Grant and the Campaign for a Third Term

Given Grant’s record, experience and character–and how the style and tenor of political candidacies have evolved in the past 126 years–a question about his 1880 candidacy arises, “Why not?”

In terms of the man himself, the fact remains that Grant’s victories in the Civil War enabled the movement of millions of black Americans from slavery to citizenship–an incalculably important transformation in the life of the United States. President Grant’s dogged support of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Enforcement Acts was motivated by his unwavering belief in human rights.

Historians traditionally have focused more on the issue of corruption during Grant’s administration, but tend to downplay important steps that the administration took toward civil service reform, its support for the prosecution of corrupt officials, and the fact that Grant’s personal reputation was above reproach during the troubled 1860s and 1870s.

Other key factors to consider include the intra-party fight for power, its relationship to the reform movement, and how both have been depicted historically. As author Frank Scaturro points out, the fight for the 1880 nomination boiled down to power stakes. The pro-Grant Stalwarts had held most of the GOP's power for much of the 1860s and 1870s, and practical politicians in the faction practiced the spoils system that had been in place for decades. Historians with questionable objectivity replicated for many decades the charges of Grant's most virulent enemies, equating patronage with corruption.

Scaturro argues that “after the distillation of generations, historians have depicted the contest myopically as one between the `inherently corrupt´ side of the GOP, the pro-Grant Stalwarts, and the `good´ side representing integrity and honesty, the Half-Breeds.” This may be why a scandal-tainted politician like Blaine could be seen as a reformer: he adhered to the agenda rather than setting a personal example, and, after all, he could win the nomination, and did in 1884.

More fundamentally, the "reform" movement was about displacing Reconstruction in the national agenda and moving for a reform of the civil service, whose inefficiencies were commonly exaggerated as corruption, Scaturro argues. “Only a century later did it become clear that historians had gotten it wrong on civil rights, and historians frankly have yet to abandon the naive assumption that the success of civil service reform introduced a truly workable, let alone less corrupt, paradigm into government. For that matter, the reputations of honest if otherwise imperfect Stalwarts like Roscoe Conkling and Chester Arthur continue to suffer for their associations with patronage and the Stalwart faction.”

Many contemporary and subsequent accounts also have emphasized the abrasive personalities, motivations, and heavy-handed tactics of Grant’s three leading supporters, the so-called Triumvirate of Senators Roscoe Conkling of New York, Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania, and John Logan of Illinois. These factors need to be considered in the context of their day, and measured against accounts of the intrigue and questionable tactics of all the competing campaigns.

In addition, historians have either downplayed the campaign, in part because it didn’t succeed, and because pre-convention campaigns were seen as less notable than has been the prevailing reality during the past several decades. In other words, even though there were some primaries, parties largely decided their nominees at conventions until arguably the 1960s and certainly since the 1970s, when reforms definitively changed the decision point from conventions, which have become pro-forma pageants, to primaries. Accordingly, there has not been a multiple ballot major party convention since 1952. Most standard historical depictions of the 1880 Grant canvass came well before then, when the results of conventions themselves, not pre-convention campaigns, were the focus.

In another issue, Grant’s opponents expressed concern about the precedent of a third term and the alleged corruption of Grant’s first two terms. It also is evident that many were exhausted by the continuing struggle to ensure the civil rights of the freed slaves. Fifteen years after the end of the Civil War, many of Grant’s opponents were not convinced of the paramount importance of the issue, found unacceptable the prospect of federal troops returning to the South to protect citizens, and wanted to move on. Some thought this prospect would render Grant unelectable.

Like other aspects of Grant’s career, the 1880 campaign for a third term is ripe for a historic reassessment today. Any valid revision of the history of the 1880 campaign must consider its connection to, and the implications of, civil rights. Whatever other motivations they had to benefit the Stalwart faction, the Triumvirate’s goal was to return to the White House a candidate whose record as president was distinguished in large part, then as now, by the enforcement of civil rights laws and by the struggle to win the peace attained at Appomattox.

