At one time there were people in the Republican Party who were considered prominent and promising who were of the party’s “Rockefeller” or “liberal” wing. One of the last who looked like she was going to go to higher places was Millicent Hammond Fenwick (1910-1992). Born Millicent Hammond, she had tragedy early in her life when her mother was among the casualties of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Her father was the wealthy New York financier and politician Ogden Hammond, who served as Ambassador to Spain during the Coolidge Administration. As a young society woman, she caused some scandal when she fell in love with the older and already married businessman Hugh Fenwick. Fenwick chose her and divorced his wife. He and Millicent were married from 1932 to 1945 (although they had separated in 1938) and had two children. After the separation, she sought to provide for her children by briefly modeling for Harper’s Bazaar and then writing for Vogue magazine, and in 1948 she wrote Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, which sold over a million copies. Although she had first become politically aware in the 1930s, recalling, “Hitler started me in politics; when I became aware of what he was doing to people, I fired up” (U.S. House). By the 1950s she decided that it was time to get into public service.

A strong advocate for civil rights, Fenwick was a member of the NAACP and from 1958 to 1974 she served on the New Jersey Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also served on the Bernardsville Borough Council from 1958 to 1964. In 1969, Fenwick was elected to the New Jersey Assembly, serving until 1973. While there, she solidified her reputation as a wit when a conservative member of the Assembly spoke out against the Equal Rights Amendment, stating, “I just don’t like this amendment. I’ve always thought of women as kissable, cuddly and smelling good”, which was met with Fenwick’s retort, “That’s the way I feel about men, too. I only hope for your sake that you haven’t been disappointed as often as I have” (U.S. House). Although an advocate for marriage, she had never remarried after her divorce from Hugh Fenwick. In 1973, Governor William Cahill tapped her to head up the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. In 1974, with Congressman Peter Frelinghuysen retiring, Fenwick sought his seat in Congress. Running against her in the Republican primary was future governor Thomas Kean, but she defeated Kean by a mere 83 votes and went on to win the seat.

Congresswoman Fenwick

After her election to Congress, Fenwick diverged even more from party line than her moderate predecessor. She voted to override President Ford’s vetoes on strip mining regulations in 1975 and federal day care and public works in 1976. However, she voted to sustain his 1976 veto of a bill loosening Hatch Act regulations. Although Fenwick backed President Ford’s position to deregulate oil prices in 1975, she also supported Representative Neal Smith’s (D-Iowa) 1976 amendment that limited deregulation of oil prices to small producers. On social issues and foreign aid, Fenwick had a liberal voting record. Contrary to a majority of her party, she opposed the Hyde Amendment, the first successful pro-life reaction to Roe v. Wade. In 1980, Fenwick unsuccessfully tried to keep an endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment in the Republican Party platform. She was, however, also known as fiscally conservative, although this didn’t mean she was solidly down the line on cuts. When a reporter tried to categorize her, she stated, “Everyone asks me whether I’m a liberal, a maverick, a neoconservative or whatever. I simply try to stick to what I believe in” (Malnic). However, it was her stances on ethics that frequently attracted positive attention. Indeed, Fenwick was among the favorites of the mainstream media of the day, with anchor Walter Cronkite once calling her the “conscience of Congress” (U.S. House). She certainly got points not only from her party, but also the general public, when she took on the notoriously mean and tough chairman of the House Administration Committee Wayne Hays (D-Ohio). Fenwick wanted to keep committee meetings open to the public (Malnic). Hays was not happy with this freshman whippersnapper. As Fenwick recalled, “Hays once said ‘If that woman doesn’t sit down and keep quiet, I’m not going to sign the checks for her staff’”. (Malnic). Hays would resign in 1976 after a highly publicized scandal that he hired his mistress who had no secretarial skills as his secretary. She also sat on the committee that investigated the “Koreagate” influence peddling scandal. Fenwick was also widely regarded as the inspiration for the Doonesbury character Lacey Davenport (an ideal Republican by liberal standards), but cartoonist Garry Trudeau denied this was the case. In 1981, she denounced her colleagues for placing in tax deductions for themselves through hasty legislative maneuvering and announced that she would not choose to benefit from these deductions (Malnic). Fenwick was also known for smoking her trademark pipe, which she took up after her doctor advised her to quit smoking cigarettes.

