongly anti-Triumvirate New York Herald, revealed that his boom was “a mere bag of wind, which had collapsed at the first pricking it got.” However, according to the high-brow reformist Atlantic Monthly, the events showed Grant merely to be “a candidate among candidates, taking his chances with the rest, down in the dust of a heated conflict.” The comment, considered from the perspective of 2006, begs the question, so what? But political decorum of the period dictated that presidential aspirants, at least before nomination, appear not to be too eager. Grant’s prestige and fame meant that he had the most to lose if he appeared to be a “mere candidate.”  See the related article.

The battle shifted to Conkling’s New York, for that state convention in Utica in late February. There again, the party mechanism produced another narrow win. Conkling was front and center, managing the effort through to success and including language in the state party platform that the candidate “who is most certain to be elected and…be lawfully and peacefully seated after he is elected (is) Gen. Grant.” Supporters of Blaine and Sherman in Utica disputed some credentials and the overall selection process, while Grant supporters called for party unity.



Utica, New York was the site of the 1880 Republican state convention, which foreshadowed some of the key battles at the national convention.
In Illinois, Grant and Blaine forces had been organizing for months in preparation for caucuses held around the state on May 8. As was typical for the era, participation was highly orchestrated and small, perhaps no more than 10 percent of those eligible, and consisted mostly of political appointees and patronage workers. Grant supporters prevailed at the Illinois state convention in Springfield in May. But their opponents argued against the delegate selection process and disputed the outcome. The anti-Grant forces took their case to the national convention, which ruled in their favor in four votes, freeing up a number of delegates that the Grant forces could ill-afford to lose.

 

<< Grant and the Campaign for a Third Term >>
A Boom For Grant Contenders Other Hurdles
Grant's Participation The Big Three Battlegrounds Tactics
The National Convention A Third Term for Grant: Point - Counterpoint
The 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago: The Setting
Conkling Nominates Grant Was Grant a Candidate? Q&A with author Ken Ackerman
Sources

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