But the broader political reality of 1880 made it difficult for any president to return to Reconstruction (for example, by answering with federal troops calls for protection at polling places in the deep South). Even beyond dedication to preserving the Union's costly Civil War victory as a matter of principle, much of the Stalwart faction felt that the southern GOP politically had been sold out by President Hayes and the Half-Breeds and that this was hurting the party.

Had Grant surrendered to contemporary political pressures and consciously abandoned Reconstruction during his presidency, as some recent historians, such as McFeely, incorrectly infer he did, another nomination might have been within his grasp. Instead, Grant stuck with a position that clung to the Constitution but lost much of the political center, putting him on one side of the party's political schism.

On these scores and others, the historic legacy of President Ulysses S. Grant continues to be revised upward. Scholars increasingly are questioning the balance of the historiography of the Grant era, including the motivations of key historians who continue to influence knee-jerk, ahistoric, and negative opinions about Grant’s record.

Two periodicals, The Nation and the North American Review, examined at length the issue of a third presidential term for Grant. The Nation opposed it; the North American Review supported it. Here are brief excerpts of their coverage in the spring of 1880:

From “The Specific Argument Against A Third Term,” The Nation, May 6, 1880:

“…We confess, for our own part, that while fully appreciating the force of the argument that Grant ought not to have a third term because it is unwise to give any man a third term, we think it is very feeble indeed compared to the argument that the dangers of a third term are shown by its being clamed for this particular person. Frankly, we do not think that a tendency to give third terms to enlightened civilians who have proved their skill, efficiency, integrity, and judgment in their two previous terms would, of itself, be a very alarming phenomenon. A popular desire to retain for an indefinite period the services in high office of a statesman who had given abundant evidence of his capacity and purity and zeal for the public good would not be a bad sign in a democracy like ours. In fact, there is perhaps nothing of which out politics just now stands in greater need…. One of the greatest objections to a third term is to be found in the political career of the person for whom it is now demanded, and…(the) exposure of the character of the two terms of which repetition is now sought. That the man who filled these two terms, and closed them under a cloud of public reprobation, should be able so far to recover from the effects of this reprobation by three years of foreign travel as to be again presented by his followers for the same office; that he should be brought forward, too, as a savior from some great national danger without feeling the necessity of stating what the danger is, is surely enough to make it plain that, whatever may be said for third terms in the abstract, they are unsuited to our politics….”

Many of Grant’s critics in 1880 depicted his efforts to enforce federal civil rights laws in the South as unduly harsh, despite related violence there and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

George Sewall Boutwell served as Grant’s secretary of the treasury, 1869-1873.

From “General Grant and a Third Term,” by George S. Boutwell, North American Review, April 1880:

“…The rank and file of the (Republican) party are more uniformly in favor of General Grant than are the leaders. They feel, they know, indeed, that every important public interest will be safe in his hands. If the industry of the country can be promoted, he is its friend. If the public credit is assailed, he will stand in its defense. If a dishonest financial policy is proposed, he will not hesitate to resist it.

If the lawful authority of the national government is disputed, he will marshal and use all the resources of that government for the maintenance of that authority. And if the constitutional rights of citizens are invaded, he will employ every constitutional power for their protection. No doubt other persons proposed as candidates might act in these matters precisely as General Grant would act, but there is no one of them all who can command as great a following.

Beyond all others, he represents the military spirit and the patriotic sentiment of the country. Almost to the exclusion of every other, his name is known and revered by the colored men of the South. It may not be possible to redeem a single state from the domination of military rule, but something will be gained if the victims of the usurpation are lead to make one serious effort more in defense of their rights. On the other hand, the violators of the law in the South fear General Grant more than they fear anyone else. To them, he is the representative of that power by which the rebellion was overthrown, the Union reestablished, and slavery abolished. His mastery over great difficulties in the past has taught them the important lesson that he will confront with confidence such difficulties as may arise in the future….”

For insightful explanations of the wonderful cartoons from Puck magazine that you see here, go to: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/war_rm.html

<<	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