page_title: John Sherman
section_title: Election of 1880
hierarchical_section_title: John Sherman / Election of 1880
caption_attribution_description: General notes: Use Presidents List Number 9 when ordering a reproduction or requesting information about this image.
context_page_description: John Sherman was a politician from the U.S. state of Ohio during the American Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State. Sherman sought the Republican presidential nomination three times, coming closest in 1888, but was never chosen by the party. His brothers included General William Tecumseh Sherman; Charles Taylor Sherman, a federal judge in Ohio; and Hoyt Sherman, an Iowa banker.
  Born in Lancaster, Ohio, Sherman later moved to Mansfield, where he began a law career before entering politics. Initially a Whig, Sherman was among those anti-slavery activists who formed what became the Republican Party. He served three terms in the House of Representatives. As a member of the House, Sherman traveled to Kansas to investigate the unrest between pro- and anti-slavery partisans there. He rose in party leadership and was nearly elected Speaker in 1859. Sherman was elevated to the Senate in 1861.
context_section_description: Hayes had pledged himself to a one-term presidency, and the Republican nomination in 1880 attracted many candidates, including Sherman. Hayes's preference was for Sherman to succeed him, but he made no official endorsement, and he did not think Sherman could win the nomination. Among the early favorites for the nomination were former President Grant, Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, and Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont. Grant did not actively promote his candidacy, but his entry into the race energized his partisans, and when the convention met in Chicago in June 1880, they instantly divided the delegates into Grant and anti-Grant factions, with Blaine the most popular choice of the latter group. After Grant and Blaine had been nominated, James Garfield nominated Sherman with an eloquent speech, saying "You ask for his monuments, I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid." The speech, while heartfelt, was not particularly stirring. As Senator George Frisbie Hoar later explained, "[t]here was nothing stimulant or romantic in the plain wisdom of John Sherman".
  After the other candidates had been nominated, the first ballot showed Grant leading with 304 votes and Blaine in second with 284; Sherman's 93 placed him in a distant third, and no candidate had the required majority of 379. Sherman's delegates could swing the nomination to either Grant or Blaine, but he refused to release them through twenty-eight ballots in the hope that the anti-Grant forces would desert Blaine and flock to him. By the end of the first day, it was clear that neither Grant nor Blaine could muster a majority; a compromise candidate would be necessary. Sherman held out hope that he would be that compromise candidate, but while his vote tally reached as high as 120, he never commanded even all of Ohio's delegates. His divided home-state support was likely fatal to his cause, as Blaine delegates, searching for a new champion, did not think Sherman would make a popular candidate. After several days of balloting, Blaine's men found their compromise candidate, but instead of Sherman they shifted their votes to his fellow Ohioan, Garfield. By the thirty-sixth ballot, Garfield had 399 votes, enough for victory.
  Sherman was respected among his fellow Republicans for his intelligence and hard work, but there were always doubts about his potential as a national candidate. As one author described him, Sherman was "thin as a rail, over six feet high, with close cropped beard and possessed of bad teeth and a divine laugh, when he laughs". His public speeches were adequate and informative, but never "of a sort to arouse a warm feeling for John Sherman, the man." Unlike Blaine or Conkling, Sherman "communicated no colorful personality, no magnetic current". His nickname, "the Ohio Icicle," deserved or not, hindered his presidential ambitions.
  Garfield placated the pro-Grant faction by endorsing Chester A. Arthur as nominee for Vice President. Despite his good relations with Arthur in 1879, Sherman thought the choice a bad one: "The nomination of Arthur is a ridiculous burlesque," he wrote in a letter to a friend, "and I am afraid was inspired by a desire to defeat the ticket ... His nomination attaches to the ticket all the odium of machine politics, and will greatly endanger the success of Garfield." He was nearly correct, as Garfield eked out a narrow victory over the Democratic nominee Winfield Scott Hancock. Sherman continued at the Treasury for the rest of Hayes's term, leaving office March 3, 1881.
caption: James A. Garfield emerged the unexpected nominee at the 1880 Republican National Convention.
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