In present day, Pennsylvania is a swing state, although both of its senators are Democrats, and the governor is one as well. The state used to be much different, being a stronghold for the GOP. This domination began with boss Simon Cameron, who had once been a Jackson-supporting Democrat. Although perhaps not the most powerful of Pennsylvania’s Republican bosses ever, Boies Penrose (1860-1921) was the biggest one physically and also the most conservative one. He was perhaps the most unique character of all of them.
An Aristocratic Upbringing and Entering Politics
The Penrose name was quite prominent and the family wealthy, and it was instilled into him from an early age that he was of the elite and a person to be deferred to. While in college, he was 6’4″ and 200 pounds, making for a striking figure, although he would balloon over the years, making his allies and enemies alike refer to him as “Big Grizzly”. Although a prime candidate for football, he would not play, as the thought of coming into physical contact with sweaty men was repulsive (Noel & Norman, 11). Although initially a lazy student at risk of failing, after intervention from his father he righted the ship and graduated with flying colors, developing an intense interest in politics that lasted his entire life and even writing an extensive and masterful paper on Philadelphia’s government. Penrose also wrote on Martin Van Buren, regarding him as “the first and the greatest of American politicians; of that class of statesmen who owe their success not so much to their opinions or characters, as to their skill in managing the machinery of party…He marks the transition in American politics from statesmen like Adams and Webster to the great political bosses and managers of today…Adams was the last statesman of the old school who was to occupy the White House, Van Buren was the first politician president” (Lukacs). Penrose would see Van Buren as a model to emulate, regarding his approach as the acceptance of political reality. He would also identify a core failure of Marxist assumptions, that being that the working classes were not a revolutionary group, rather among the staunchest defenders of property and fundamentally conservative (Lukacs). This seems to ring truer today than even in his day. He carried an ego that was as big as he became, and this led him to instead of associating a lot with his peers, associate with commoners. Instead of going to high-end establishments with peers, he went to pubs and oyster and steakhouses for common citizens, and they would seek out the young intellectual’s wisdom while he would meet the leaders of local political gangs and get connected in the political world (Bowden, 20-21). In this sense, he followed the footsteps of his grandfather, Charles, who had played a critical role in getting the notorious Simon Cameron elected to the Senate in 1857. Like Charles, Boies would crave power. However, he would not crave money unlike most machine bosses…he was already rich. Furthermore, Penrose was keen to avoid risking the penitentiary in the pursuit of political power (Lukacs).
Although he had earned a law degree and worked in a legal firm, Penrose came to have a low opinion of many of his clients. He recalled of his days in law, “My offices were always full. On one side of the waiting room the politicians gathered. Across the other side were my clients. After a few months I decided to choose between them and I chose the least stupid and the most honest” (Lukacs). From then on, Penrose’s full-time profession was politics. He started in opposition to the “Gas Ring” of Philadelphia, and in February 1884 he was able to see to it that no voter fraud occurred on behalf of the ring given his intimidating presence and that he held a list of registered voters in his hand, making sure the vote came in right; the machine’s candidate lost 3 to 1 (Lukacs). In November, he was elected to the state legislature. Upon going to Harrisburg, Penrose completely neglected to visit Matthew Quay, the boss of Pennsylvania politics, as was expected. Although Quay’s right-hand man, Bull Andrews, was outraged by this, Quay himself was intrigued and invited Penrose to dinner (Bowden, 52-53).
The Junior Partner
Penrose’s entrance into politics was a rather bold one, as he opted not to kowtow to the powerful Quay. Quay had ably served Governor Andrew Curtain during the War of the Rebellion as well as the Camerons, father and son Simon and J. Donald, and had in 1884 been elected Pennsylvania’s treasurer. His control over the taxpayer funds of the state made him the power, overshadowing Senator J. Donald Cameron, who had considerably less political skill than his wily father. Quay’s methods included graft, using the Pennsylvania State Treasury as a campaign fund and investing money from the treasury to grow it, practices that placed him at risk of going to prison. Penrose’s defiance, powerful intellect, and presence ultimately motivated Quay to take him in rather than to fight him. Although he had some disagreements with Quay on methods, for instance telling him at their introductory dinner, “Times are changing, Mr. Quay. Look at all the new inventions, all the new industries, and such things, springing up! They are going to be run by young men with new ideas and they’ll demand new political set-ups…It’s all plain to me” (Bowden, 57). Penrose ultimately became Quay’s junior partner in the machine, and when Quay was elected to the Senate, Penrose was his man in the state legislature to enforce his will. Quay and Penrose also employed the media to influence public opinion, holding controlling interests in numerous newspapers to grant them favorable coverage (Lukacs). With his rising power, he ultimately wanted to be Philadelphia’s mayor, and announced his run in 1894. However, there was a problem, and this was in Penrose’s lifestyle. Boies Penrose’s lifestyle was hedonistic; he ate what he wanted, drank what he wanted, and slept with ladies of the night. Given his wealth, anything he wanted he could and did pay for, and he was generally pretty open about the things he did, those things that others would opt to hide doing. This would result in Penrose’s only great political failure, as his opposition had managed to obtain a picture of him leaving a notorious brothel at dawn, forcing his withdrawal. This motivated him to be a bit more discreet in his dealings with women.
There were numerous ways he used power corruptly under Quay as well as on his own later. Penrose used the courts to protect lower-level individuals who had employed voter fraud and permitted corrupt schemes by his minions, yet Penrose himself never profited off his office and no evidence ever arose that his own election victories were due to voter fraud (Lukacs). He seemed to see it as necessary to allow his underlings some degree of corrupt behavior, as this was the way of machine politics in Pennsylvania, especially in Philadelphia. In 1897, Senator J. Donald Cameron was not running for another term, and although Penrose had a challenge from within the party from reformer John Wanamaker, he was elected. The next post will cover Penrose’s time as a senator until his death.
References
Bowden, R.D. (1937). Boies Penrose: symbol of an era. New York, NY: Greenberg.
The War of the Rebellion had had a strong impact on the fortunes of the GOP, and this was particularly helped by their enactment of the 15th Amendment, which prohibited denial of suffrage based on race or color. Freedmen voted gratefully for Republicans and this resulted in the South having Republican representation to Congress for a time. However, resentment brewed among white Democrats, some who had been temporarily disenfranchised for their support of the Confederacy, and they sought to use means fair and foul, legal and illegal, to “redeem” the South. Complicating matters further for Republicans was the economic depression that came from the Panic of 1873 (the downturn lasted until 1879) and numerous corruption scandals in the Grant Administration including the New York custom house ring, the Star Route ring, and the Sanborn incident. Revelations of more scandals would follow this midterm. Historian James McPherson found the massive Democratic victories to be “due mainly to economic depression, political corruption, and the turbulence of Southern politics” (McAfee, 166). This is the typical story, but there is another factor that exists and it may have been the strongest of them all. Historian William Gillette, who studied the 1874 midterm extensively, concluded that the push for integrated schools factored above others in the Republicans’ 1874 loss, driving “Scalawags” or white Southerners who previously backed the GOP away, and that it had some impact in the North as well (McAfee, 167). Indeed, some Republicans attributed integrated schools as the issue that killed them in the election. President Ulysses S. Grant was among them (McAfee, 163).