The 1982 Senate Election

Fenwick, at the age of 72, decided to run for the Senate. In the primary, she faced Jeffrey Bell, a staunch Reaganite who had been the Republican nominee for the Senate in 1978. A nomination of Bell would have been seen as an affirmation of support for Reagan’s agenda within the New Jersey Republican Party, but Fenwick prevailed. Nonetheless, she got Reagan’s endorsement. Fenwick faced Democrat Frank Lautenberg, a wealthy executive who financed his own campaign. Although she was favored to win the race, 1982 was a bad year for the Republicans as the economy was in a recession, something that Lautenberg heavily capitalized on. He also made the point that if elected, she would strengthen the Senate Republican majority and thus keep Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as chairman of the prominent Judiciary Committee. Thurmond was a former segregationist and had only that year voted favorably on voting rights legislation. Fenwick hit back against this tactic, arguing, ”Is there a black person in this state who doesn’t know where I stand? I didn’t wait until 1982 to Join the N.A.A.C.P. When I was a working woman I was a member” (Norman).  Lautenberg was also able to significantly outspend her, and on election day she fell short by three points. Ideologically, Fenwick sided with the positions of Americans for Democratic Action 66% of the time, the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 43% of the time, and her DW-Nominate score stands at a 0.134, a bit higher than one might think given these scores. Her case also is an example that conservatives can use that even when Republicans run a candidate that liberals claim to like they still don’t win. President Reagan did not leave her high and dry, tapping her to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, serving until she retired in March 1987. Fenwick died of heart failure on September 16, 1992 at the age of 82.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Fenwick, Millicent Hammond. U.S. House of Representatives.

Retrieved from

https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/13066

Fenwick, Millicent Hammond. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14221/millicent-hammond-fenwick

Malnic, E. (1992, September 17). Millicent Fenwick, 82; Congress ‘Conscience’. Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-09-17-mn-798-story.html

Norman, M. (1982, October 29). Rep. Fenwick Says Lautenberg Distorts Her Record. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

I hold that the era we have been living in since 2015 can be called the Trump Era. I was loath to believe this at the start of it, but the truth is that the politics of this current age have completely centered on Donald Trump, on matters both political and personal. They centered on him when he was out of office for four years as well, in part because stories about him made media companies tons of money. He has expressed great admiration for another president who so much dominated in attention of the era of his prominence that historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. titled his 1945 book on him, The Age of Jackson. Andrew Jackson’s entry into presidential politics resulted in the demise of the old Democratic-Republican Party into factions, and Jackson ran as being closest to the original values of Thomas Jefferson. Although his first bid, 1824, was a loss, he alleged a “corrupt bargain” had occurred for him to lose, namely that John Quincy Adams had gotten Henry Clay to give him his electors in exchange for Clay being appointed Secretary of State. Such a quid pro quo was denied by Adams and Clay but the allegation stuck in the public mind. Jackson’s triumphant victory in 1828 was marred by the death of his wife Rachel shortly after. Rachel Jackson had been in fragile health, and the 1828 election had a number of nasty charges thrown around, including that Rachel had committed bigamy by marrying Jackson. The truth was that Rachel had not known that the divorce from her first husband had not been legally finalized at the time of the marriage, only discovering this two years after. Jackson blamed her death on the stress caused by such allegations of her political opponents. This added to his already existing sensitivity on personal accusations against women.

A Controversial Appointment

John H. Eaton

The trouble for Jackson began when he was picking his first cabinet, seeking to reward supporters. One of them was his close personal friend, biographer, and fellow Tennessean John H. Eaton for Secretary of War. Eaton had nine months before married a woman named Margaret “Peggy” O’Neill, who had been a bar maid at her father’s boarding house and had a reputation of being flirtatious with customers. Her first husband, a man who was 22 years her senior in Navy purser John B. Timberlake, was known for having two problems: drinking and debt. Senator John Eaton, who had befriended the couple, got Timberlake an overseas position to help him out. On April 2, 1828, he died abroad, and although an autopsy concluded that he had died of pneumonia, rumors spread throughout Washington society that he had committed suicide over an alleged affair with Eaton and it was further alleged that Eaton had gotten Timberlake the post so he could freely court Peggy. Indeed, only months after Timberlake’s death, John and Peggy were married. Based on this short grieving period and such rumors, the wives of Jackson’s cabinet officers socially ostracized Peggy Eaton, refusing to invite her to any events and would not attend any events in which she was present. Furthermore, Peggy Eaton was considered too outspoken for a woman by others. As John F. Marszalek (2000) wrote, “She did not know her place; she forthrightly spoke up about anything that came to her mind, even topics of which women were supposed to be ignorant. She thrust herself into the world in a manner inappropriate for woman…. Accept her, and society was in danger of disruption. Accept this uncouth, impure, forward, worldly woman, and the wall of virtue and morality would be breached and society would have no further defenses against the forces of frightening change. Margaret Eaton was not that important in herself; it was what she represented that constituted the threat. Proper women had no choice; they had to prevent her acceptance into society as part of their defense of that society’s morality” (56-57). This greatly upset Jackson. Jackson himself had advised Eaton to marry her as soon as possible and defended him and Peggy throughout this ordeal. The woman who was leading this ostracism was none other than his vice president’s wife, Floride Calhoun. John C. Calhoun may also have been using this as a way to boost his views within Jackson’s cabinet, as he and Eaton had significant political disagreements, including on tariffs and nullification. This whole matter became known as the Eaton Affair or the Petticoat Affair.

