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| In 1880, Stalwarts led by Conkling, Logan, and ] fiercely advocated nominating former president ] for a non-consecutive, third presidential term.<ref name=banks,p.7/> The ] advocated the nomination of Senator ] of ],<ref>Welch, Richard E., Jr. (1968). , p. 67–68. ''Vermont History''. Retrieved January 1, 2022.</ref> while the ] sought a presidential term for ]. | In 1880, Stalwarts led by Conkling, Logan, and ] fiercely advocated nominating former president ] for a non-consecutive, third presidential term.<ref name=banks,p.7/> The ] advocated the nomination of Senator ] of ],<ref>Welch, Richard E., Jr. (1968). , p. 67–68. ''Vermont History''. Retrieved January 1, 2022.</ref> while the ] sought a presidential term for ]. Although Grant had previously pushed for some degree of civil service reform as president, he became disenchanted with Hayes' efforts to effectively dismantle the Stalwarts' patronage machines.<ref name=npsinfo/> Conkling, who previously was a close ally to Grant during the latter's presidency, once again became a right-hand man. | ||
| The Stalwarts, in a bid for power within their own party in spite of their loss of power due to the rise in popularity of the Democratic Party, stubbornly supported the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant, who, if elected, would be serving a third, non-consecutive third term. Bitter factionalism emerged, primarily between the Conkling and Blaine wings of the party. Chief allies of Blaine, ] and ], proved unable to thoroughly debate the shrewd Conkling, who "humiliated" Frye in a manner deemed "half sneer and half insult."<ref name=banks,p.7/> | The Stalwarts, in a bid for power within their own party in spite of their loss of power due to the rise in popularity of the Democratic Party, stubbornly supported the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant, who, if elected, would be serving a third, non-consecutive third term. Bitter factionalism emerged, primarily between the Conkling and Blaine wings of the party. Chief allies of Blaine, ] and ], proved unable to thoroughly debate the shrewd Conkling, who "humiliated" Frye in a manner deemed "half sneer and half insult."<ref name=banks,p.7/> | ||
| A stalemate ensued between the Half-Breeds, Blaine faction, and the Stalwarts, so a compromise was struck by the Blaine faction and supporters of ] to nominate ], with ], former ], as his ], to satisfy the Stalwarts and thereby ensure their support for the general election.<ref name="Peskin1984"/> | A stalemate ensued between the Half-Breeds, Blaine faction, and the Stalwarts, so a compromise was struck by the Blaine faction and supporters of ] to nominate ], with ], former ], as his ], to satisfy the Stalwarts and thereby ensure their support for the general election.<ref name="Peskin1984"/> | ||
| For the vice presidential pick, Garfield at first proposed nominating Treasury of the Secretary John Sherman, a staunch Half-Breed, Moderate Republican, and supporter of civil service reform who Stalwarts loathed.<ref name=npsinfo/> In an appeal to party unity for both factions to be somewhat pleased, Conkling ally Chester "Chet" Arthur became Garfield's running mate,<ref name=levipmortonbio/> to the horror of Half-Breeds who pejoratively dubbed him as Conkling's "creature."<ref name=garfieldandarthur/> The pair narrowly would win the general election in November that year. | |||
| == Decline == | == Decline == | ||
Revision as of 19:04, 26 February 2022
Faction of the U.S. Republican Party, 1870s–1880s| Stalwarts | |
|---|---|
| Leader | • Roscoe Conkling • Zachariah Chandler • Oliver P. Morton • Benjamin Wade • Benjamin Butler • Thomas C. Platt • Chester A. Arthur • Levi P. Morton • John A. Logan • Simon Cameron • J. Donald Cameron • William B. Allison • Frederick T. Frelinghuysen • Leonidas C. Houk |
| Founded | 1877 |
| Dissolved | c. 1890 |
| Preceded by | Radical faction of the Republican Party |
| Merged into | Republican Party |
| Ideology | Grantism Pro-machine politics Pro-spoils system Conservatism |
| Political position | Center-right to right-wing |
| National affiliation | Republican Party |
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The Stalwarts were a faction of the Republican Party that existed briefly in the United States during as well as after Reconstruction and the Gilded Age during the 1870s and 1880s. Led by U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling—also known as "Lord Roscoe"—Stalwarts were sometimes called Conklingites. Other notable Stalwarts included Chester A. Arthur, Thomas C. Platt, and Leonidas C. Houk. The faction favored Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth President of the United States (1869–1877), running for a third term in the 1880 United States presidential election.