How bad were the Republican losses? They lost 96 seats in the House, the largest single loss in the history of the Republican Party. As historian McAfee wrote, “As long as the Republican civil rights movement had not inconvenienced Northern whites, it moved forward. But the mixed-schools issue brought it to an insurmountable stone wall” (McAfee, 159). The Republicans suffered widespread net losses, with Kentucky and Nevada the only states in which they had a net gain of seats. Even in such stout Republican states as Illinois, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, Republican representatives found themselves in the minority of their House delegations. Losses in the South were quite present too, with them losing all representation in Arkansas and Georgia. Although campaigns of fraud, intimidation, and violence against black participation in voting played a role, whites who had previously supported Republicans (“scalawags”) switching to the Democrats played a role too in Republican losses in the South. Results were less terrible for the Republicans in the Senate, in which elections are every six years and they were far ahead of Democrats on Senate seats, but the Democrats did gain nine seats. They won against Republican or Liberal Republican incumbents in Connecticut and Missouri. Prominent Radical Republican Zachariah Chandler lost reelection to fellow Republican Isaac Christiancy. Democrats also succeeded retiring senators in Florida, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. In the Texas election, Republicans were hardly in contention, with the major contest being between Democrats Samuel Maxey and James Throckmorton. Democrats only lost one seat, in California, but to Anti-Monopoly candidate Newton Booth, far from an ideal substitute for Senate Republicans.
Former President Andrew Johnson also scored a comeback by returning to the Senate in Tennessee, where support for Republicans was crumbling, but he wasn’t able to make much of it as he died mere months after being sworn in. This election, with the Democrats in control of the House and an increasingly embattled Grant Administration, signaled the doom of Reconstruction. Governor Adelbert Ames (R-Miss.), who would be forced to resign by the Democratic legislature, regarded the results thusly, “a revolution has taken place – by force of arms – and a race are disenfranchised – they are to be returned to a condition of serfdom – an era of second slavery” (Kato, 45-46). Whether or not Hayes had won, Reconstruction would have been brought to an end after the 1876 election given unified Democratic opposition to its continuance. Although Southern Republicans still remained, their presence would dwindle within the next 25 years rather than immediate disenfranchisement occurring. As historian C. Vann Woodward wrote, “It is perfectly true that Negroes were often coerced, defrauded, or intimidated, but they continued to vote in large parts of the South for more than two decades after Reconstruction” (Jenkins & Peck, 198). The last black Republican of the first generation of black politicians in Congress, George White of North Carolina, would leave office in 1901.
References
Jenkins, J.A. & Peck, J. (2021). Congress and the first civil rights era, 1861-1918. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Kato, D. (2016). Liberalizing lynching: building a new racialized state. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
McAfee, W.M. (1998). Religion, race, and Reconstruction: the public school in the politics of the 1870s. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
President Biden’s recent catastrophic debate performance gave much credence to the increasingly widespread belief that he is senile, and more has been talked about it, including from those who were constantly trying to dismiss it before now. Should the Dems renominate him, it will be reminiscent of their renomination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. Although he certainly looked worse than in the past, Americans by and large didn’t know the extent of it. Democrats around FDR knew that he was not going to survive another term.
The Extent of FDR’s Health Problems
Although President Roosevelt appeared to be in good health for much of his presidency, on November 28, 1943, following the Tehran Conference he became ill, and although it was thought he had come down with the flu, by March 1944 his health had remained compromised and Senator Truman noted that Roosevelt looked unhealthy, yet Dr. Ross McIntire, an ear, nose, and throat specialist publicly claimed that FDR was “enjoying excellent health” (Susmano). FDR and his family were not satisfied with his care, and on March 28th, he was given a full physical by Dr. Howard G. Bruenn, a cardiologist. Bruenn’s diagnosis was serious: “hypertension, hypertensive heart disease, cardiac failure (left ventricle), and acute bronchitis” (The University of Arizona Health Sciences Library). His blood pressure was 186/108 mm Hg, and the next month it hit 230/126 mm Hg. A blood pressure of 180/120 mm Hg and above is today considered a hypertensive emergency (Edwards). Although I previously noted he appeared to be in good health, in truth he had had systolic hypertension since 1937, and diastolic hypertension since 1941 (Susmano). The public would in an election year get some indication that rumors about FDR’s worsening health were the real deal in his “Bremerton Speech”.
FDR’s Bremerton Speech
On August 12, 1944, FDR delivered a speech in Bremerton, Washington, that first indicated to the public that he might not be doing well. He had lost 20 pounds by acting on the advice of his physicians for a low-fat diet, and as a consequence his leg braces no longer fit his arms, and the unsteady movement of the ship he was speaking from forced him to hold himself up by his arms, an exercise of endurance for the aging president (Farley). Roosevelt was also unsteady and not smooth in his speech. Worse yet, starting ten minutes in he experienced an episode of chest pain that radiated to his shoulders, making this speech even more of an endurance effort, although this particular event didn’t prove to be serious. This event was not as publicly jarring as the Biden debate performance, but nonetheless doubts were spreading about him, and his reelection was looking increasingly questionable. However, his opponents would gift him with an opportunity, and he would make full use of it.
A Comeback: The Fala Rumor and “Fala Speech”
On August 31st, Rep. Harold Knutson (R-Minn.), a bitter opponent of the president on domestic and foreign policy, accused Roosevelt of extravagance on the House floor and referenced a rumor that he had accidentally left his Scottish terrier Fala on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer to pick him up. FDR responded to these charges on September 23rd in a speech before the Teamster’s Union, “The Republicans were not content to attack me, or my wife, or my sons. No, not content with that, now they even attack my little dog, Fala. Well, of course I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayer of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself – such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog” (Lewellyn, 66-67). The message to the public was clear: FDR was still on his game.
However…
Despite his public rally, Democrats around him knew he was unwell and would most likely not survive another term, and this prospect disturbed many Democrats given that Roosevelt’s vice president was Henry Wallace. Wallace was regarded as a radical and not trusted by many Democrats. Many certainly didn’t want him to be president, and although Roosevelt liked Wallace, some powerful voices were against him on the ticket, and he opted to switch him out. Initially, it looked possible that Jimmy Byrnes, FDR’s right-hand man on domestic affairs, could be tapped for the position. The problem here was that the South Carolinian Byrnes was a segregationist and picking him had the potential for widespread defections to the Republican ticket from black voters, whose switch to voting Democratic in presidential elections was only eight years old. The potential defections were not ones the Democrats wanted to risk, as this was going to be FDR’s closest election. Democrats needed as unified a ticket as possible, and thus the pick, or more accurately drafting, of the popular Senator Harry S. Truman from the border state of Missouri who was well-regarded among both Northern and Southern Democrats. He had chaired the incredibly popular Truman Committee, which had investigated and managed to in a non-partisan fashion identify and curb wasteful practices in national defense. Truman also had a loyal record to the New Deal, including voting to uphold President Roosevelt’s ill-fated “court-packing plan”. Frankly, Kamala Harris reminds me a bit of Henry Wallace in that both shared a staunchly left-wing philosophy (Harris was one of the most left-wing senators per DW-Nominate scoring) and were unpopular in their roles as vice president. Don’t hold your breath for Harris to be changed out because the staunch identitarians in the party will veto such a proposal.
Death
FDR, one day before his death.