Peggy Eaton
A furious Jackson called a cabinet meeting to defend Peggy, and supposedly in the process commented that she was “as chaste as a virgin!” despite her having twice been married and having had three children (Hill). Although cabinet officers tried to explain to Jackson the reasoning for their wives’ ostracism of her, the subject became closed once Jackson compared her situation to that of his late wife. Only Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, a widower, and Postmaster General William Barry, who had appreciated Peggy nursing his very ill child, stood by her. This matter was a deepening sore in the administration, and John Eaton would in retaliation release accurate documentation that as Secretary of War to President Monroe Calhoun had supported censuring Jackson over his 1818 invasion of Florida. Calhoun only made matters worse when due to miscommunication he released correspondence between himself and Jackson in 1831. This major rift between Jackson and his cabinet threatened to derail his presidency, so the cunning Van Buren, who Jackson came to increasingly trust, came up with a scheme to resolve the situation.  

Van Buren would first resign his post, followed by John Eaton, thus politically permitting Jackson to ask for the resignations of all his cabinet officers with the pretense of a cabinet reorganization. Of course, Vice President John C. Calhoun could not be part of this, thus he and the ringleader in this ostracism would remain in Washington. This matter, in addition to Calhoun’s support of South Carolina’s nullification of the “Tariff of Abominations” completely alienated Jackson from Calhoun, and made him one of his two most hated rivals. When asked in 1837 if he had any regrets about his presidency, Jackson reportedly responded, “Yes, I regret I was unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun” (U.S. Senate). With all resignations in hand, Jackson remade the cabinet, and in the process brought Van Buren back as Minister to Great Britain, but a vote to continue in his post was defeated by the influence of Calhoun. However, this came off as Van Buren being a victim of petty personal politics, and Jackson would pick him to serve as vice president in his second term. John Eaton would never attain the political heights he had reached before his marriage to Peggy; he did not succeed in a bid to return to the Senate in 1834 (he was made governor of the Florida Territory instead) and then alienated himself from Jackson by becoming a Whig and endorsing William Henry Harrison in 1840.

References

Hill, R. (2013, August 11). Peggy Eaton: The Woman Who Brought Down A Cabinet. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/peggy-eaton-the-woman-who-brought-down-a-cabinet/

John C. Calhoun. UVA Miller Center.

Retrieved from

https://millercenter.org/president/jackson/essays/calhoun-1829-john-vicepresident

Marszalek, J.F. (2017, October 8). Eaton Affair. Tennessee Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

Marszalek, J.F. (2000). The Petticoat Affair.: manners, mutiny, and sex in Andrew Jackson’s White House. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

The Attempt to Kill “King Andrew”. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Attempt_to_kill_King_Andrew.htm

Henry Cabot Lodge

The 1888 election was a close one, and one that Republican Benjamin Harrison won narrowly, and only by the electoral vote. It was in this election that Republican got for the first time since the Grant Administration unified government. The Republicans set to work on numerous bills that they did not have a chance at passing if either the House or Senate were Democratic. One of these, proposed by Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) was the Federal Elections Bill. If enacted, this measure would have, among other provisions, authorized the federal supervision of Congressional elections in cases in which 500 petitions had been made from the respective districts about voting practices to the Judge of the District Court no less than two months prior to the election (The New York Times). This bill only covered Congressional elections, and was constitutional given that Congress has the explicit authority to regulate elections for senators and representatives except for the places in which senators are chosen under Article I, Section 4, Clause 1. The primary purpose of this measure was to implement the 15^th Amendment, as it was often the case that blacks were subjected to voter intimidation and fraud to keep their numbers down. There were several Congressional elections in which Congress overturned the result due to voter intimidation and fraud in the South. In 1890, for instance, Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina and John Mercer Langston of Virginia, both who identified themselves as black (Miller was mostly white), were seated after findings by Congress that a fair election had been denied. However, it was a bill that applied nationwide. Thus, the shenanigans of Northern city machines could very well be impacted too. Lodge stood steadfastly by his bill. Something to note here is that Lodge was not in keeping with radical egalitarianism, indeed in response to a letter that expressed concern over “ignorant Negro votes”, he responded, “Nothing in this bill or any other prevents a state from excluding ignorance from the suffrage. Massachusetts has an educational test. South Carolina can do the same, but will not because she wishes to exclude black ignorance and let white ignorance vote” (Gwin, 105). That sounds like a color-blind policy to me!  On July 2, 1890, the bill passed 155-149. It was on to the Senate, where the bill’s sponsor was George Frisbie Hoar (R-Mass.) and it commanded a lot of Republican support. But was it enough?

