For some reason I’ve lately been on a bit of a kick for the politics of the late 19th century. There’s something tremendously fascinating about the Gilded Age as well as interpretations of the time period. From the celebrity status of numerous of its politicians to how to examine the era ideologically, it is a subject of great attention. The Gilded Age has often been characterized as a time of high partisanship but with low ideological substance, and there seems to be some truth to that. The issue of civil rights in this time was overwhelmingly partisan, with some regionality coming out on the matter of racial discrimination in interstate commerce. Both parties had inflationary wings on currency questions, although the inflationary wing was stronger among Democrats than Republicans. Republicans in this time were the party of more centralized power while the Democrats were the party of state’s rights. However, Republicans thought of this in the Hamiltonian sense, that the purpose of the government was to assist private enterprise through the imposition of protective tariffs and using such funds to build up national infrastructure, such as canals, bridges, and roads. The business ethos of the old Federalists and their emphasis on property rights is strongly alive in the modern GOP. The greatest issue that divided the parties was one that frequently served as a subject of partisan division throughout America’s history: the protective tariff.

A reformer figure in the GOP at the time was Senator George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) of Vermont. Edmunds was not quite as recognized in his time as his fellow Vermonter Justin Morrill, who sponsored some critical legislation in his day that still benefits many Americans, such as the Morrill Land Grant Acts that resulted in the establishment of many of the US’s universities. Elected to the Senate in 1866 following the death of Senator Solomon Foot, Edmunds proved an independent thinker. Although in some key fundamentals he could be thought of as conservative, such as his staunch support for anti-inflationary monetary policy as well as his frequent backing of tariffs, he was also often in opposition to the interests of the railroads and shipping industry and was during the 1870s and 1880s perhaps the foremost supporter of civil service reform in the Republican Party. Edmunds also served as chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee from 1872 to 1879 and again from 1882 to 1891. He played a considerable role in the effort to convict President Andrew Johnson in 1868, falling short by a single vote. The Stalwarts called Edmunds and his band of reformers the “Half-Breeds” in that they were “half-hearted” Republicans. The term “RINO” springs to mind today. Edmunds made friends across the political aisle in his time, with his closest friendship being with Democrat Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, who he sometimes worked with on efforts to curb railroad power.

Electoral Commission

The 1876 election was one of the most contentious elections in American history, with threats of another War of the Rebellion in the air. One of the elected officials appointed to the Electoral Commission to decide the election was Edmunds. The commission’s vote ended up being 8-7 that Hayes won the election, the vote corresponding with the political affiliations of the members. Although this and the arrangement that put Hayes in office prevented a resumption of armed national division, it came at a price. Civil rights advancement for Southern blacks was hindered with the end of Reconstruction and they gradually would be rendered completely politically neutralized by Jim Crow voting laws.

Edmunds and Civil Rights

If Edmunds was thought of as a “Half Breed” for his support of civil service reform, he unwaveringly stood for black voting rights in the South and he enjoyed baiting Southern senators into making ill-considered outbursts that embarrassed the Democrats. In 1880, a Southern journalist expressed the sort of enmity that many white Southerners in politics shared for him, “When I look at that man sitting almost alone in the Senate, isolated in his gloom of hate and bitterness, stern, silent, watchful, suspicious and pitiless, I am reminded of the worst types of Puritan character…You see the impress of the pure persecuting spirit that burned witches, drove out Roger Williams, hounded Jonathan Edwards for doing his sacred duty, maligned Jefferson, and like a toad squatted at the ear of the Constitution it had failed to pervert” (Adler, 202).

Presidential Aspirant

Edmunds was a contender for the Republican nomination for president in 1880 and 1884, but he was not a major contender, and his latter bid was undercut when it was found out that on the side, he was accepting retainers for legal services for railroads and corporations. Although this was legal at the time and certainly not as damaging as Blaine’s scandal was, it was controversial. Although such payments do not appear to have impacted his judgment surrounding corporate interests and railroad legislation given that he far from always voted for proposals that benefited them.

In 1882, Edmunds was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Chester Arthur after the Stalwart of Stalwarts Roscoe Conkling refused to accept a seat, but twice refused, the post ultimately going to Samuel Blatchford. It is a commentary on the power of a senator in this time that refusing a Supreme Court nomination could be considered an optimal move. Indeed, the presidents of the Gilded Age were known as “custodial presidents” as the role was perhaps more limited in this time than any other. Starting with the dismal presidency of Andrew Johnson, a man who even his defenders acknowledged was a weak leader, the role of president was in practice subordinated to that of Congress.

In 1884, he was a minor contender for the presidency, but some prominent future politicians backed his campaign, including future President Theodore Roosevelt and future Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. After Blaine won the nomination, Edmunds refused to support his campaign, regarding him as a phony Half-Breed. He wrote of him, “It is my deliberate opinion that Senator Blaine acts as the attorney of Jay Gould. Whenever Mr. Thurman and I have settled upon legislation to bring the Pacific Railroad to terms of equity with the government, up has jumped Mr. James G. Blaine musket in hand, from behind the breastworks of Jay Gould’s lobby to fire in our faces” (Ward, 130). Although Edmunds himself didn’t endorse Cleveland, many of his supporters were “Mugwumps”, or Republicans who, inspired by Cleveland’s good government ethics, voted for him. Edmunds hardly did worse for Blaine than Roscoe Conkling, who when asked if he would campaign for Blaine stated, “Gentlemen, you have been misinformed. I have given up criminal law” (Cooper). Although Blaine often gets seen as a Half-Breed historically including formerly by me, Edmunds had a point about him and he was really somewhere in between the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds as he had opposed President Hayes’ pushes for civil service reform. Despite Edmunds’ refusal to endorse Blaine, possibly tipping the scales to Cleveland given how incredibly close the election was, he pulled off a resounding victory in his reelection bid in 1886.