Despite this seeming rally, it was short-lived, and his condition would deteriorate further in the coming months. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, his blood pressure, which had become uncontrollable, spiked to 260/150 mm Hg. Dr. Lord Moran, Churchill’s personal physician, examined FDR and concluded, “I give him only a few months to live” (Ali et. al., 2). Indeed, on April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage, his blood pressure having spiked that morning to over 300/190 mm Hg (Susmano). No comparison is perfect, after all comparisons are by their nature imperfect, for an exact one would be the thing itself, and that’s not a comparison. Biden’s problems surround his mind, not his physicality, and he has nowhere near the political acumen of FDR. The comparison is in that Democrats may run a candidate they know to be seriously compromised, much like those around FDR knew that his health was seriously compromised. A “Fala speech” comeback seems most unlikely, even if Republicans hand him an opportunity (I wouldn’t be surprised if they do). However, Trump gave Biden material to work with in that debate, and he proved unable to effectively capitalize on it. The only sort of comeback I can see for Biden is if something very bad comes out about Trump, although given for certain quarters of the media that’s essentially another Tuesday, it may come down to what Edwin Edwards famously said about his election chances for Louisiana governor the day before election day in 1983: “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy” (Warren). That could very well be so for Trump unless the Democrats change out Biden, and although there is talk of it now, I get the feeling that Americans will be subjected once again to this match-up, thanks to the party primary system. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the primary system should be abolished and that maybe “smoke-filled rooms” weren’t so bad, but that’s a post for another day.
References
Ali, R., Connolly, I.D., Li, A., Choudhri, O.A., Pendharkar, A.V., & Steinberg, G.K. (2016). The strokes that killed Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Neurosurgical Focus, 41(1).
Llewellyn, J. (2010). Paws, Pathos, and Presidential Persuasion: Franklin Roosevelt’s “Fala Speech” as Precursor and Model for Richard Nixon’s “Checkers Speech”. CTAMJ.
I haven’t done one of these in quite some time, and I figure I would offer a bit of a different twist to it than you’re all probably used to, and it’s one of the earliest RINOs in the history of the GOP in Pennsylvania’s Senator Edgar Cowan (1815-1885).
Elected to succeed Democrat William Bigler, Cowan initially seemed like the figure for the GOP, being a former Whig and loyalist to Republican boss Simon Cameron. He had also denounced Bigler as a “doughface”, or a Northern politician favorable to Southern interests. However, overtime his independence would prove a hindrance to the GOP. Cowan laid out his five principles regarding the War of the Rebellion, and they were as follows:
“1. The North must not violate the Constitution in coercing the South to remain in the Union.
The Democratic Party in the Free States and the Union men in the Border States must be conciliated.
Congress should confine itself to raising revenues and an army.
The war should be waged according to the rules of civilized warfare.
The war was to suppress a rebellion and not to conquer the Southern States.” (Pershing, 226-227)
Cowan’s numerous dissents were early into the Lincoln Administration, opposing the National Bank Act and the Legal Tender Act, and opposing expelling Senator Jesse Bright (D-Ind.) for recommending an arms dealer to Jefferson Davis. He opposed the Legal Tender Act as he did not see it within the government’s power to print paper money, rather that only gold and silver coinage were allowed. Cowan opposed the National Bank Act as banks stood from this legislation to make double interest on money invested in government bonds (Pershing, 231). He also opposed the second Confiscation Act, confiscating property of rebels, which included slaves. Like every other Republican, Cowan backed the 13th Amendment ending slavery, but was unwilling to go further than that. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Cowan was the Senate Republican who sided with President Andrew Johnson the most. He was opposed to the 14th Amendment, voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1866, supported Johnson on Reconstruction, and was one of the few American politicians to make an argument against legislation because of Romani (also pejoratively known as “Gypsies”) people, a population of historically negligible impact on the United States. His Republican colleagues came to despise him. Senator Ben Wade (R-Ohio), one of the staunchest of the Radical Republicans, had on separate occasions called him a “dog” and the “watchdog of slavery” (Mr. Lincoln’s White House, Kennedy). Senator Henry Wilson (R-Mass.), in the future Ulysses Grant’s second vice president, denounced his positions on race. He stated, “The Senator from Pennsylvania tells us that he is a friend of the negro. What sir, he a friend of the negro! Why sir, there has hardly been a proposition before the Senate of the United States for the last five years leading to the emancipation of the negro and the protection of his rights that the Senator from Pennsylvania has not sturdily opposed. He has hardly ever uttered a word on this floor the tendency of which was not to degrade and belittle a weak and struggling race. He comes here today and thanks God that they are free, when his vote and his voice for five yeras with hardly an exception have been against making them free. He thnks God, sir, that your work and mine, our work which has saved a country and emancipated a race is secured; while from the word ‘go’ to this time, he has made himself the champion of ‘how not to do it’. If there be a man on the floor of the American Senate who has tortured the Constitution of the country to find powers to arrest the voice of this nation which was endeavoring to make a race free, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the man” (Pershing, 229-230).
Cowan: For Women’s Suffrage?
On December 12, 1866, Cowan, in a rather curious move, proposed women’s suffrage for Washington D.C. during the consideration of the Washington D.C. suffrage bill. This was defeated 9-37, and although he claimed this measure was offered in seriousness, it seems like a bid to hamstring the D.C. suffrage bill, as he opposed it on passage. The few senators who voted for it were curiously a diverse bunch and ranged from Delaware’s George Riddle, who had owned slaves and opposed the 13th Amendment, to Radical Ben Wade. The D.C. suffrage bill extended the vote to all men 21 and older regardless of race.
Untenable for Further Public Office
Among his many dissents, Cowan opposed the enactment of the GOP’s trap card on President Johnson in the Tenure of Office Act. He scored a -0.257 on the DW-Nominate scale, which is unbelievably low for a Republican. This also makes him the most liberal Republican of the 1860s by DW-Nominate’s scale.
In 1867, Cowan lost reelection to the man he had once been loyal to, Simon Cameron, who favored Congressional Reconstruction. Cowan’s supporters now, rather than Republicans, were Democrats. President Johnson subsequently nominated him minister to Austria, but Senate Republicans would not confirm him. Cowan would endorse Democratic candidates for president for the rest of his days, and died in 1885 after a year-long battle with cancer of the mouth and throat.
Although Cowan will probably find few fans today, one figure who sang his praises was none other than John F. Kennedy. As a senator, Kennedy (1956) praised Cowan for his opposition to Radical Republicans, stating, “Edgar Cowan stood firm in his adherence to the Constitution and his own ideals – and, in the turbulent reconstruction period that followed the end of hostilities, he refused to follow those Senate Republican leaders who wanted Andrew Johnson to administer the downtrodden southern states as conquered provinces which had forfeited their rights under the Constitution”.
Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the Philadelphia Inquirer Book and Luncheon, Philadelphia, January 10, 1956. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor
While engaging in political research through the excellent newspapers.com, I found that the American Federation of Labor had graded representatives in Congress based on what they thought of as “pro-labor”. Specifically, they laid out 16 key votes in an advertisement against Congressman Joseph Deal (D-Va.) for his “unfavorable to labor” record. The votes were:
Nolan Amendment to Seamen’s Bill Rep. John Nolan (R-Calif.) amendment to the Seaman’s bill which reduces maximum hours for oilers, watertenders, and firemen on vessels from 12 to 8 hours a day.Adopted 166-113: R 98-91; D 67-21; IR 0-1; S 1-0, 6/15/21. Yea = +, Nay = –
Sheppard-Towner Maternity Aid Bill Passed 279-39: R 194-24; D 83-15; IR 1-0; S 1-0, 11/19/21. Yea = +, Nay = –
Adjusted Compensation for World War I Veterans Passed 333-70: R 241-42; D 90-28; IR 1-0; S 1-0, 3/23/22. Yea = +, Nay = – 4. Extending the Emergency Quotas of the Immigration Act of 1921 Passage of the bill extending the Emergency Quota Act, limiting immigration of nationalities to 3% of their population in the U.S. Passed 258-26: R 180-17; D 78-8; S 0-1, 5/2/22. Yea = +, Nay = – 5. Override President Harding’s Veto of Adjusted Compensation for World War I Veterans Veto overridden 258-54: R 187-35; D 69-19; IR 1-0; S 1-0, 9/20/22. Yea = +, Nay = – 6. Underhill Worker’s Compensation Bill for D.C. Passage of the Underhill Worker’s Compensation bill for Washington D.C. which permits private worker’s compensation firms and limits payments to dependents in case of death to a maximum of eight years and $5000. as opposed to the Fitzgerald bill, which renders Worker’s Compensation run by government only and lacks such a cap. Passed 137-126: R 98-82; D 38-43; IR 1-0; S 0-1, 1/22/23. Yea = -, Nay = + 7. Adjusted Compensation for World War I Veterans Passage of the bill providing servicemen with $1.00 per day served and $1.25 per day served overseas, to be paid out to the veteran in 1945 or to the veteran’s family if the veteran has since died. Passed 355-54: R 175-34; D 177-20; F 2-0; S 1-0, 3/18/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 8. Immigration Act of 1924 Passage of the bill setting a cap of 2% of the population of the 1890 census of nationalities for immigration annually. Passed 323-71: R 163-33; D 158-37; F 2-0; S 0-1, 4/12/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 9. Child Labor Amendment Adoption of the Constitutional amendment granting Congress the power to limit and abolish child labor. Adopted 297-69: R 168-13; D 127-56; F 1-0; S 1-0, 4/26/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 10. Discharge the Howell-Barkley Bill Rep. Alben Barkley (D-Ky.) motion to discharge the Howell-Barkley bill from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. This measure repeals the Railroad Labor Board, which proponents of this legislation charged with being biased towards railroads over labor in its rulings and substitutes it with four national adjustment boards to mediate and settle labor disputes and because it would only provide for representation on the side of labor for unions, opponents charged that it would essentially result in a “closed shop”. Passed 194-181: R 40-153; D 151-28; FL 2-0; S 1-0, 5/5/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 11. Override President Coolidge’s Veto of Adjusted Compensation for World War I Veterans Veto overridden 313-78: R 145-57; D 166-21; F 1-0; S 1-0, 5/17/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 12. Strike Enacting Clause from Howell-Barkley Bill Rep. Everett Sanders (R-Ind.) motion to agree to the recommendation of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce and strike the enacting clause of the bill, thus defeating it for the session. Despite the defeat of this effort, Howell-Barkley ultimately did not reach the President’s desk. Defeated 160-188: R 133-45; D 27-140; FL 0-2; S 0-1, 5/19/24. Yea = -, Nay = + 13. Postal Workers Salary Bill Adoption of the conference report of the Postal Workers Salary bill, including the Cable corrupt practices amendment. Adopted 361-6: R 185-6; D 173-0; F 2-0; S 1-0, 6/6/24. Yea = +, Nay = – 14. Railway Labor Act Passage of the bill abolishing the Railroad Labor Board and instead providing for collective bargaining. Passed 381-13: R 220-5; D 157-8; F 3-0; AL 1-0, 3/1/26. Yea = +, Nay = – 15. Bar Interstate Sales of Certain Prisoner Produced Goods Passage of the bill preventing free labor from having to compete with prisoner-produced goods. Passed 303-39; R 160-20; D 140-19; F 2-0; S 1-0, 5/15/28. Yea = +, Nay = – 16. Override President Coolidge’s Veto of Postal Service Pay Bill Passage, over President Coolidge’s veto, of the bill providing for higher pay for night work in the postal service. Veto overridden 320-42: R 161-39; D 156-3; F 2-0; S 1-0, 5/22/28. Yea = +, Nay = –
On only one occasion of these 16 votes did Congress’s vote go against the preference of the American Federation of Labor. However, it is true that what ended up getting enacted was a bit less. The first bonus bill, for instance, didn’t overcome President Harding’s veto, the Child Labor Amendment was never ratified by the states, and the Howell-Barkley bill of the 68th Congress was ultimately defeated, resulting in the compromise measure passed in the next Congress. What’s more, a few of these votes have overwhelming majorities for them, such as the bill for postal workers salaries in 1924 and the Railway Labor Act in 1926. No legislator who voted more than twice and served beyond the 67th Congress scored a 0%. Although there are some votes that could fit into our understanding of conservatism and liberalism, there are others that are poor fits. For instance, you’d be hard-pressed to find a liberal in modern times who would defend the national origins quota system enacted by the Immigration Act of 1924, but the AFL was all for it. Immigration as an issue for labor is the sole reason that Socialists Meyer London of New York and Victor Berger of Wisconsin don’t get 100% by their standards.
It is also interesting how numerous individuals who in the 1920s were, by this standard, staunch friends of labor would later be considered enemies by FDR, New Dealers, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Republican Hamilton Fish of New York votes with the AFL on 11 out of the 12 issues he voted on, thus 92%. Democrat John Rankin of Mississippi voted with the AFL on 15 out of the 15 issues he voted on, 100%. Both men would be considered foes of organized labor during the Roosevelt Administration. Some are more predictive; John Nance Garner’s (D-Tex.) score of 69% is one of the weaker ones among Texans and seems predictive of his turn against organized labor as vice president, particularly when it came to sit-down strikes. The worst scorers were mostly Republicans but a few Southern Democrats made the cut too, a bit of a foretelling of the Conservative Coalition that was to arise after the 1938 midterms in which one of their strongest matters of unity was in curbing the power of organized labor after the enactment of the 1935 Wagner Act. A 100% score for some legislators doesn’t guarantee a liberal record overall; Simeon Fess of Ohio gets such a score because of his votes on veterans in 1922, his vote for Sheppard-Towner in 1921, and his vote for extending emergency immigration quotas. Fess was known as a big foe of the New Deal as a senator and it cost him reelection.
Something else to note about the 1920s was that this was before the time in which the liberal-labor coalition came to fruition. Although labor unions had been quite supportive of Wilson, it was with FDR that this bond firmly formed and it was doubled down on with the rise of Walter Reuther, a man with a socialist past, of United Auto Workers. What’s more, how the regions fared were quite different on labor. New England had a lot of Republican legislators who were opposing numerous AFL-backed measures. Interestingly, the South (meaning former Confederacy) does well by AFL standards, although Virginia barely scrapes past 50% in approval of such measures and Texas’ 74% reflects some significant dissent among certain representatives. The states and regions averaged on approval of AFL’s position:
The War of the Rebellion was an expensive matter, indeed saving a nation never comes cheap. Once the war had ended, the question arose of how to pay off creditors’ bonds. At this time, Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, an economic conservative, began contracting paper currency not tied to gold so as to clamp down on inflation and move the nation back to gold-based currency. This policy was not pleasing to everyone, particularly those who would benefit from inflation, and although debtors were major beneficiaries there were also business interests that favored currency inflation at the time. A prominent politician steps up with an alternative.
