Carl Schurz, Missouri, March 12, 1877. Attorney-General, Charles Devens, Massachusetts, March 12, 1877. Postmaster-General, David M. Key, Tennessee, March 12, 1877; Horace Maynard, Tennessee, August 25, 1880.
The early portion of this administration was made memorable by the troubles in South Carolina and Louisiana, where rival State governments, each claiming to be legally elected, contended for supremacy. In the former State the difficulty was settled by President Hayes, who ordered the withdrawal of the United States troops which had been stationed at Columbia, and had been an objectionable feature of the contest: whereupon the Republican Governor, Chamberlain, retired, and General Wade Hampton took peaceful possession of the office. A settlement was also effected in Louisiana, a commission being sent thither by the President, when the Democratic Governor, Nichols, was enabled to gain possession of his seat, the Federal troops being in this instance also withdrawn from New Orleans. This marked the end of Federal interference in the local concerns of the Southern States, an interference that had become yearly more objectionable to moderate men at the North, who no longer cherished the animosities resulting from the Civil War. See Reconstruction.
This year was further noteworthy by the occurrence, in July, of railroad strikes and riots throughout the country, to the injury of business and with serious loss of property. (See Strikes and Lockouts.) The excitement occasioned by the near approach of the period fixed by Congress for the resumption of specie payments led to the formation of a party opposed to the prevailing sentiment with regard to financial questions. Such a party was organized in Toledo, Ohio, February 22, 1878, under the name of the National Party, delegates being present from 28 States; its principles included bimetallism, the suppression of national bank issues, a graduated income tax, and opposition to Chinese labor. In the State elections of the same year this party, which became popularly known as the Greenback Party (q.v.), polled upward of a million votes.
In February, 1878, the dissatisfaction which had been felt by the advocates of silver coinage with the act of 1873 suspending the coinage of silver, except for subsidiary coins, found expression in the passage by Congress, over the President's veto, of the so-called Bland-Allison Bill, which provided for the annual purchase by the Secretary of the Treasury of at least two million dollars' worth[1] of silver bullion to be coined into legal-tender dollars, each containing 412½ grains of standard silver. On January 1, 1879, specie payments were resumed throughout the United States, after a suspension of seventeen years, and in accordance with the act of Congress approved January 14, 1875, the process of resumption being effected without excitement.
An extraordinary movement northward of the colored population from certain of the South- ern States took place in 187(1 and was the source of much uneasiness among the planters. (See Negro Exodus.) This year also saw the decline and fall of the labor agitation in San Francisco, which under the leadership of Denis Kearney (q.v.) had been continued with great virulence since 1877.
On June 2, 1880, the Republican National Convention met in Chicago to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President. The names most prominent before this convention were those of Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine, and John Sherman. The final choice, however, was James A. Garfield, of Ohio, with Chester A. Arthur, of New York, for Vice-President. On June 11th the Greenback national convention met in Chicago and nominated for President James B. Weaver, who was afterward accepted as the candidate of the Socialist party. On June 22d the Democratic National Convention assembled at Cincinnati, Ohio, and nominated Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and William H. English, of Indiana. The result of the election was the choice of Garfield and Arthur, who received 214 electoral votes, against 155 votes cast for Hancock and English.
XXIV. Administration of James A. Garfield (1881) and of Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885). Cabinet.—Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, Maine, March 5, 1881; Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey, December 12, 1881. Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Windom, Minnesota, March 5, 1881; Charles J. Folger, New York, October 27, 1881. Secretary of War, Robert T. Lincoln, Illinois, March 5, 1881. Secretary of the Navy, W. H. Hunt, Louisiana, March 5, 1881; William E. Chandler, New Hampshire, April 12, 1882. Secretary of the Interior, S. J. Kirkwood, Iowa, March 5, 1881; Henry M. Teller, Colorado, April 6, 1882. Attorney-General, Wayne MacVeagh, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1881; Benjamin H. Brewster, Pennsylvania, December 16, 1881. Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, New York, March 5, 1881; Timothy O. Howe, Wisconsin, December 20, 1881; W. Q. Gresham, Indiana, April 3, 1883; Frank Hatton, Iowa, October 14, 1884.
The politicians in the Republican Party who had favored the election of General Grant for a third term of the Presidency, popularly known, particularly in New York, as ‘Stalwarts,’ had not been pleased with the nomination of Garfield, and in the Presidential campaign they had been induced to give his candidacy their support only on a general understanding that the candidate if successful would give them a liberal share of patronage. The new President had in various ways shown his desire to conciliate both wings of the party; he had held many conferences with the leaders of each, and his first nominations were apparently dictated by a desire to conciliate the ‘Stalwarts.’ But his appointment of William H. Robertson, who had been instrumental in securing the President's nomination at Chicago, to the post of Collector of the Port of New York, aroused the opposition of the Senator from that State, Roscoe Conkling (q.v.), a leading ‘Stalwart.’ Finding that his opposition was ineffectual, Conkling and his colleague, Thomas C. Platt (q.v.), resigned their seats in the Senate. May 16, 1881, and appealed to the New York Legislature for reëlection as a justification of their course. The appeal was unsuccess-
- ↑ He could buy as much as four milllon dollars' worth if he so desired.
