Audio
Episode 1: The Convention
Transcript
[0:00-0:17] Theme Music Intro- an 1880 campaign march for Garfield, sourced Library of Congress
[0:18-0:24] Music continues to play and fades out while a female voice speaks:
Season 1: The Presidential Campaign
[0:25-0:42] Male voice:
“Never before in the history of partisan contests in this country, had a successful Presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and current issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, rash and even desperate.” James G. Blaine
[0:43-0:45] Female voice:
Chapter 1: The Convention
[0:46-1:17] Male voice:
“Since I wrote to you yesterday the turmoil has increased; though I begin to see the direction of the currents which are driving through the waste of waters that surround us. . . .All the elements indicate a convention full of strong and fierce antagonisms. The result is shrouded in all manner of doubt.” Letter, James A. Garfield to Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, May 30, 1880
[1:17-1:26] Transition music
[1:27-1:36] Female voice:
Welcome to A Fickle Current, a podcast about the political career of James A. Garfield. Because this is a presidential election year, we will devote this season to the high point of Garfield’s political story—his election to the presidency.
[1:37-1:43] Transition music
[1:44-3:15] A different female voice narrates:
In the spring of 1880, James A. Garfield was a member of Congress, representing the northeast corner of Ohio. He was the Republican leader in the House, where his party was in the minority. But he had been elected to the Senate during the Ohio legislative session in January, so in 1881 he would move across the Capitol and join a Republican majority in the Senate. He went to the Republican National Convention in Chicago to nominate Ohio’s John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, former Congressman and Senator, to be the party’s presidential candidate. There he encountered a city “full of Republicans and intense activity in all the hostile camps.”
The largest single voting bloc at the convention were supporters of U. S. Grant for a third presidential term. The Grant backers, led by three powerful senators, controlled about 300 votes. Many anybody-but-Grant Republicans supported James G. Blaine, who nearly matched Grant in pledged delegates. Neither commanded a majority. Between these hostile camps, and controlling what could be the decisive votes were delegates supporting Sherman and several “favorite son” candidates. And the de-facto leader of the opposition to a third term was Sherman supporter and House Republican leader James A. Garfield.
[3:15-3:24] Transition music
[3:25-4:02] Male voice, interviewer Richard Robyn:
My name is Richard Robyn, Professor of Political Science at Kent State University and volunteer at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Joining me to discuss the 1880 Republican National Convention is Todd Arrington, Site Manager at the National Historic Site.
Todd, so first of all, we are very fortunate to have you as our expert on James Garfield, and especially for this part of our podcast, the campaign of 1880 and the 1880 Republican Convention.
We’ve set up a little bit in the introduction about the convention. Is there anything you would like to add to that?
[4:03-5:57] Male voice, interviewee Todd Arrington:
Well, the 1880 Republican convention is in Chicago, and of course that was the scene of many, many conventions for the Republicans over the years. I will say, I think it’s fascinating when you look at the 1880 convention, that it’s the first time—I believe it’s the first time in American history—where the person who ends up being nominated by the convention is actually attending the convention.
Again, this is a very different era of politics. We don’t expect, in this era, to see candidates out campaigning for themselves, it’s kind of considered unseemly, or really not appropriate, very different than today, as I said. Very different then what we expect to see today, where candidates are very actively and openly seeking the office and seeking people’s votes. Candidates who think that they have a chance to be nominated for president, at past conventions, never go to the conventions, for that same reason. They don’t want to appear too eager for the office. It’s more appealing to let the office seek the man—it’s all men at this point, of course.
Garfield goes to this convention really for another purpose, which is just to nominate John Sherman, and really not expecting to be nominated himself. It is a little bit of a myth that this Garfield nomination was completely out of the blue. There had been a few whispers here and there about Garfield as a potential compromise candidate. And Garfield himself certainly didn’t try to tamp that down, I mean, he was playing both sides of the fence. But I really, genuinely believe Garfield really didn’t think anything was going to come of this.
