Speaking of elections, I decided to write this article. Craigo wrote all the previous election articles, but then skipped ahead from 1880 to 1920 and then stopped after the 1924 election. This is my attempt to pick up where he left off. I'll probably do more just like this. Next will be the 1885 CS election and the 1888 US election. Enjoy!
United States presidential election, 1884
In the year that was 1884, the United States of America had become nearly unrecognizable from what it had been four years previously in 1880, the year of the last presidential election. In 1880, the United States was a relatively prosperous nation under a Democratic administration, the Tilden administration, which took a soft-line stance in regards to the Confederate States of America. As a result, it seemed that the United States was finally coming to terms with its loss of the Confederate States and the War of Secession a generation previously. In 1884, the United States was a humiliated, downtrodden nation and a laughing stock on the world stage, having suffered defeat at the hands of the Confederate States, in addition to their British and French allies, in yet another war between the two, the Second Mexican War, lasting from June, 1881 to April, 1882. As a reuslt of the Second Mexican War and Americas defeat in said war, the US, under the Republican administration of James G. Blaine, which took a hard-line in regards to the Confederate States, had failed to reconquer land from the CSA or prevent the CSA from annexing the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, and had also lost land in Maine, land previously claimed by Great Britain prior to the signing of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842, to the Dominion of Canada.
Yet, that was not the all that transpired as a result of the American defeat in the Second Mexican War. In 1884, the US Military was demoralized and weakened, with a number of generals and military personnel, most notably Emory Upton, advocating large-scale and radical reforms in the US Armed Forces, while the USA began her friendship and later alliance with the German Empire. Meanwhile, coastal cities such as New York, Newport, Boston, San Francisco and Portland, among others, had only just finished rebuilding from the wartime raids of the Royal Navy. Politically, the Republican Party lost abysmally to the Democrats in the 1882 Congressional Midterm elections and incumbent Republican President James G. Blaine was a hated figure, both amongst the American people and politicians, for many of the aforementioned reasons. In addition, he was blamed for starting a war in which the USA was clearly the aggressor, which only served to embolden the CSA and her allies, and for not even taking the time for the US to be militarily prepared for such a war, if such a war had to be fought in the first place. In 1884, it came as no doubt to the American politicians and public alike, that come November, Blaine would become a lame duck President, and come March 4th, 1885, a Democrat would be back in the White House.
The United States radically changed in a political sense as well. As a result of the Republican Party being blamed for causing the country to lose two humiliating wars against the Confederate States of America, the latter even more humiliating than the first, the party split, becoming a shell of its former self. The more progressive-minded Republicans had defected to the new Socialist Party, while many of the more the conservative-minded Republicans defected to the Democratic Party. This weakening split of the Republican Party only made it more obvious that James G. Blaine would not be winning the presidential election of 1884. Meanwhile, a new faction of the Democratic Party, the Remembrance Faction, had become a force to be reckoned with, as was the same with the greater Remembrance Movement. The Remembrance Movement was a political and cultural movement that began shortly after the Second Mexican War ended in 1882, and was characterized by intense revanchism against the CSA (and to a somewhat lesser degree Canada and the British Empire), militarism, some authoritarian tendencies and strong ties to the German Empires. The Democratic Party, whose members where the most resentful of Blaine, the Republican Party and their botching of the war, became the main hub and spreader of this movement. Thus, the Remembrance faction of the Democratic Party was born, and the election of 1884 would be the first election they took part in. Lastly, another new force had entered into American politics, and this force was the Socialist Party, founded by ex-President Abraham Lincoln and German-born Socialist activist Friedrich Sorge in Chicago, Illinois in 1882. As mentioned above, the Socialist Party gained a number of new members after its establishment in 1882, when the more progressive-minded Republicans defected to the Socialist Party after Lincoln announced he would no longer try to reform the Republican Party and instead found a new party, said party being the Socialist Party.
With all these developments, the stage was set for the 1884 presidential election.