Prominent Democrat George Pendleton of Ohio, who had been a strong opponent of the Lincoln Administration and the party’s candidate for vice president in 1864, proposed in 1867 in an article for the Cincinnati Enquirer what became known as the “Ohio Idea”. His idea was to redeem bonds in paper currency instead of gold. Such a measure was inflationary and such inflation would benefit some, particularly farmers in the Midwest, many who were in debt. One of the fundamental determinants of right vs. left historically is creditors vs. debtors. People on the right pursue policies favorable to creditors so as to encourage further lending presumably so those who take on the loans can grow themselves up, while people on the left pursue policies favorable to debtors so as to ease the burden of repayment, especially if they hit upon difficulties with what they hoped to achieve with the loan. Per historian John B. Weaver (2013), “As historian Robert Sharkey observed, the “Ohio Idea”, or Pendleton Plan as it also came to be known, skillfully appealed at once to several interest groups. In one fell swoop it promised to terminate the contraction policy, overthrow the National Banking System, and strike a note of fairness in demanding “the same currency for the ploughholder and the bondholder” (44). There was distinct class motive behind this proposal and fits with the Democratic Party’s tradition as being a party of the little guy, even if at that time the little guy was for all intents and purposes white. Pendleton himself was a staunch Jacksonian, and he concerned himself with the welfare of the common man. Although Democrats had opposed the Legal Tender Act in 1862, including Pendleton, the sought after outcome could be thought of as “old wine in new bottles”. Such adaptation of changing means to achieve old ends was later seen with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian and Jacksonian ends with the New Deal.
Opposed to the “Ohio Idea” was Ohio Republican Senator John Sherman, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who held that only certain class of bonds could be repaid in greenbacks, and that the existing greenbacks could be eventually transitioned from based on fiat to gold and silver backed with economic growth (Weaver, 45). Pendleton’s idea was embraced by the Democratic platform of 1868, but it fell to the wayside as they lost the election and President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Public Credit Act in 1869, in which debts were to be paid in gold. However, conflicts over currency inflation would continue throughout the 19th century, particularly in the backlash to the Coinage Act of 1873 and the uneasy bimetallism that followed with the Bland-Allison Act. There are some interesting things to note about Pendleton himself – he was known as the leader of the “Peace Democrats”, or as they were called, “Copperheads”, who were for signing a peace treaty with the Confederacy. He had also been George McClellan’s running mate in 1864 and had led opposition in the House to the 13th Amendment. Pendleton’s central contribution to the law would be as a senator with the Pendleton Act, making 10% of federal positions merit-based rather than spoils based, and it would cost him reelection to the Senate.
References
Mach, T.S. George Hunt Pendleton, The Ohio Idea and Political Continuity in Reconstruction America. Ohio History Journal.
The foremost general to politician known of the postwar period was of course President Ulysses S. Grant. However, there were others who had worthy performances in battle and were in politics. One of these men was John Alexander Logan (1826-1886) of Illinois.
Early Years
Politics was in Logan’s blood and had been on his mind from the time he was quite young. When he was a teenager, he wanted to be the “Congressman of the United States”! (Logan Museum). What’s more, his father had served in the Illinois General Assembly as a staunch Jacksonian Democrat. Before Logan entered politics, he served in the Mexican-American War, but did not see battle. He won his first political office at the age of 23 when he was elected clerk of Jackson County in 1849. Logan also attended the University of Louisville and graduated in 1851, serving as prosecutor for Illinois’ Third Judicial District. But a year later, he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly, and proved a tremendously talented public speaker. Much of Logan’s politics in the 1850s didn’t suggest his future, particularly his politics on race. Logan was against any free black settlement in Illinois, and sponsored a law that prohibited all free blacks from settling in the state, capping their time there at 10 days, with a $50 fine for any who stayed longer and indentured servitude for those who couldn’t pay (Morris Library). He also supported testimony laws, or laws that barred non-whites from testifying in court. In opposition to a proposal that permitted blacks to testify in court, he stated, “It was never intended that whites and blacks should stand in equal relation” (Logan Museum). He was also staunchly anti-abolitionist, as he regarded abolitionists as a force in American politics that were endangering national stability. In 1858, he was elected to Congress from a southern Illinois district (known as “Little Egypt” because of several towns named after Egyptian cities) which had sympathies with the South and, like him, were staunchly anti-abolitionist. However, Logan was also first and foremost unionist, just like the man he supported for president in 1860, Senator Stephen A. Douglas. He warned that “The election of Mr. Lincoln, deplorable as it may be, affords no justification or excuse for overthrowing the republic. [We] cannot stand silently by while the joint action of extremists are dragging us to ruin” (Joyner, 17). In August 1861, two months after the death of Douglas, Logan announced that he was resigning Congress to serve in the Union Army and encouraged his voters to do the same. Although Little Egypt was once a region that was in doubt as to its allegiance, they moved behind Logan and the Union. None other than Ulysses S. Grant credited Logan with keeping the region loyal to the United States, writing, “Logan went to his part of the State and gave his attention to raising troops. The very men who at first made it necessary to guard the roads in southern Illinois became the defenders of the Union. Logan entered the service himself as colonel of a regiment and rapidly rose to the rank of major-general. His district, which had promised at first to give much trouble to the government, filled every call made upon it for troops, without resorting to the draft. There was no call made when there were not more volunteers than were asked for. That congressional district stands credited at the War Department to-day with furnishing more men for the army than it was called on to supply” (Mr. Lincoln’s White House). After all, not all Midwestern Democrats proved unionists like Logan – Senator Jesse Bright of Indiana was expelled for recommending an arms dealer to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in a letter dated March 1, 1861 (U.S. Senate).
Military Service
Most generals who had been politicians beforehand were pretty bad at it. Benjamin Butler, Ambrose Burnside, and Nathaniel Banks were among the worst generals of the War of the Rebellion, with the latter being known by Confederate troops as “Commissary Banks” for his bad habit of leaving behind supplies while retreating. Logan, however, proved a natural commander and there’s a strong argument that he was the best of the politicians turned generals, leading the successful effort to capture Vicksburg and performing valiantly at Fort Donelson and Corinth. He became known as “Black Jack” Logan for his dark hair and eyes. Logan could have gone further in the military but for General William T. Sherman’s well-founded skepticism of generals who came from politics. It was, however, in the case of Logan unjustified, and he resented military careerists for the rest of his life over this perceived slight (Army Historical Foundation). Although he was approached to run for Congress in 1862, he was committed to ensuring the preservation of the Union before resuming his career.