And so he went there, and he did his duty for Sherman, and he kind of owed Sherman that because Sherman had supported Garfield for election to that seat in the U. S. Senate, which Garfield would have taken at the beginning of 1881 had he not been elected President.
[5:58-6:13] Richard:
Now, most listeners would be thinking “Garfield would oppose General Grant—a war hero, two time President of the United States, head of the Republican party for so long?” How is it possible that Garfield would have opposed Grant?
[6:14-9:05] Todd:
Well, I think that opposition really comes primarily from two things. One, of course, everybody knows, I think, that there was quite a bit of scandal during Grant’s two terms, which when from 1869 to 1877. I think there’s no question now, the scholarship has shown that Grant himself was personally honest, but he didn’t always have the best judgment in character, and he surrounded himself with people who didn’t always have his best interest, or the country’s best interest at heart. And so he got taken advantage of quite a bit, and that continued after his presidency too, when his personal finances were completely wiped out. Its really tragic, what happened to Grant after the presidency. So Garfield, I think, realized that there was a lot of kind of fatigue of that type of leadership during Grant’s years.
The four years of the Hayes administration, of course, which was between Grant’s and Garfield’s presidencies, was fairly scandal free; Hayes really got high marks from people for running an ethical administration. But of course, Hayes’s presidency didn’t start on the best foot because of course he lost the popular vote. There was this controversy about a contested election, and there was an electoral commission, which Garfield was a member of, that decided that Hayes, and not Samuel Tilden, who had won the popular vote, would actually be president. So there was a lot of controversy with Hayes’s election, too, and Hayes had already pledged to only serve a single term, anyway. So the Republicans knew going into 1880 that they needed a candidate because Hayes wasn’t going to stand for reelection. So I think that the idea of some of the malfeasance during Grant’s two terms. . .
The other issue that a lot of people opposed Grant on in 1880 was simply the idea that anyone should run for a third term. Now keep in mind, there’s no constitutional amendment at this point that a president can’t run for a third term. But no one had ever done it because that was the precedent established by George Washington, who very valiantly walked away from power after two terms, and peacefully handed the presidency over to his successor. Washington was, of course, and still is, revered, and so there was this sense that hey, if two terms was good enough for the great George Washington, why isn’t it good enough for Ulysses S. Grant? So there was really a lot of opposition to Grant based on that, too, just no one should seek a third term. And Garfield was one of those who felt like, between these two issues—the corruption during Grant’s first two term, but then also the idea that no one should really seek a third term—led Garfield to oppose Grant for the third term in 1880.
[9:06-9:08] Richard:
That was the major division in the Republican party?
[9:09-11:30] Todd:
Yeah, really the major division between the two sides of the party, because there was some factionalism in the party at that point, was what to do about the civil service. Grant, during his years in office had been very happy to continue with the established system of patronage, which was “to the victors go the spoils” If you win the election you can dole out positions to whoever you like, doesn’t matter if they’re not qualified or don’t have any experience. That’s one of the beauties of winning elections is you get to put people into jobs, and a lot of the people who were supporting Grant really liked that system.
There were some very notable Senators who had been very powerful during Grant’s two terms and were eager to come back to that. Those were primarily Roscoe Conkling from New York, and then also John Logan from Illinois and Don Cameron from Pennsylvania. They were kind of called the triumvirate, and they were very, very opposed to any kind of reform of civil service. They liked the patronage system. They liked being able to build these little groups of Republicans who were beholden to them for their jobs. So they were really eager to see Grant go back into office because they had done very well for themselves when Grant was President.
Garfield was kind of a late convert to civil service reform. Frankly, by 1880, even during this convention, he was fairly lukewarm about civil service reform. I think with Garfield it was really the idea that it wasn’t right for anybody to seek a third term. Garfield didn’t start to come around on civil service reform really until he was President-elect and then once he became President, because he just got this crush of people coming to see him, whether it was here to the farm in Mentor, when he was President-elect, or when he moved into the White House. There were just thousands of people descending on these places every day to try to talk to him about jobs that they wanted. That, I think, is what really turned Garfield towards becoming a convert on civil service reform. Here in 1880, during that Republican convention, I don’t think Garfield was nearly as zealous about civil service reform as some others were.
