The American Presidential Election of 1888
Mr.
Beat's band:
http://electricneedleroom.net/
Mr. Beat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/beatmastermatt
Help Mr. Beat spend more time making videos: https://www.patreon.com/iammrbeat
The
25th episode in a very long series about the
American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. I hope to have them done by
Election Day 2016. In 1888,
Cleveland tries to get re-elected, but tariffs remain popular in his home state of
New York.
Feeling extra dorky? Then visit here:
http://www.countingthevotes.com/1888
The 26th
Presidential election in
American history took place on
November 6, 1888. My birthday, again. Is that why I love this stuff?
Grover Cleveland had a solid first term.
The country was at
peace and the economy
...fantastic. He even got married, to
Frances Folsom, who, at 21 years old, became the youngest
First Lady in American history. Cleveland was a fairly popular dude with lots of integrity. If Cleveland was alive today, he’d be called a libertarian. He vetoed a lot of bills, tried to reduce government spending, had a non interventionist foreign policy, and wanted free trade.
Cleveland was unanimously re-nominated by the
Democratic Party, which was special because this was the first time a
Democratic President had been renominated since
Martin Van Buren in 1840. Since his former
Vice President,
Thomas Hendricks, had died while in office, he needed a new one, so the
Democrats nominated
Allen Thurman, a former
Senator from
Ohio, to run with him this time.
You know how I mentioned free trade? Well many people were upset with Cleveland’s free trade leanings, and they wanted a higher tariff to protect American industries. Many
Americans in industrial states wanted to vote against Cleveland because they feared losing their jobs, and they looked again to the
Republicans.
James Blaine decided not to run for President this time because he feared he might just further divide the
Republican Party. He backed both
Benjamin Harrison, a Senator from
Indiana and grandson of former President
William Henry Harrison, and
John Sherman, who again was a Senator from Ohio and running a second time.
The Republicans went with
Harrison, because he was a
Civil War veteran who was popular with other veterans and could give a darn good speech. Oh yeah, and he lived in a swing state.
Thanks electoral college!
Levi Morton, a
New York City banker and former
Representative and
Minister to
France, was his running mate.
It’s time for third parties! I will only mention two of them as the others were, um, pretty irrelevant. No offense,
United Labor Party!
The Prohibition Party kept gaining momentum. They nominated
Clinton Fisk, a general from New York, with
John Brooks as running mate. As I tried to research
Brooks on the internet, I couldn’t find much at all. I do know he was a human being. I think.
A new political party, the
Union Labor Party, were a ragtag bunch with wide ranging views, but they were all united to fight for worker rights. They nominated
Alson Streeter, a former
Greenbacker and farmer and miner from
Illinois. His running mate was lumberman
Charles Cunningham, from
Arkansas.
The campaigns between the two front runners, Cleveland and Harrison, were intense, as it looked to be a super close election. The main issue, of course, was tariffs. Cleveland wanted less, and Harrison more. While Cleveland still did not actively campaign as most presidential candidates did not before him, Harrison did so, enthusiastically giving many speeches from his front porch of his
Indianapolis home to many newspaper reporters. His front porch campaign was similar to
James Garfield, and it worked well for him, so why not?
So here is one development that was pretty messed up. Leading up to the election, it was exposed that
William Wade Dudley, the
Treasurer of the
Republican National Committee, was caught buying votes in Indiana for Harrison.
Remember, Indiana was a swing state so this was a big deal. The outcry of this scandal is the reason why ballots after this were cast in secret and not out in the open.