A Political Transformation
The War of the Rebellion changed Logan. While he had once been a staunch Jacksonian who was opposed to abolitionism and President Lincoln, he was by 1864 a strong supporter of President Lincoln and came to support abolishing slavery. Was the change opportunistic or out of principle? The latter certainly seems true on the question of black rights. In 1860, Logan attended the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, and according to his biographer Byron Andrews, writing in 1884, he “had for the first time in his life had the opportunity to see the horrors of slavery. He witnessed the brutal scenes of the auction block, where men were sold for a price like cattle” and “the revolting inhumanities of the slave pen” (Dunphy). This does not appear to be the only factor. Logan himself told a group of Union veterans that witnessing the bravery of blacks during the War of the Rebellion had ended his prejudices (Morris Library). Instead of blaming the most devastating war in American history on abolitionists, he now squarely blamed it on the institution of slavery. In 1866, Logan was again elected to Congress, this time as a Republican. In Congress, he supported the 14th and 15th Amendments and argued that “I don’t care whether a man is black, red, blue, or white” on the question of whether they should have suffrage (Morris Library). Like his fellow Union general and former Democrat Benjamin Butler, he was one of the House managers for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, whose Reconstruction policies were highly lenient on the South and didn’t take into account the rights of freedmen.
Father of Memorial Day
As one of the most prominent and celebrated Union veterans, Logan served as the third Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a powerful Union veterans organization that consistently pushed for more benefits for Union soldiers. On May 5, 1868, he proclaimed with General Order No. 11 a national day of remembrance for late and missing soldiers of the conflict in which their graves would be decorated to be held on May 30th, known as “Decoration Day”. This would come to be known as Memorial Day and adopted as a federal holiday in 1971.
Other Political Issues
Logan was a partisan Republican, although not necessarily the most strongly ideological. In the conflict within the GOP on civil service, Logan was decidedly a Stalwart. Although Stalwartism can perhaps be considered the more “conservative” position in that time, it was in keeping with Logan’s old Jacksonian philosophy, as it had been President Jackson who had instituted the spoils system in the first place. Logan was also not a consistent vote for higher tariffs, voting to reduce in some categories. In 1874, he came out in support of the Inflation Act in an effort to stimulate the economy in the midst of the Panic of 1873, as did many Republicans in the Midwest. President Grant vetoed the bill, being convinced by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton Fish and Senator Roscoe Conkling (R-N.Y.) to do so. In the cartoon below, Logan along with Senators Simon Cameron (R-Penn.), Oliver Morton (R-Ind.) and Matthew Carpenter (R-Wis.) are caricatured:
Republican Senators Logan, Oliver Morton (Ind.), Simon Cameron (Pa.), and Matthew Carpenter (Wis.) looking disapprovingly on Thomas Nast, portrayed as asking pardon for condemning their support for greenbacks.
Logan was also one of the foremost advocates in the Senate of expanding veterans’ pensions and also supported the Blair Education Bill in the 1880s aimed at increasing literacy, especially among Southern blacks. He was named in the Credit Mobilier Scandal but was cleared of wrongdoing by the investigating Poland Committee.
The 1880 Presidential Election
In 1880, Logan along with other Stalwarts supported the candidacy of former President Ulysses S. Grant for a third term, but they were undone when the supporters of Senators Blaine of Maine, Sherman of Ohio, and Edmunds of Vermont unified to nominate dark horse candidate Congressman James A. Garfield. Logan himself had interest in the presidency, but this would have to wait.
The 1884 Presidential Election and Future Prospects
In 1884, James G. Blaine, now regarding himself as a “Half-Breed”, provided balance to the GOP ticket by picking Midwestern Stalwart Logan. Logan was a solid choice as he had a strong personal following among Union veterans and black voters, due to his exemplary war record and strong support for civil rights respectively. The latter were facing increasing difficulties in having their vote counted in the South post-Reconstruction due to a combination of voter fraud, laws aimed at restricting the black vote, intimidation, and violence. The Blaine-Logan ticket lost in one of the narrowest presidential contests in American history, and Logan was bitter over the loss.
Logan continued his work in the Senate after this loss, and it was a real possibility that he would be running for president in 1888. He worked very hard on his duties in the Senate in the meantime, to the point that it compromised his immune system. By December of 1886 he developed acute rheumatism, and although it appeared he was recovering, his condition deteriorated over a period of close to two weeks, with an illness that caused fever, delirium, and lethargy, and died on December 26th (Beaverton Historical Society). Logan had worked himself to death, and he was far from the last senator to do so. His death reminds me of Stephen Douglas’s in 1861 in its untimeliness, and that his demise cut short a career that otherwise had the potential to lead to greater things. His DW-Nominate score was a 0.215 and had he been elected president, he would likely as had Benjamin Harrison made great efforts on behalf of Union veterans and black voters. One figure who mourned the loss of Logan was Frederick Douglass, who lauded him as “the dread of traitors, the defender of loyal soldiers, and the true friend of newly made citizens of the Republic. Much was predicated for our cause on this man’s future. But he, too, in the order of Providence, has laid off his armor” (Dunphy).
References
Dunphy, J.J. (2023, February 3). Logan repudiated his early racism, deserves stamp. The Telegraph.
John A. Logan – Death of the Illustrious Soldier and Statesman, Which Event Occurred At His Home In Washington December 26. Beaverton Historical Society.
When it comes to the first senators of states, not all have had impressive starts with who they sent. However, one of Colorado’s was unquestionably a man of tremendous influence and staying power in Henry Moore Teller (1830-1914).
Although a New Yorker by birth, Teller as a young man made his way west to seek his fortune as an attorney for miners. He was from the beginning of his time in politics opposed to slavery and joined the Republican Party in the 1850s. Settling in the Colorado Territory, Teller aimed to grow the region. Like many prominent Republicans of his day, he was a businessman, establishing with Edward L. Berthoud and William A.H. Loveland the Colorado Central Railroad, with him serving as president for five years. Although Teller is noted for his opposition to the Dawes Act, many of his actions were in opposition to Indian tribes as independent of society. From 1863 to 1865, he led the Colorado militia in campaigns against the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.
In 1876, the state of Colorado, after multiple attempts from Republicans to admit the state to the Union, is finally admitted. Sworn in as its first senators are Teller and Jerome B. Chaffee on November 15th. Chaffee didn’t remain in the Senate too long, but Teller became a mainstay in American politics for over thirty years. His record in the Senate was as a moderate Republican, and consistently supportive of bimetallism as a policy, as opposed to the favored stance of the Republican Eastern establishment of the gold standard. Silver currency stimulated the mining of silver in the West and was inflationary, thus serving to help indebted farmers reduce their debt. Thus, Teller voted to override President Hayes’ veto of the Bland-Allison Silver Purchase Act, establishing bimetallism as a policy. In 1882, President Chester Arthur nominated Teller to the post of interior secretary.
Interior Secretary
As Interior Secretary, Teller supported measures aimed at forcibly assimilating Indians into American society, including legal penalties for continuing to engage in certain tribal practices. He saw them continuing their practices as holding them back from advancement in white society and wished them to convert to Christianity. Teller also backed opening numerous Indian lands to white settlement and was strongly favorable to developing the west. After the election of Grover Cleveland, Teller was out of the Interior Department but back in the Senate.