[11:31-12:20] Richard:
Thank you for setting all of that up. So we’re now going to be coming in to an interesting convention, riven by different politics and people that they support perhaps. Our listeners might find it strange that there would be so much turmoil, in fact Garfield called them “hostile camps,” within the Republican Party. We’ve gotten used to the idea of national conventions as being pretty well staged events, kind of predictable and kind of boring, actually. In fact, we’ve not had a brokered convention – which was the situation in 1880 – since way back in the 1950s, with the election for Eisenhower. Could you speak to the reality of the brokered conventions at the time and what all that means?
[12:21-14:34] Todd:
It’s interesting, so yeah, you’re right, conventions today are completely staged. It’s when the parties get together, they write platforms, of course, even though we pretty much know what’s going to be in those platforms. And they ultimately are nominating a presidential candidate who has already been selected by the voters, because we have primaries and caucuses and all this stuff now. None of this existed in 1880, so at this point in American history, the conventions were actually very important. Yes, they did get together to actually write the platform, but they were getting together to choose a nominee. The people, the voters, had no say in who became president until election day. There were no primaries, or anything like that. So, this idea of conventions as really high drama was legitimate for well over a century in American history.
Certainly 1880 is no exception, for both sides, because there was no strict front-runner on the Democratic side either. And then of course the idea of the Republican convention with Grant, of course, Blaine, John Sherman, all these favorite son candidates, it really was almost anybody’s ballgame. Surely Grant had the inside track, but clearly there was not a majority for Grant at this point. So conventions at this point are very important because they are doing the hard work of selecting the candidate. Not like today, when the voters have already done that and the convention is just a rubber stamp of okay, yes we are nominating this person who the voters have chosen. Conventions were quite important and quite interesting then, and then, of course, once the convention was over, it was also the parties that were doing the heavy lifting of the campaigns, too. Garfield or Hancock or Tilden or Hayes or whoever, they weren’t going out and going on these sort of whistle-blowing tours all over the country trying to drum up votes for themselves. They were staying home and letting the parties do the work for them. So conventions and parties were really, really critical at this point in American history.
[14:35-14:49] Richard:
A very different kind of situation than we might expect in our modern era. And how about, let’s look at the individual James Garfield. As he’s travelling to Chicago now to be a part of this convention, could you sort of describe his frame of mind?
[14:50-15:30] Todd:
His frame of mind, primarily, is that he really didn’t want to go. (chuckle) He wanted to stay home. He and his wife lived in Mentor, Ohio, where we are at James A. Garfield National Historic Site. They had this farm here, and they were doing a lot of work to the property. He loved this property. They’d only really lived here for about four years. This was kind of their home away from Washington. He liked to be here; he liked to do a lot of the farm work himself. He liked to be around his children and his wife, so he really didn’t want to go to the convention. He went because he was obligated to do so for John Sherman. His mindset was, he really didn’t want to do this.
[15:30-15:33] Richard:
(laughter) And he’s supposed to be making a speech for Sherman. . .
[15:34-16:35] Todd:
Yes, its funny, as the convention got closer and closer, Sherman started making more and more demands of Garfield, and Garfield started getting more and more uncomfortable, to the point where finally Sherman wanted Garfield to actually, not only be there to manage Sherman’s presence on the floor, but he wanted Garfield to be the one to make the speech putting Sherman’s name into nomination. Sherman recognized that Garfield was very highly regarded as a speaker. I think he also knew—Sherman knew there were some whispers about Garfield as a potential compromise candidate, so the more he had Garfield doing for him, the less likely it was that Garfield would be able to look out for his own interest, I guess you would say—which ended up being a very interesting part of the story when Garfield does, in fact, get nominated. So yes, he actually had Garfield going there ultimately to nominate him to be the presidential candidate.
