Chapter 177
June 1880
Cincinnati
After two weeks, the Democratic Convention had effectively fallen apart as the disparate interest groups made contradictory demands of the party platform and individual Presidential candidates.
Senator Bayard, perhaps the last scion of the old System in which northern politicians would dominate the Presidency....but only if their policies did not conflict with the dependable south. It was men like this - Buchanan, Pierce, etc, - who ensured the southern vote (usually the southerners had about 40% of the electoral vote, meaning the candidate only had to win a few key states in the north).
But, by 1880, mass immigration to the north and black migration from the south had permanently altered the nation's demographics. With five of the southern states yet to be returned to the Union, the south no longer held the electoral punch it once had.
Indeed, the growth of manufacturing (and the new form of constituent this created) would have diametrically opposite demands of their representatives:
1. For the first time, the Democratic Party was split on Tariff policy (Northern manufacturing workers wanted it, Southern cotton exporters did not).
2. Northern Democrats, particularly immigrants who disproportionately dominated the factories, were far more inclined to support Civil Rights.
3. Northern and Southern Democrats were generally happy with the stabilizing Gold Standard....but western small farmers wanted to expand the money supply by adding silver to the currency (thus making their debts cheaper to pay).
Personal rivalries would also deepen the divide in Cincinnati. Tilden and Bayard, in particular, would do much to bring factionalism to the fore.
As the assortment of "Favorite Sons" and minor candidates were whittled down, Tilden and Bayard emerged as the projected front-runners.
Bayard had the support of the South and worked assiduously to gain western support by promising to take the nation off the Gold Standard, an idea tolerable to the South but not the North.
For his part, Tilden publicly vowed to campaign against any man who would not support Freedman's Rights (i.e. Bayard) even if the Convention nominated him.
Eventually, the Convention organizers, increasingly frustrated, would see if some sort of compromise candidate may be found to bridge the gaping chasm opening under the Party's feet. However, the various factions had become so entrenched over the previous weeks that no such candidate could be found to satisfy the opposing positions. Eventually, the Party proceeded with the votes.....38 votes to be exact, with no effect.
Neither Bayard nor Tilden could summon adequate support until enough of the tertiary candidates formally dropped out and their electors allocated to one of the sides. It would be July until enough of these men gave up (and largely went home), leaving their electors to vote for whoever they wished.
By a narrow margin, Bayard would outpace Tilden.
Congressman Sam Randall, who had been a "War Democrat" but followed the Party's line ever since against Reconstruction, would grudgingly agree to serve as the Vice-Presidential Candidate. Randall had been around Washington long enough....and knew Tilden long enough....to know that this would terribly damage the Democrats' prospects in November. Bayard was utterly unelectable in the northeast and he doubted even sweeping the Midwest would be enough to gain
Madrid
Though the Crowned heads of Italy and France had quietly reached out to the young King Alphonse, he flatly refused to join any form of "alliance" which might bring Spain into conflict with Great Britain, America or Germany. His friend Napoleon IV had ventured the opinion that the remnant of the Spanish Empire - Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico - would eventually be conquered by America or Britain if the alliance wasn't signed.
Alphonse doubted this for two reasons:
1. He doubted America or Britain would WANT to deal with large numbers of Spanish Catholics in a region where the profitability had long since declined.
2. He suspected that even having an alliance with France and Italy would not necessarily do much to protect these islands from America's proximity or Britain expansive navy. Indeed, any conflict between these prospective "allies" and his prospective "enemies" would be more likely to drag the Spanish West Indies into war, not protect it.
Instead, the King (seeing the writing on the wall) offered to sell the petty Spanish African claims of Rio Muni, Annabon and Fernando PO (the latter two being islands and the former control over the mouth of the Muni River). These were being surrounded by the new Anglo-American Protectorate swiftly consuming the coastline of West Africa. Seeing no particular utility in possessing the region (the Spanish possessions in the East had long been lost), Alphonse was inclined to sell now before it was taken away.
