VII.

Election of 1880

In January 1880 the legislature of Ohio elected Garfield to the U.S. Senate for the following year. Before his term began, however, Garfield became involved in the presidential campaign of 1880. Garfield apparently regarded himself as a possible candidate for the Republican nomination. However, he supported Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, another Ohioan. He went to the Republican national convention as head of his state's delegation and manager of the Sherman campaign.

The Republican Party at that time was split into two factions, the Stalwarts, led by Roscoe Conkling, senator from New York, and the Half-Breeds, led by Blaine. The two groups had few political differences, but disagreed over the division of appointments to federal positions, known as patronage. The Stalwarts wanted control of all federal appointments to offices in New York; the Half-Breeds wanted these decisions to be made in Washington. In 1880 Conkling's Stalwarts supported former President Ulysses S. Grant to run for president again. The Half-Breeds supported Blaine. Sherman's candidacy found little national support at the convention, but it helped block the nomination of either Grant or Blaine.

Garfield worked hard to win convention delegates for Sherman. As chairman of the convention's rules committee, he persuaded the convention to permit delegates to vote individually rather than in state blocs. This system of voting freed more than 60 New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois delegates from party-dictated support of Grant. Garfield also addressed the convention on behalf of Sherman, but he probably won more cheers for himself than for his candidate. He spoke for 15 minutes before he mentioned Sherman's name, and many began to suspect that Garfield was adroitly placing himself in nomination. But there is no evidence to suggest that Garfield was disloyal to Sherman.

On the first ballot, Sherman polled 93 votes to Grant's 304 and Blaine's 284. Ballot after ballot brought little change. No candidate was able to muster a majority. Finally, the Blaine and Sherman followers combined to break the deadlock. Garfield was presented as a compromise candidate because he was Blaine's friend and Sherman's manager. On the 36th ballot and on the convention's sixth day, Garfield was nominated for president. He polled 399 votes. One of Conkling's men, Chester A. Arthur, the former customs collector of the port of New York, was nominated for vice president.

In the election, Blaine's and Sherman's followers worked for Garfield. The Grant-Conkling faction gave him reluctant support. There were few issues between Garfield and his Democratic opponent, Major General Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania. The major difference was that the Republicans favored a protective tariff, and the Democrats did not. Garfield, who did not feel strongly about the tariff, went along with his party. In November, Garfield won the presidency. He received 214 electoral votes to Hancock's 155. However, he did not have a majority of the popular vote. Discontented farmers and working people cast 308,578 votes for the Greenback-Labor Party candidate, General James B. Weaver of Iowa. Neal Dow of the Prohibition Party received 10,305 votes. Garfield had 4,454,416 votes to Hancock's 4,444,952. His electoral margin came mainly from Northern states.

Shortly after the election, Garfield resigned from the House and surrendered the Senate seat to which he had been elected earlier in the year. He was inaugurated as president on March 4, 1881.