[16:36-16:47] Richard:
And you’ve said a couple of times now that there were whispers that maybe Garfield could be a compromise candidate. Do you think that Garfield might have gone to Chicago with the idea that “oh, boy, I might become President of the United States?”
[16:48-19:08] Todd:
You know, I really do believe, he knew those whispers were out there. He had talked to people who said “Grant cannot be nominated again, it will not happen. It will be a fractured convention. There will be a need for a compromise candidate, and we think you’re the guy.” And again, like a good politician, Garfield did not do much to say “No, do not let that happen.” He kept his options open. He was a politician, I mean, that’s okay, that’s his job. And really some of these conversations started as far back as 1879—some in Wisconsin and a few other places. I really do genuinely believe, I don’t think Garfield really thought that anything was going to come of it. Yes, he didn’t mind the fact that his name was out there, and he did write a few letters from Chicago as things started to get more and more interesting during that convention. He did write some letters back to his wife back here in Ohio saying, “I think it seems that they are turning their attention to me.” He did not say in those letters, “I really need to make sure that they don’t, because I can’t have that happen.” So, you know, he was keeping his options open, and that’s okay.
There was a segment in the Republican party after this convention that felt that Garfield had stabbed Sherman in the back. I don’t believe that’s true. I think Garfield did do everything he could for Sherman, and everything he was obligated to do. Sherman seemed to feel that way, also; that he didn’t feel that Garfield had acted in bad faith or anything like that.
But, yeah, I don’t think he thought anything was going to come of it, but he knew that there were people that, here and there, were throwing his name around. But Garfield, remember at this point, he’s 48 years old. He’s a young man. He has got years and years of politics ahead of him. He’s going to the Senate. He knows he’s got the next six years to really continue to build his reputation. Maybe he tries in 1884 or 1888, or something like that. No, I don’t think he was going to Chicago to say, “This is my chance. No.”
[19:09-19:18] Richard:
Okay, now to the convention itself. Could you kind of set the scene for us. The city of Chicago, what’s it like? The convention site? Things like that.
[19:19-21:37] Todd:
Chicago, obviously is a major city at this point. I don’t have the population numbers in front of me or anything, but it’s obviously a big city. It’s certainly the most prominent city in the Midwest. Illinois is significant, of course, as the home of Abraham Lincoln, the patron saint of the Republican party, if you will, even as far forward as 1880. So it’s very significant, I think, to have that convention in Chicago.
The convention itself is held in this large building called the Glass Palace. It’s a crazy scene. We know conventions are crazy scenes today, but these conventions have nothing on conventions in a time like 1880, where you just have sometimes hundreds of thousands of people descending on these cities to try to get in to hear these speakers. Today, yeah it would be great if we could all go, but we can watch it on TV. That’s not an option. You can’t follow it on twitter or facebook or instgram live or any of this stuff. In 1880, if you’re not there, then all you can do is read about it in the paper in a few days. So hundreds of thousands of people are descending on the city. Garfield is one of those people. He describes in his diary about just how packed the train station is, and trying to get to the hotel, and all these people who want to stop him and talk to him. It just boggles the mind, what the scene is like. Here you have a Congressman, a U.S. Senator-elect, and of course, within a week or so, a presidential candidate, who’s basically walking the streets of Chicago by himself every night, you know, going to meetings and talking to people. No security detail, no nothing. He just this lone guy, who happens to be the guy who, in six or seven days, is a candidate for President. So he’s walking around by himself through these crazy nighttime parades, and torchlight and all this stuff—it boggles the mind what the scene would have been like. I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall at a convention like this. The best we can do is watch them on TV now.
[21:38-21:51] Richard:
So here we are in this big convention hall, thousands of people there, and it comes time now when Sherman’s name needs to be put in nomination. So could you describe how that transpired?