Teller Returns to the Senate: Opposition to the Dawes Act and to Edmunds-Tucker Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 probably deserves more coverage than I’m giving it here, but it was in short an attempt at social engineering American Indian tribes to adopt individual property ownership instead of the concept of communal property, thus furthering assimilation policy. The law proved catastrophic for Indian tribes in its land allotment scheme; during the life of the Dawes Act they lost 90 million acres of land (or 2/3’s of the holdings they had in 1887), with at least some of it obtained through fraud. Teller strongly opposed allotment, warning that it would serve “to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth” and held that “the real aim [of allotment] was to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. … If this were done in the name of greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of humanity … is infinitely worse” (Otis, 18-19).
Interestingly, although Teller did not vote on the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887 which disincorporated the Church of Latter-Day Saints for polygamy, it was clear he opposed it as excessively harsh, a pretty lonely stance within the GOP, which had in its 1856 platform regarded polygamy and slavery as twin evils. Teller was ultimately a deeply respected senator in Colorado not only for his politics transcending his party affiliation but also for his advocacy for the West. He was known as the “defender of the West” and as “Colorado’s Grand Old Man” (Straayer). However, the state’s “Grand Old Man” would not remain with the “Grand Old Party”.
Estrangement from the GOP
The Panic of 1893 plunged the United States into the worst depression it had faced thus far, with rural areas especially suffering. After the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, the repeal being backed by Bourbon Democrats and conservative Republicans, Colorado’s economy suffered horribly with numerous residents looking to leave. Although Teller opposed the Gorman-Wilson Tariff in 1894 like the other Republicans, he also supported keeping the provision imposing an income tax on the wealthy. In 1896, Teller led the walkout of the Republican National Convention when a bimetallism plank was overwhelmingly defeated (Larson, 189). Thus, he and other Republican politicians from the West refused to support William McKinley and formed the “Silver Republican Party” in protest, which backed Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
Final Years in Office: McKinley and Roosevelt
Although Teller historically supported Republican tariff policy, he opposed the Dingley Tariff in 1897, not wanting to support the GOP on this one if they would no longer accommodate bimetallism. In 1898, he sponsored the Teller Amendment, which put the Senate on record in opposition to the U.S. annexing Cuba in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. The US would only remain in Cuba until 1902. The Silver Republican Party as a faction came to an end after the 1900 election given the passage of the Gold Standard Act and the economy had recovered by that point, but Teller did not return to the GOP as many Silver Republicans did. He switched to the Democratic Party and helped build up its support in Colorado. Teller was an interesting addition to the Democratic Party as he did not necessarily change all his core values when he entered their party, for instance retaining his old party’s Lincolnian legacy on blacks, which was beginning to make minor strides in the Democratic Party of the early 1900s. Teller did also support increasing spending on the US navy, consistent with the view of influential author Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan that the great powers of history had strong navies. By 1909, he was 78 years old and opted not to have another term. His DW-Nominate score was a 0.161, reflecting an overall moderate record. Teller departed public life in 1912 and died on February 23, 1914. The state of Colorado has numerous places named in his honor, most notably Teller County.
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.
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.
Most people do not know of senators from history, especially those who did not run for president. One senator who is very much worth remembering, however, is Roscoe Conkling of New York (1829-1888). His iron political grip on New York, a vital swing state in his time, produced divisions within the Republican Party itself.
In 1858, the Republican Party was a young organization, and elected to Congress from New York that year was Roscoe Conkling. Formerly the mayor of Utica, Conkling was such a striking figure in Washington that if he were serving today, one might call him “Congressman Chad”. By profession a successful lawyer, he was a strapping young buck who was always committed to self-improvement. This meant strength of body and mind, making him exercise a great deal including through horseback riding and boxing. Conkling was also tremendously well-read, and his memory was such that he could read books and documents and be able to recite much of them afterwards. He could deliver speeches for hours without stumbling on a single word or losing anyone’s attention. Conkling also did not smoke and seldom drank. All this, including his height of 6’3″ and his reputation as “Lord Roscoe” made him a hit with the ladies of Washington. When Republican representatives were concerned for the safety of the aging Thaddeus Stevens (R-Penn.) as his words for Southern Democrats were often harsh, considering the brutal beating inflicted on Senator Charles Sumner in 1856, Conkling served as his bodyguard. He condemned President Buchanan during the secession crisis as being “petrified by fear, or vacillating between determination and doubt, while the rebels snatched him from his nerveless grasp the ensign of the Republic, and waved before his eyes the banner of secession…” (National Park Service, Part 1). However, there were negative aspects to Conkling. He wasn’t particularly popular among his fellow legislators, as he had a well-deserved reputation for arrogance. Conkling was humorless, often disagreeable, easily offended, and was known to strut about as opposed to walk. This, combined with him having a distinctive blonde curl on his forehead as well as his loudly colored vests and bowties, made him a gold mine for political cartoonists of the era.
Conkling was on much better terms with Buchanan’s successor, Abraham Lincoln. Although his first choice had been Senator William Seward of New York, Conkling stood by Lincoln. While he often backed typical Republican positions such as high tariffs with the Morrill Tariff, he didn’t always agree with the president. For instance, he voted against the Legal Tender Act of 1862, refusing to accept fiat paper currency even as an emergency measure. That year, Conkling lost reelection to War Democrat Francis Kernan, his former law professor. Conkling in turn defeated Kernan for reelection in 1864, but both men remained good friends throughout. After the War of the Rebellion, Conkling stood as a Radical Republican. To be clear, the term “Radical Republican” means believing in a punitive approach to the South as well as strongly standing for the rights of freedmen and has no greater issue implications for the politics of the time. He clashed not only with Democrats but also with his fellow Republicans, including prominent ones in James G. Blaine and James A. Garfield. It was particularly bitter with the former, and their bad relations began in 1866, when after several exchanges on the House floor Blaine said, “The contempt of that large-minded gentleman is so wilting; his haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, super-eminent, overpowering turkey-gobbler strut has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this House that I know it was an act of the greatest temerity of me to venture upon a controversy with him” (National Park Service, Part I). Conkling never forgave Blaine and would continually battle him for power and influence in the Republican Party. In 1867, Congressman Conkling became Senator Conkling.
The Senate
In the Senate, Conkling staunchly supported the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and the effort to convict him fell only one vote short. When it came to presidents, he would easily have his best relationship with Johnson’s successor, Ulysses S. Grant. Conkling undoubtedly found his greatest ally in his good friend Grant. He at the time was competing with Reuben Fenton, New York’s other senator, for patronage in the state, and he was quite the success on that front. Fenton thought it was a good idea to suck up to Grant, which he despised, and by contrast respected Conkling sticking to his guns respectfully (National Park Service, Part II). Grant thus heeded Conkling on many matters, including who to appoint to positions in New York, especially the customs collector of the Port of New York, the port that took in the most tariff revenue. Conkling selected Thomas Murphy for the position, but Murphy proved so antagonistic to other Republicans that he was replaced with Chester Arthur in 1871, a highly competent administrator loyal to Conkling. Chauncey Depew, a railroad executive and a senator himself, attested to his rise to power, “Conkling was a born leader, very autocratic and dictatorial…He immediately began to remove [Reuben] Fenton officials and to replace them with members of his own organization. As there was no civil service at that time and public officers were necessarily active politicians, Senator Conkling in a few years destroyed the organization which Fenton had built up as governor, and became master of the Republican party in the State” (The Lehrman Institute). Conkling’s power got to the point that anyone who wanted to have a state job had to get his seal of approval. Elihu Root, a GOP statesman, further attested to Conkling’s power, “I do not remember how many years, Mr. Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the Governor did not count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and Secretaries and what-not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling said” (Lamphier, 135).