The designation of "Stalwart" to describe the faction was coined by James G. Blaine, who would later lead the rival "Half-Breed" faction during the Garfield administration. Blaine and his political organization formed an informal coalition with the Stalwarts during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, supporting patronage and advocating on behalf of Southern blacks. The Maine Senator also frequently joined Stalwarts in voting against nominations of reformers by President Hayes who received the support of Democrats and staunch Half-Breed Republicans. Blaine applied the term to commend Conkling's faction as devoted loyalists to the Republican Party's principles.
Stalwarts were the "traditional," "Old Guard" Republicans who advocated for the civil rights of African-Americans and opposed Rutherford B. Hayes's efforts to enact civil service reform. They were pitted against the "Half-Breeds" (classically liberal moderates) for control of the Republican Party. The most prominent issue between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds was patronage. The Half-Breeds worked to enact moderate civil service reform, and finally helped pass the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. This was signed by Arthur, who became President after the assassination of James A. Garfield, a Half-Breed. Stalwarts favored traditional machine politics.
Background
During the American Civil War and afterwards, congressional Radical Republicans feuded with so-called "Moderates" and "Conservatives" (who were in reality more liberal and supportive of civil service reform) on Reconstruction policy. Radical Republicans pushed through harsher, more coercive measures to safeguard the rights of newly freed slaves and promote a system of free-market capitalism in the South, which "Moderates" were skeptical of and "Conservatives" opposed.
Over time, the power of the Radical Republicans disintegrated as members became disenchanted with the associated corruption during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Many remaining Radicals, unwavering in their tactic of "waving the bloody shirt" and their defense of black civil rights, formed the Stalwarts, including but not limited to Roscoe Conkling, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, John A. Logan, Zachariah Chandler, Benjamin Butler, William B. Allison, Benjamin Wade, and Oliver P. Morton.
Characteristics
The Stalwarts were mostly identifiable through their support of the presidency and re-election of Ulysses S. Grant. The 1880 Republican National Convention was the event in which the group participated most prominently. Of the Stalwarts present, most were from former Confederate states, with others being from New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, home to some prominent Republican leaders.
Although commonly described as "conservative", Stalwarts were not uniformly bound on ideology aside from their advocacy of spoils system politics and African-American civil rights. Some members, including John A. Logan, broke with the standard Republican Party position on the issue of protective tariffs and favored lower rates.
Stalwarts were more cautious in policy than non-Stalwarts, preferring to avoid controversial policies popular with other Republicans, such as a higher protective tariff. This caution led the Stalwarts to support the nomination of Grant, a popular former President, at the 1880 Republican National Convention.
Hayes presidency
Conkling rebukes Hayes in Port Collector fight
The Collector of the Port of New York was a powerful and prized political position, with the officeholder being able to control a central location of trade between the United States and other nations. New York had for many years hitherto been managed by the powerful patronage machine of Sen. Conkling, with opponents of the New York boss vying for control.
President Hayes attempted to wrest control of the Port from Conkling to no avail, twice picking his own political acolytes to the post only to have the nominations defeated in the Senate by the New York senator, who successfully rallied Republicans to his side. Among Hayes' earlier nominations to the post of New York Collector of Customs was Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the father of future president Theodore Roosevelt. The nomination of Roosevelt, Sr., was defeated due to overwhelming Republican opposition in the U.S. Senate. The Stalwarts' opposition towards Roosevelt, Sr., was joined by James G. Blaine, while Half-Breeds George F. Hoar and Stanley Matthews voted for the nomination.