[21:52-27:08] Todd:
Before you even think about Sherman you have to think about Grant. Grant’s name was placed into nomination by Roscoe Conkling, this very powerful New York Senator, kind of the king of the patronage system, and one of Grant’s biggest supporters. He was one of those guys that was very powerful during those Grant presidential years and very much wanted Grant to be elected again partially for that reason. So Conkling gives this sort of rousing speech for Grant. Grant is still immensely personally popular with the American people. He’s still the hero that won the Civil War and defeated Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy. So Grant still has great sort of star appeal, and so the mention of Grant’s name just sends people into whoops and cheers. Conkling gives this very powerful, very rousing speech for Grant.
And then it’s time for Garfield to speak for Sherman. Garfield can give a rousing speech with the best of them. Garfield, like Conkling, has this sort of deep, booming voice, they’re both very tall, they have very good stage presence, which is very important in 1880, because again, they don’t have megaphones or microphones or anything like that. They’re basically standing on a table, on a stage in the middle of this massive hall talking to thousand of people. Obviously the vast majority of those people didn’t hear a word that Conkling or Garfield actually said, but for the people who were up close. . . Garfield can give a really good, rousing Go Republican speech as good as anybody. And yet. . .
It’s important to know too, that Garfield was very, very delinquent in preparing his speech for Sherman. He noted that in a letter home to his wife, where he said, “I made a huge mistake not preparing this speech before I came.” So Garfield ends up giving a speech which is by and large extemporaneous. It is much quieter, for Garfield, than people expected, and yet it’s extremely powerful. Whereas Conkling is rousing and “three cheers for Grant” and all this noise, Garfield kind of goes against type and gives this speech that is very, sort of contemplative, and really thought provoking. And he uses this great metaphor of the ocean—the convention being kind of the swell of the wave, but this isn’t where we need to make our decision. The decision will be made when the tide has receded a little bit, of course referring to the fall, when the election is actually held. So it’s really a beautiful speech, and again, very unexpected. It’s not at all what people were expecting. And one thing that he did noticeably do that gave the Sherman folks that were upset with him later a lot of ammunition, was he barely mentioned Sherman’s name. He didn’t really mention Sherman’s name until the end of the speech. At one point he says, “Gentlemen of the convention, what do we want?” And somebody in the crowd goes, “We want Garfield!” (chuckle) and then everybody starts to cheer.
Then, all of a sudden, as we follow the events over the next few days, we go, “Oh, maybe that was a really significant moment.” But he doesn’t really mention Sherman’s name until the very end of the speech, which some of the Sherman people were not too happy about. Anyway, it was a very powerful speech. And I think it was a speech that, over the next few days, as they’re battling it out over these ballots, it’s a speech that a lot of people, a lot of delegates kept coming back to, as they started thinking about, “Clearly we need a compromise candidate here.” They’re going through ballot after ballot after ballot after ballot and nothing is moving, nothing is changing. Grant and Blaine and Sherman really are almost in the exact same position on ballot twenty as they were on ballot one. There’s really been no movement, and people start—some of them at least—coming back to that Garfield speech and saying “This is a guy that we can all get behind.” He is the perfect compromise candidate. Everybody likes him personally, he’s got a great personality. Even if they don’t agree with him, they like him. He doesn’t have anything major in his background that would lead them to say “oh, he can’t be elected, or this could come back to haunt us.” No real skeletons in the closet, or anything like that. No major scandals or anything like this. He becomes more and more appealing as people start to think more and more about what are they really look for in a candidate, because clearly by that ballot twenty, or whatever, they’re thinking “we’ve got to do something here because clearly the three guys that are at the top of these votes are not going to get it. So something has got to break. And I think that that speech that he gave for Sherman was one of the things that made at least some people start breaking in his direction.
[27:09-27:25] Richard:
Ballot twenty, you say? (chuckle) Oh, my goodness. Another break from the modern conventions in which the first ballot—if you don’t get it on the first ballot, you’re probably in deep, deep trouble. So this goes on for twenty or more ballots? Can you describe that?