Although the House passed it, the bill did not seem terribly popular. The Weekly San Diegan (1890) noted, “It is significant that the San Francisco and Portland Councils of Federated Trades have adopted resolutions condemning the federal election bill as dangerous to the freedom of the ballot box” (2). They were not the only unions to oppose this measure. Indeed, Knights of Labor leader Terence V. Powderly (1890) opposed, arguing that the measure itself would intimidate voters and encourage fraud, and furthermore claims hypocrisy, stating, “The Democratic party does its best to intimidate the colored citizens of the South, and they give as a reason that if they did not do so they would be subject to negro rule down there, or as they put it, “ignorant rule.” In the North the employers of labor intimidate the workmen in the interest of the Republican Party, but that party cannot lay claim to so respectable an excuse as the desire to avoid “ignorant rule,” for the workmen of the North have never imposed ignorant rule where they elected their own representatives” (10).

On August 13^th, it was reported that Pennsylvania boss Matthew Quay (R-Penn.) introduced a resolution to postpone consideration of the Lodge Bill so the tariff bill could be passed (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 1). It was said that Senator Arthur P. Gorman (D-Md.) and Quay were making an agreement behind the scenes, and it would make sense for those two to do so; both men were at the head of political machines that had engaged in corrupt practices to maintain political dominance. And indeed, the Lodge Bill was postponed, being again considered in the Senate during the lame-duck session of Congress. One of the opponents, notably, was Senator William M. Stewart (R-Nev.), who had authored the 15^th Amendment. Opponents in the Senate, led by Gorman, sought to defeat the bill by delay, and they succeeded. Silver Republicans, such as Stewart, had joined the Democrats to defeat the bill given a promise from Gorman not to interfere with their silver interests (The New York Times, 1906).

Although modern liberal opinion is positive on this measure*, liberal opinion did not historically approve. Historian Richard E. Welch, Jr. (1965) noted that “The standard liberal interpretation of American history applauds recent efforts in behalf of greater political equality for the southern Negro. It continues, however, to deplore the Federal Elections Bill of 1890: its introduction, its provisions, the motives of its originators and proponents. In the lexicon of American history the defeat of the force bill of 1890 was a “good thing”” (511). This is quite reminiscent of President Kennedy’s simultaneous support for civil rights in his time and his belief that Republican Reconstruction had been a mistake.

Would the Lodge Bill have made the sort of gains on civil rights like the 1960s? I think it a mistake to believe this law would have been a panacea and would have had difficulty surviving after the next election. However, if it remained, it would have constituted a fair (in my opinion) and constitutional means of not only enforcing a race-neutral application of voting laws but also countering the fraudulent antics of big city machines. I can see this measure as both garnering historical support from contemporary liberals (now that the “little guy” isn’t just a white working man) and contemporary conservatives as a way to actually apply color-blind standards, possibly rendering more federally intrusive measures unnecessary, and countering voter fraud.

* – The pro-critical race theory The Forum Magazine’s 2022 article on the subject, which compares Republican efforts in 1890 to Democratic efforts for the For the People Act in 2022, even though the bills have many substantive differences.
 

References

A Federal Election Bill. (1890, March 15). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Encourages Fraud. (1890, August 3). The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/81068633/

Gorman Dies Suddenly; Was Seemingly Better. (1906, June 5). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Gwin, S.P. (1968). The Partisan Rhetoric of Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. University of Florida.

Retrieved from

Remonstrance Against the Federal Election Bill. (1890, July 24). The Weekly San Diegan, 2.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1048031780/

Senator Quay’s Move. (1890, August 13). Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/394966835/

The Federal Elections Bill of 1890. Library of America.

Retrieved from

https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2024/10/the-federal-elections-bill-of-1890.html

Welch, R. (1965, December). The Federal Elections Bill of 1890: Postscripts and Prelude. The Journal of American History, 52 (3), 511-526.

Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1890845