Conkling later managed to secure the position of New York Customs House boss for close machine ally and future president Chester A. Arthur.
Hayes and Sherman fire Arthur
Arthur's tenure was marked with corruption and extensive preference of party loyalties over qualifications. He was known to have turned a blind eye to corruption in the New York Customs House, in addition to hiring thousands of Republicans for government jobs on the mere basis of partisan affiliation.
Following an investigation of the Customs House in 1877, President Hayes and Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, a Half-Breed, fired Arthur the following year. This decision was criticized even by congressional members of the Blaine faction, who began to distance themselves from Hayes. The Hayes administration subsequently emerged victorious in several intraparty battles, successfully nominating Edwin Atkins Merritt and Silas W. Burt to prominent positions in New York. Although Republican opposition towards Hayes considerably eroded in contrast to the defeat of Roosevelt, Sr.'s nomination, the Stalwarts and Blaine faction remained, at this point, informally united in persistent antipathy towards the president's reform advocacy.
1880 Republican National Convention
In 1880, Stalwarts led by Conkling, Logan, and Simon Cameron fiercely advocated nominating former president Ulysses S. Grant for a non-consecutive, third presidential term. The Half-Breeds advocated the nomination of Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, while the Blaine faction sought a presidential term for James G. Blaine. Although Grant had previously pushed for some degree of civil service reform as president, he became disenchanted with Hayes' efforts to effectively dismantle the Stalwarts' patronage machines. Conkling, who previously was a close ally to Grant during the latter's presidency, once again became a right-hand man.
The Stalwarts, in a bid for power within their own party in spite of their loss of power due to the rise in popularity of the Democratic Party, stubbornly supported the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant, who, if elected, would be serving a third, non-consecutive third term. Bitter factionalism emerged, primarily between the Conkling and Blaine wings of the party. Chief allies of Blaine, William P. Frye and Eugene Hale, proved unable to thoroughly debate the shrewd Conkling, who "humiliated" Frye in a manner deemed "half sneer and half insult."
A stalemate ensued between the Half-Breeds, Blaine faction, and the Stalwarts, so a compromise was struck by the Blaine faction and supporters of John Sherman to nominate James A. Garfield, with Chester A. Arthur, former Collector of the Port of New York, as his running mate, to satisfy the Stalwarts and thereby ensure their support for the general election. For the vice presidential pick, Garfield at first proposed nominating Treasury of the Secretary John Sherman, a staunch Half-Breed, Moderate Republican, and supporter of civil service reform who Stalwarts loathed. In an appeal to party unity for both factions to be somewhat pleased, Conkling ally Chester "Chet" Arthur became Garfield's running mate, to the horror of Half-Breeds who pejoratively dubbed him as Conkling's "creature." The pair narrowly would win the general election in November that year.
Decline
After the Republican victory in November 1880, President Garfield and Conkling fought bitterly and publicly over patronage in Conkling's home state of New York. Garfield, with assistance and advice from Blaine, won the battle, and Conkling and Platt resigned from the Senate, convinced that they would be easily re-elected by the New York legislature. However, Garfield was shot by a self-proclaimed "Stalwart of the Stalwarts", Charles J. Guiteau, on July 2, 1881, and Arthur became President of the United States upon Garfield's death on September 19, 1881. The shock of the assassination broke both Conkling's power and that of the Stalwarts, and Conkling's former protege Arthur helped to create civil service reforms in his term, in part because he felt that he had to follow up on and finish Garfield's work.
The Pendleton Act passed with no Senate Republican opposition. Remaining Senate Stalwarts, including John A. Logan, William B. Allison, J. Donald Cameron, voted for passage. Only seven House Republicans (being Benjamin F. Marsh, James S. Robinson, Robert Smalls, William Robert Moore, Orlando Hubbs, John Robert Thomas, and George Washington Steele) voted against passage of the Pendleton Act.