[27:26-28:52] Todd:
Well, they started voting fairly soon after the speeches for nominations are given, they start the voting. Everybody expects, and really Grant expected to be nominated on the first ballot, because that’s what he had been led to believe. When that didn’t happen—because Grant and Blaine and Sherman—these guys are being kept informed through telegraph, not like today where you could send them a text or something and they could give them literally blow-by-blow, but they know what’s happening. Ballots continue to be taken and really, Grant starts with about, I think its 305 or 306, something along there. And I believe it’s 379 that’s needed to actually win the nomination. And they start going through all these ballots and there’s just very little movement. So the Grant people are loyal to Grant, and the Blaine people stay with Blaine, and the Sherman people stay with Sherman. So that really by a couple of days later as they continue to go through these ballots. . . And keep in mind, it’s summer, it’s hot, there’s no central air in this hall, a lot of these folks are sitting on benches that don’t have backs—it’s very uncomfortable.
[28:53] Richard:
Smoking cigars
[28:54-33:00] Todd:
Smoking, yeah, it really sounds like a dreadful place to be if you ask me. But it just keeps going on and on and on, and there’s just very little movement in those top three candidates. Really, at some point, something has got to change—either there’s got to be some kind of deal that, you know, the Blaine people will go to Sherman, or the Sherman people will go to Blaine, or the Grant people will promise this if everybody comes to Grant. There has to be one of those stereotypical back-room, smoke filled room deals.
Ultimately it ends up going 36 ballots. There’s like one delegate who keeps voting for Garfield, from early on, straight on through. Almost every ballot, not every, but almost every ballot there’s maybe like one or two Garfield votes—not anything to worry about, obviously, for any of those top tier candidates.
I think it’s around ballot 30 or 31 or 32 when the floodgates just kind of open and a lot of people start moving to Garfield. And I think that’s a product of they were hot, and they were miserable and they were tired, and they’d already been there longer than they thought they would be. If somebody, now, at this point, is being floated that we think is even remotely qualified, we’re fine with that, because it’s clearly not going to be Grant or Blaine or Sherman. Those low thirties—30, 31 or so is when that movement starts getting to Garfield and by the 36th ballot he is nominated.
He is sitting on the floor watching these ballots go through, trying to keep Ohio solid for Sherman, and suddenly people from other states are voting for him. At one point he gets the floor and tells the chairman of the convention, “This vote contains votes for me and I did not agree to have my name placed in nomination.” So he’s really trying—either trying legitimately or trying to make a good show if it, I’m not sure which—but he is trying to say “I don’t want this. This isn’t. . . I’m not trying to make this happen.” The chairman of the convention basically says, “That’s not a point of order, so please take your seat.” Because the chairman even realizes it’s moving in that direction, and we need to let it go there. So the chairman actually, George Hoar from Massachusetts, even realizes at this point it’s moving toward Garfield, we need to let it go that way. So he shushes Garfield, I guess you would say (chuckle), and tells him to take his seat. And then, lo and behold, by the 36th ballot, he gets nominated.
At one point, one of the Sherman delegates from Ohio telegraphs Sherman and says, “It’s moving to Garfield.” And Sherman writes back, “Let Ohio be solid.” So Garfield, of course, ended up winning all of the votes of the Ohio delegation. Sherman realized that he wasn’t going to win, and I think probably realized that long before when his ballot counts weren’t improving at all. When the time started to get really close, that it was clearly moving toward Garfield, Sherman very graciously said, “Let Ohio be solid.” The entire Ohio delegation was for Garfield, but it was interesting because, when Garfield was trying to get Sherman nominated, he couldn’t even get the entire Ohio delegation behind Sherman, who was from Ohio. So for Sherman to say, “Let Ohio be solid,” when they moved to Garfield, of course also an Ohioan, was pretty significant.
[33:01-33:07] Richard:
Says a lot. Do we have any idea how Garfield felt when that 36th ballot was taken, and he is now nominated?