Anti-Polygamy Legislation

Edmunds was the point man in the Senate in cracking down on polygamy, sponsoring two laws in opposition. First was the Edmunds Act in 1882, which provided for enforcement of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, making the practice of polygamy a criminal offense punishable by up to 5 years in prison and stripped numerous civil rights from polygamists, including suffrage, holding public office, and serving on juries (Cornell University). President Lincoln had suspended enforcement during the War of the Rebellion as an incentive for Brigham Young to keep out of the conflict. This law was followed up with the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887, which disincorporated the Church of Latter-Day Saints and the Perpetual Emigration Fund for promoting polygamy. These stances were entirely consistent with the Republican Party’s foundation, as in its first convention in 1856 their platform had condemned polygamy and slavery as the “twin relics of barbarism”. The law passed by such a margin that it would be overridden if President Cleveland vetoed it, but he didn’t like the law either, so he simply let the act become law without his signature. The Edmunds-Tucker Act would be repealed in 1978.

Anti-Trust Legislation

In 1890, Senator Edmunds turned his sights on the growing power and influence of trusts. Despite the name of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Senator John Sherman of Ohio was only the senator who introduced the measure, and it was quite vague in concept, something that Edmunds feared had potential to curb honest private enterprise (Welch, 70). He worked with George Frisbie Hoar (R-Mass.) to finalize the measure. Edmunds also insisted on unions being subject to anti-trust laws (Encyclopedia Britannica). The approach of Edmunds and Hoar was in keeping with the philosophy of the Half-Breeds on business. As historian Richard E. Welch (1968) writes, “The Half-Breeds distrusted the growing economic and political power of industrial combinations, but distrusted even more those who would endanger economic expansion by indiscriminate attacks on Big Business” (70). The Republicans of old were quite far from New Dealers in philosophy, including the Half-Breeds. Both Edmunds and Hoar saw the legislation as preserving free enterprise while providing the legal framework to curb bad actors.

Post-Senate Legal Career

In 1891, Edmunds resigned the Senate to practice law in Philadelphia. Edmunds’ DW-Nominate score seems to reflect his independence well, with him getting a 0.274. As an attorney, he tackled numerous major cases, his foremost one was arguing for the unconstitutionality of the income tax before the Supreme Court in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895), which he won on a 5-4 vote. Despite his high minded stances, Edmunds was condemned as a “senatorial bribe-taker” in 1921 by Richard Pettigrew, a former South Dakota Republican senator who by that time had become a pro-Bolshevik radical (Pettigrew, 215-16). He was referring to Edmunds getting paid retainers for legal counsel by railroads and corporations while in office that impacted support for him in 1884. After his legal career, Edmunds retired to Pasadena, California. In 1910, he publicly came out against the proposed 16th Amendment (income tax) and explained his reasons in an open letter to Vermont Senator William Dillingham. He outlived most of his Gilded Age colleagues and even lived to see the death of Theodore Roosevelt, dying on February 27, 1919 at the age of 91. Although he has a public school named after him in Burlington, Vermont, ironically the foremost places named after him are on the other side of the nation: the city of Edmonds, Washington, is actually a clerical error, a misspelling of Edmunds (Edmonds Historical Museum, 47). The Edmunds Glacier of Mount Rainier, Washington, is also named after him.

George Edmunds reminds me in some ways of Nikki Haley. Note that I wrote in some ways, as she has been willing to support the front-runner. I doubt the same could be said for Edmunds if he were serving today. His concerns about Blaine seem a bit quaint compared to what has been alleged about the current front-runner. Perhaps Edmunds knew his career could survive a repudiation of Blaine’s candidacy while many other Republicans know that many of their primary voters seem to trust in whoever Trump endorses. And they’d better be on his endorsement list come primary time.

References

Adler, S. (1934). (Ph. D. diss.) The Senatorial Career of George Franklin Edmunds, 1866-1891. University of Illinois.

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https://www.proquest.com/openview/5a1ec9695f4ff3222b436aeb730f4760/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Cooper, J. (2000, March 3). Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Election of 1884. Hope Charter School.

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https://www.hopecharter.org/~johncooper@prodigy.net/john-cooper/rum-romanism-and-rebellion-the-election-of-1884

Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882. Cornell Law School.

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https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/edmunds_anti-polygamy_act_of_1882#:~:text=The%20Edmunds%20Act%20suppressed%20different,on%20juries%20in%20federal%20territories.

Edmunds, George Franklin. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/2855/george-franklin-edmunds

Federal Income Tax; Ex-Senator Edmunds States His Reasons Against Proposed Amendment. (1910, February 15). The New York Times.

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https://www.nytimes.com/1910/02/15/archives/federal-income-tax-exsenator-edmunds-states-his-rea-sons-against.html

George F. Edmunds Dead at 91 Years. (1919, February 27). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/02/28/118144241.pdf

George Franklin Edmunds. Encyclopedia Britannica.

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https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Franklin-Edmunds

Pettigrew, R.F. (1921). Triumphant plutocracy: the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920, 215-16.
The Founding and Beginning of Edmonds, Washington, 1876-1906. Edmonds Historical Museum.

Retrieved from

https://web.archive.org/web/20120601144837/http://www.historicedmonds.org/TTManual.pdf

Ward, B. (2019). The Downfall of Senator George F. Edmunds: The Election of 1884. Vermont History, 87(2).

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https://vermonthistory.org/journal/87/VH8702DownfallOfEdmunds.pdf

Welch, R.E. (1968). George Edmunds of Vermont: Republican Half-Breed. Vermont History, 36(2).

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https://vermonthistory.org/journal/misc/GeorgeEdmunds.pdf