In the 1884 United States presidential election, Conkling and Platt opposed the Republican Party renomination of their former ally Arthur. The nomination went to James G. Blaine, who Conkling continued loathing and refused to lend any support to in spite of the vice presidential selection going to Stalwart John A. Logan. When asked to campaign for the ticket, Conkling remarked: "I don't engage in criminal practice."
In some states such as Wisconsin, the term "stalwart" continued to be used for the conservative element of those states' Republican parties, as contrasted with the progressive elements, well into the 1930s.
See also
- James G. Blaine, opponent of civil service reform during the Hayes administration
Citations
- Riddleberger, Patrick W. (April 1960). The Radicals' Abandonment of the Negro During Reconstruction. JSTOR. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
- ^ Banks, Ronald F. (June 1958). The Senatorial Career of William P. Frye, p. 7. The University of Maine. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- Weisberger, Bernard A. James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- ^ Schlup, Leonard (October 8, 2017). Leonidas Campbell Houk. Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
- ." dictionary of American HISTORY. . encyclopedia.com. 12 Jan. 2021 . (2021, February 08). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/stalwarts
- Hague Academy of International Law, ed. (1991). Collected courses of the Hague Academy of International Law. Hachette. p. 19.
- ^ Peskin, Allan (1984–85). "Who Were the Stalwarts? Who Were Their Rivals? Republican Factions in the Gilded Age". Political Science Quarterly. 99 (4): 703–716. doi:10.2307/2150708. JSTOR 2150708.
- Muzzey, David Saville (1934). James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days, p. 133. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company.
- Welch, p. 91.
- The Senatorial Career of William P. Frye, pp. 5–6.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS AT NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF EDWIN A. MERRITT AS COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF SILAS W. BURT AS NAVAL OFFICER IN THE DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 9, 2022.
- American Party Politics. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- Sauer, Patrick (2000). The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidents. Indianapolis, Indiana: Alpha Books. pp. 290. ISBN 0-02-863821-2.
- "Stalwart (American political faction) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
- Foner, p. 235.
- Jones, p. 27.
- Jones, pp. 41–42.
- ^ Stalwarts, Half Breeds, and Political Assassination. National Park Service. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS AT NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- ^ Arthur, Chester A. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold. University of Central Florida. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF EDWIN A. MERRITT AS COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- TO CONSENT TO THE NOMINATION OF SILAS W. BURT AS NAVAL OFFICER IN THE DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
- Welch, Richard E., Jr. (1968). George Edmunds of Vermont: Republican Half-Breed, p. 67–68. Vermont History. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
- Cite error: The named reference
levipmortonbiowas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Cite error: The named reference
garfieldandarthurwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Zachary Karabell, Chester Alan Arthur: The American Presidents Series: The 21st President, 1881–1885 (Macmillan, 2004).
- TO PASS S. 133. GovTrack.us. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- TO PASS S. 133, A BILL REGULATING AND IMPROVING THE U. S. CIVIL SERVICE. (J.P. 163). GovTrack.us. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- Muzzey, David Saville (1934). James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of Other Days, p. 283. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company.
- Jones, p. 196.
- "PROGRESSIVE SLATE AHEAD IN WISCONSIN; La Follette Faction Leads the Stalwarts in Primary -- Roosevelt Democrats Winning." The New York Times April 6, 1932; p. 12
General sources
- Foner, Eric (1988). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper & Row.
- Jones, James Pickett (2001). John A. Logan: Stalwart Republican from Illinois. SIU Press. ISBN 9780809323890.
- Welch, Richard E., Jr. (1971). George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans. Harvard University Press.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
External links
Categories:- Stalwarts (Republican Party)
- Activists for African-American civil rights
- Conservatism in the United States
- 1877 establishments in the United States
- 1890 disestablishments in the United States
- Assassination of James A. Garfield
- Political party factions in the United States
- Republican Party (United States) terminology
- Republican Party (United States)