[33:08-34:34] Todd:
Well, certainly from reports from the convention, he looked a little shell-shocked on the floor, and actually approached a reporter and said, “I want it known that I didn’t want this. This is a complete surprise to me.” Even though he knew people had whispered his name, here and there, really as far back as the year before, I do genuinely believe that he did not expect this. He was a smart guy, and clearly as they got closer and closer and closer, he could see the writing on the wall, and was realizing that “Uh-oh, this may really happen.” But I genuinely believe he did not expect anything like this. I think he was genuinely surprised. Again, he didn’t do anything to tamp down people talking about him, that was fine. Hey, you know what, it could only help him the future to have been considered. Abraham Lincoln was almost nominated for vice-president, and John F. Kennedy, same thing, before their presidential nominations. They didn’t do anything to tamp that down. They were okay with people talking about them. It was the same with Garfield, but I genuinely think he was surprised.
[34:35-35:03] Richard:
So, a titanic battle at the convention finally comes to a close. Now you would think, with that kind of a battle, these kind of factions going at each other like that, that this would be really tough for the campaign itself. That it would be hard to mend fences. How did Grant feel about the outcome of the convention? Blaine? Sherman going forward?
[35:04-37:19] Todd:
You know, Blaine and Garfield were fairly close, so Blaine was actually okay with this, which is interesting because Blaine wanted to be president more than anything. He had what Garfield called “the presidential fever.” He had already sought the presidency a few times; he would seek it again. He ended up being the Republican nominee in 1884, and of course lost to Grover Cleveland. Blaine was desperate to be president, but Blaine was actually okay with this. Blaine’s concern, primarily, in 1880, was not seeing Grant nominated again. So he was okay with his friend Garfield being nominated.
I think Sherman was obviously disappointed, especially since the nomination ended up going to somebody else from Ohio, but not him. They all of course said that they supported Garfield as the nominee; they wanted to present a united front for the party.
It turns out Grant was the one who was the most upset by this. And we find that out later when Garfield actually has become president and gets into this very public squabble with Roscoe Conkling, who is also extremely unhappy because he wanted his guy Grant to be nominated. Grant does send a sort of peevish letter to Garfield, and Garfield responds in kind, both in his letter, but also in his diary about how sort of insolent Grant was acting to the office that he once held. I think Grant comes off looking a little thin-skinned in this whole thing. A lot of that didn’t come until later, after Garfield became president. Garfield remarks in his diary at one point, he didn’t realize how much the third term mentality had really gotten to Grant, and that Grant was acting very untoward to the presidency.
[37:20-38:00] Richard:
Interesting interactions then between those three people, Garfield, Grant and Conkling, and I believe we could probably even say that it brings up two interesting developments during the campaign, one of which is a part of a podcast, which is the conference at Mentor here, with Grant arriving and making some kind of a friendly gesture then. But also a very interesting part of another podcast, which I believe that you and I are going to be part of, which describes how Conkling came on board eventually, to support Garfield. So we won’t get into that today. . .
[38:01-04] Todd:
That’s okay! We’ll save that for the next one.
[38:05-38:41] Richard:
Well, many thanks Todd Arrington, for your input into this important part of American political history, and Garfield’s trajectory towards the White House. So with this podcast now, we leave James Garfield leaving the convention himself, ready to launch into his campaign for President of the United States. Little does he know then that his campaign will be an unusual one—one feature that will mark it forever in American political history as the Front Porch Campaign. Our next podcast will delve into that. Thank you for listening.
[38:42-38:50] Transition music
[38:51-39:21] Female voice speaks while the music continues:
Thank you for listening to A Fickle Current, a podcast about the political career of James A. Garfield, twentieth President of the United States. This podcast is a production of James A. Garfield National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park System, located in Mentor, Ohio. For more information about the podcast, podcast transcripts, visiting the site, special events and more, please visit our home page at www.nps.gov/jaga.
[39:22-39:43] Theme Music Outro
Description
This is the first episode of a "Fickle Current" podcast. In this episode Site Manager Todd Arrington and Volunteer Rick Robyn discuss the 1880 Republican Presidential Convention in Chicago.
Duration
39 minutes, 41 seconds
Credit
Todd Arrington and Rick Robyn
Date Created
08/28/2020
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