In 1873, Grant nominated Conkling to succeed the late Salmon P. Chase as chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he declined…he preferred to run his New York machine and saw himself as Grant’s successor. He also assisted Grant in numerous ways, such as when he led the push to oust Charles Sumner from his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his opposition proved key to the defeat of the annexation of Santo Domingo (now known as the Dominican Republic). The president often heeded his advice on legislation as well; for instance, both he and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton Fish, economic conservatives, advised him to veto the popular Inflation Act of 1874, which he did. The following year, to the gratitude of black Americans, Conkling walked black Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi down the Senate aisle. This was a task usually reserved for the senator’s colleague in the state, but Mississippi Senator James Alcorn, a rival who would later support the disenfranchisement of black voters in Mississippi, wanted nothing to do with Bruce. Conkling and Bruce developed a close friendship, and numerous black parents would name their boys “Roscoe Conkling” in the following years in his honor, Bruce himself being among them.
In 1876, Conkling ran for the Republican nomination, but after his bid failed to attract much support, he managed to score a victory by pledging New York to Rutherford B. Hayes, thereby blocking former Speaker James G. Blaine’s path to the White House. After Hayes came out for civil service reform during the presidential campaign, Conkling’s efforts for Hayes slowed down, and Hayes lost New York in the presidential election. Had he won New York, there would have been no Constitutional crisis from this election. Incidentally, Conkling ended up believing that Hayes had actually lost the election and gave a propagandistic assist to Democrats by referring to him by the names they did, such as “Rutherfraud B. Hayes” and “his fraudulency”. Conkling derided civil service reform as “snivel service reform”, believing that state politicians should have free reign in their state’s affairs, a most convenient principle for him. He was not personally corrupt…no evidence has arisen that he profited from his office and although he was a target of investigation for the Credit Mobilier Scandal, documentary evidence cleared him of wrongdoing. Conkling had made his fortune legitimately; he hungered for power rather than money. However, numerous underlings were corrupt and profited off their offices.
As president, Hayes tried to appoint people to prominent positions in New York independent of Conkling’s approval. This resulted in several failed nominations, including one Theodore Roosevelt Sr. for customs collector for the Port of New York, the post formerly held by Conkling man Chester Arthur, who Hayes had fired. Ultimately Hayes managed to replace Conkling men Arthur and Alonzo Cornell with Edwin Merritt and Silas Burt in 1879. He did, however, consistent with his position favoring hard money, back Hayes’ veto of the bimetallist Bland-Allison Act in 1878.
Indiscretions in Washington
I mentioned earlier that Conkling was a hit with the ladies, but he was married. While he denied accusations that he was a womanizer, it was an open secret in Washington was that he was carrying on an affair with Kate Chase Sprague, the wife of former Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island, an insecure narcissist and abusive alcoholic. His only great virtue for the marriage seemed to be his wealth, much of the latter he had lost in the Panic of 1873. There was a rather famous incident surrounding this in 1879 in which Sprague chased Conkling out of his home with a shotgun.
Conkling Goes to Bat for Grant: 1880
Senator Roscoe Conkling, keen to have a Stalwart in office as opposed to Rutherford B. Hayes, who had through his single term crossed him in multiple ways, pushed for Grant get the nod again. There was indeed a real chance this could happen, but Grant had competition in former Senator John Sherman of Ohio as well as Conkling’s old rival Blaine. Although Grant won the first ballot, the threshold for winning the nomination wasn’t reached until the 35th ballot, by which point Sherman and Blaine had thrown their support to the dark horse candidate, Congressman James A. Garfield of Ohio. To please the Stalwarts, Conkling’s old right-hand man, Chester Arthur, was selected as the nominee for vice president.
Conkling vs. Garfield
President Garfield, like his fellow Ohioan Hayes, challenged Conkling’s authority in his nominations. He nominated a candidate for customs collector of the Port of New York in William Robertson, a former Fenton man, and in response Conkling “raged and roared like a bull for three mortal hours” and decried a violation of “senatorial courtesy” to which Garfield responded that he was the president rather than “the registering clerk of the United States Senate” (U.S. Senate). After Garfield was able to secure his nominee for customs collector of the Port of New York, Conkling and his protege, Senator Thomas C. Platt, resigned the Senate in protest on May 16, 1881, so they could be reelected by the state legislature in a show of power and support in New York. However, the men had miscalculated in trying to make loyalty to Garfield or loyalty to Conkling an issue for the state legislature, and in the meantime Garfield had been shot by Charles Guiteau, a deranged office-seeker who when he did it proclaimed, “I am a Stalwart” (Mitchell). The state legislature instead elected Republicans Elbridge Lapham and Warner Miller to the Senate. With this failed gambit, Conkling’s political career was over, and he returned to practicing law. Conkling’s DW-Nominate score stands at a 0.306, on the right side of Republican senators of his time. Platt would become a political boss in his own right but would not return to the Senate until 1897.
Although President Arthur nominated Conkling to the Supreme Court and the Senate voted to confirm him, he refused to serve. There were two reasons for Conkling to do so. First, he wanted a more active lifestyle than the Supreme Court would give him, and second, he was bitter over Chester Arthur’s embrace of a civil service, viewing it as a betrayal. Conkling to this day is one of only two men to refuse a Supreme Court nomination twice.
Conkling and the 14th Amendment as a Vehicle for Corporate Rights
In 1882, Conkling argued before the Supreme Court in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that as a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the 14th Amendment, that there was a debate about the distinction between “persons” and “citizens” and that this debate revealed that corporations were intended for coverage. Although enhanced legal protections for corporations certainly fit the ideology of the former Whigs, of which central framer John A. Bingham of Ohio and Conkling were formerly of, 14th Amendment scholar Howard Jay Graham found in the 1960s that Conkling had almost certainly deliberately misrepresented and misquoted the Globe regarding Congress’s proceedings to help his client. While the idea of corporations as persons as a legal fiction predates the adoption of the 14th Amendment, it is understandable that this episode would give people the idea that the concept was born in illegitimacy.
Conkling vs. The Great Blizzard of 1888
On March 12, 1888, New York City faced the Great Blizzard of 1888, and although Conkling could have taken a carriage to get from his office to his home, but the carriage driver was charging an exorbitant (although affordable for Conkling) rate, which he refused to pay and opted to walk the three miles home. Conkling made it to Union Square, about halfway to his destination, before collapsing from exposure. Although this episode was of some embarrassment to him, it was much worse than that; it had weakened his immune system and he contracted pneumonia. This pneumonia progressed into meningitis, which killed him on April 18th at the age of 58. Both Conkling’s end in politics and of life was brought about by his own arrogance. As Chauncey Depew said of him, “Roscoe Conkling was created by nature for a great career” and that his lost potential “was entirely his own fault. Physically he was the handsomest man of his time. His mental equipment nearly approached genius…His oratorical gifts were of the highest order, and he was a debater of rare power and resources. But his intolerable egotism deprived him of the vision necessary for supreme leadership….[H]is wonderful gifts were wholly devoted to partisan discussions and local issues” (National Park Service, Part II).
References
Both New York Senators Resign. United States Senate.
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 