Cincinnati
After two weeks, the Democratic Convention had effectively fallen apart as the disparate interest groups made contradictory demands of the party platform and individual Presidential candidates.
Senator Bayard, perhaps the last scion of the old System in which northern politicians would dominate the Presidency....but only if their policies did not conflict with the dependable south. It was men like this - Buchanan, Pierce, etc, - who ensured the southern vote (usually the southerners had about 40% of the electoral vote, meaning the candidate only had to win a few key states in the north).
But, by 1880, mass immigration to the north and black migration from the south had permanently altered the nation's demographics. With five of the southern states yet to be returned to the Union, the south no longer held the electoral punch it once had.
Indeed, the growth of manufacturing (and the new form of constituent this created) would have diametrically opposite demands of their representatives:
1. For the first time, the Democratic Party was split on Tariff policy (Northern manufacturing workers wanted it, Southern cotton exporters did not).
2. Northern Democrats, particularly immigrants who disproportionately dominated the factories, were far more inclined to support Civil Rights.
3. Northern and Southern Democrats were generally happy with the stabilizing Gold Standard....but western small farmers wanted to expand the money supply by adding silver to the currency (thus making their debts cheaper to pay).
Personal rivalries would also deepen the divide in Cincinnati. Tilden and Bayard, in particular, would do much to bring factionalism to the fore.
As the assortment of "Favorite Sons" and minor candidates were whittled down, Tilden and Bayard emerged as the projected front-runners.
Bayard had the support of the South and worked assiduously to gain western support by promising to take the nation off the Gold Standard, an idea tolerable to the South but not the North.
For his part, Tilden publicly vowed to campaign against any man who would not support Freedman's Rights (i.e. Bayard) even if the Convention nominated him.
Eventually, the Convention organizers, increasingly frustrated, would see if some sort of compromise candidate may be found to bridge the gaping chasm opening under the Party's feet. However, the various factions had become so entrenched over the previous weeks that no such candidate could be found to satisfy the opposing positions. Eventually, the Party proceeded with the votes.....38 votes to be exact, with no effect.
Neither Bayard nor Tilden could summon adequate support until enough of the tertiary candidates formally dropped out and their electors allocated to one of the sides. It would be July until enough of these men gave up (and largely went home), leaving their electors to vote for whoever they wished.
By a narrow margin, Bayard would outpace Tilden.
Congressman Sam Randall, who had been a "War Democrat" but followed the Party's line ever since against Reconstruction, would grudgingly agree to serve as the Vice-Presidential Candidate. Randall had been around Washington long enough....and knew Tilden long enough....to know that this would terribly damage the Democrats' prospects in November. Bayard was utterly unelectable in the northeast and he doubted even sweeping the Midwest would be enough to gain
Madrid
Though the Crowned heads of Italy and France had quietly reached out to the young King Alphonse, he flatly refused to join any form of "alliance" which might bring Spain into conflict with Great Britain, America or Germany. His friend Napoleon IV had ventured the opinion that the remnant of the Spanish Empire - Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico - would eventually be conquered by America or Britain if the alliance wasn't signed.
Alphonse doubted this for two reasons:
1. He doubted America or Britain would WANT to deal with large numbers of Spanish Catholics in a region where the profitability had long since declined.
2. He suspected that even having an alliance with France and Italy would not necessarily do much to protect these islands from America's proximity or Britain expansive navy. Indeed, any conflict between these prospective "allies" and his prospective "enemies" would be more likely to drag the Spanish West Indies into war, not protect it.
Instead, the King (seeing the writing on the wall) offered to sell the petty Spanish African claims of Rio Muni, Annabon and Fernando PO (the latter two being islands and the former control over the mouth of the Muni River). These were being surrounded by the new Anglo-American Protectorate swiftly consuming the coastline of West Africa. Seeing no particular utility in possessing the region (the Spanish possessions in the East had long been lost), Alphonse was inclined to sell now before it was taken away.