page_title: 1880 Republican National Convention
section_title: Pre-convention politics
hierarchical_section_title: 1880 Republican National Convention / Pre-convention politics
context_page_description: The 1880 Republican National Convention convened from June 2 to June 8, 1880, at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and nominated Representative James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York as the official candidates of the Republican Party for president and vice president, respectively, in the 1880 presidential election.
  Of the 14 men in contention for the Republican nomination, the three strongest candidates leading up to the convention were Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine, and John Sherman. Grant had served two terms as President from 1869 to 1877, and was seeking an unprecedented third term in office. He was backed by the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, which supported political machines and patronage. Blaine was a senator and former representative from Maine who was backed by the Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party. Sherman, the brother of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, was serving as Secretary of the Treasury under President Rutherford B. Hayes. A former senator from Ohio, he was backed by delegates who did not support the Stalwarts or Half-Breeds.
context_section_description: In January, caucuses were held in local districts to pick delegates to state conventions. The state conventions would then select a number of these delegates to represent the state at the national convention. Prior to the convention, there was a great deal of machine politics conducted by the candidates. John Sherman utilized Treasury Department employees who owed their jobs to him to meet up at local caucuses across the South to guarantee loyal state delegations. State-level bosses, like Roscoe Conkling, used the state conventions to pick delegates that were politically allied to a particular candidate. In the state delegate-selection convention at Utica, New York, Grant's supporters carried only a 217–180 majority over Blaine supporters, but Conkling passed a resolution declaring that, "the Republicans of New York believe the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant as Presidential candidate of urgent importance, and the delegates this day assembled are called upon and instructed to use their earnest and united efforts to secure his nomination.
  Conkling commanded delegates to follow the resolution, and if they were to violate it, he guaranteed they would be victims of political revenge and personal dishonor. However, in Chicago, there were a number of New York delegates who went against the resolution and publicly expressed their support for Blaine. J. Donald Cameron used similar tactics to intimidate dissenters in the Pennsylvania state convention. The third member of the "triumvirate", John A. Logan, literally locked out Blaine supporters from the Illinois state convention, and replaced them with personally chosen Grant supporters.
  By May 29, four days before the opening of the convention, trainloads upon trainloads of delegates, lobbyists, reporters, and campaign followers had arrived at the Union and Dearborn railway stations in Chicago. Candidate supporters channeled through the Chicago streets with daily parades and rallies. Pre-convention possible outcomes of the voting were published by a number of sources. One, from the Albany Evening Journal, predicted Blaine with 277 votes, Grant with 317, Sherman with 106, and 49 for the other candidates. All of these predicted candidate vote totals were short of the 379 needed to win. Many in Chicago knew that a victor, most probably Grant, would only be determined if the unit rule, which postulated that all delegates from a particular state must vote for the candidate preferred by that state's delegation, was to be in effect. If that was not the case, then a long deadlock would result until one side succumbed to the other.
  Before any voting began, the delegates had to vote on the important matter of the unit rule. Prior to the start of the convention, James Garfield noted, "I regard it [the unit rule] as being more important than even the choice of a candidate." If the rule was supported by a majority of the delegates, then state party bosses, like the members of the "triumvirate", would be able to solidify Grant's nomination bid. If Conkling and the other Stalwart bosses had their way, the nearly sixty dissenters from the states represented by the "triumvirate" would be silenced. Unfortunately for Half-Breeds, J. Donald Cameron was chairman of the Republican National Committee. Cameron planned to exercise his power to adopt new rules for the convention, and also suppress any dissenters of the unit rule. His plan was leaked, and within days, almost all the delegates in Chicago knew about it. Supporters of the Sherman and Blaine campaigns knew that they had to prevent Cameron from exercising his power. Blaine's forces agreed that they could only prevent Cameron from imposing the unit rule by removing him as the chair of the Republican National Committee.
  At 7:00 P.M. on May 31, J. Donald Cameron convened the Republican National Committee's last meeting before the opening of the convention. Of the forty-six men at the meeting, Cameron counted only sixteen allies. The rest of the men were anti-Grant delegates who had decided to gang up on Cameron. Colorado senator Jerome B. Chaffee w
caption: Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York
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