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, held that July, there were a number of potential candidates for the Presidential nomination. They included former General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania, Bourbon Democrat and Former Governor Grover Cleveland of New York, Senator Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, Representative Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania and Remembrance Democrats former governor Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, Governor Joshua Chamberlain of Maine and General George Armstrong Custer of Michigan. On the first day of the convention, Custer, despite his popularity as a result of his winning the Battle of Teton, declined to run for the party's nomination for Presidential candidate, citing his lack of experience in politics and his desire to stay in the army. The other Remembrance Democrats, Butler and Chamberlain lost the first round of ballots, as the delegates decided the country was not ready for a Democratic President from the party's Remembrance faction so soon after the Second Mexican War. Representative Randall was voted off the next round of ballots, then Senator Thurman. This left General Hancock and Former Governor Cleveland. Cleveland, as a part of the party's Bourbon wing, favored big business interests, civil service reform, lower tariffs and the gold standard, and also promised to rebuild the nation's damaged defenses and reform the armed forces, though these last two goals seemed less a priory for Cleveland. Ultimately, Cleveland's lack of emphasis for the state of the nation's defenses and armed forces, a priority for many of the delegates and many other Americans after the Second Mexican War, partly proved his undoing, as well as the fact that Cleveland was a bad campaigner and his goal of civil service reform made him unpopular with Tammany Hall. On the other hand, Winfield Scott Hancock had emphasized that the rebuilding the nation's defenses and the reformation the armed forces were his top priorities, as well as overall peace and prosperity for the nation. Hancock, a former general and war hero of both the War of Secession and Second Mexican War, was also one of the few US generals to serve in both wars with his reputation still intact. Hancock survived the military tribunals of 1863 and 1864, having been spared the unfortunate fates of Grant, Buell, Fitzporter, Hooker and others, and also displayed great leadership during the Kentucky Campaign of the Second Mexican War. This made him a symbol of hope for the people of the beleaguered United States. As a result of all this, Winfield Scott Hancock was elected to be the Democrat's candidate for the Presidency. Senator Allen G. Thurman, who ironically was born in Virginia but moved to Ohio with his family when he was two years old, was chosen as his running mate to balance the ticket between a former general and a seasoned senator. From July through to November, Hancock ran on a campaign of peace, rebuilding of the nations defenses and reforming the nations armed forces. However, Hancock promised that he would not reform the military in the radical ways many military personal had suggested. For example, Hancock promised not to do away with the militia system, only reform it.
At the Republican National Convention, held in Chicago back in June, all of the delegates attending knew there was little to no hope of the election going in their favor. Still, the delegates decided to make the best of it. One delegate, Senator and future-President Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, decided to find a new candidate who would benefit the party most. He tried to convince, Senator William Allison of Iowa, then newly appointed Chief Justice James Garfield of Ohio and House Minority Leader Elihu Washburne of Maine to challenge Blaine at the convention. Nevertheless, none were interested, as they all knew it would be a fools errand to run for the Republican ticket, as the Democrats would most certainly win and win big. As a result, Blaine accepted his nomination for Presidential Candidate. He had considered stepping out of the race, but in the end decided that he should run anyways, seeing it as the chivalrous thing to do. The incumbent Vice President J. Donald Cameron also decided against stepping out of the race, once again serving as Blaine's running mate. Blaine, knowing how unpopular he was, never personally campaigned, and sent personal supporters and other underlings to do it for him. The Republican campaign centered on generally rebuilding the nation after its defeat in the Second Mexican War, economically, militarily and defensively. Most voters didn't buy it, and simply saw it as the Republican Party's way of cheaply covering their tracks.
At the first Socialist National Convention, held in Chicago a week after the Democratic National Convention, there was only one candidate for the presidential nomination; former President Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the party. As the party was in its infancy, it seemed only natural that the man who formed said party should lead it in the first election they were to participate in. No one else in the party seriously contested Lincoln due to the fact that there was simply no one else as influential in the young party as he was, and as a result no other suitable candidate came in time for the 1884 elections. As Lincoln himself said
"The half of our party that isn't German wears short pants" [1]. All that remained was for the convention now was to chose Lincoln's running mate. Friedrich Sorge, the German-born co-founder of the party, was a popular figure, though ineligible to be Lincoln's running mate due to the fact that he was foreign-born. The convention decided instead on newspaper publisher Davis Hanson Waite of Colorado, who joined the Socialist Party a year after its founding in 1883 and became one of its staunchest supporters, going so far as to begin the publication of a new Socialist newspaper in his adoptive hometown of Aspen, Colorado. With that, Abraham Lincoln, at age 75, became the oldest man in American history to run for the Presidency, and under a third party, following in the footsteps of other former presidents such as Martin Van Buren of the Free Soil Party and Millard Fillmore of the Know-Nothing Party. Lincoln and Waite's campaigned centered on securing rights for the nation's workers, re-distributing the wealth of the nation to the workers and poorer classes and maintaining, peace, economic prosperity and happiness at home for all Americans. The campaign made little mention of the state of the military and armed forces, with the prospect of America having to enter another war as far from the Socialists mind as ever. Had the campaign had a stance on the military, and one which supported its reformation in some way, Lincoln may very well have had some better success. Lincoln himself made only six public appearances and speeches during the campaign due to his poor health, with Waite doing most of the campaigning as a result.
After months of campaigning by all three parties, the election was finally held on Tuesday, November 4th, 1884. When the ballots were finally counted up, it came as no surprise to anyone what the final result was. The Democrats under Hancock and Thurman won the election in a landslide, just like everyone had expected. The Republicans under Blaine and Cameron lost abysmally, just as they had twenty years previously under the now Socialist Lincoln in the 1864 election, taking only four states, Maine, President Blaine's home state, Wisconsin, the state where the Republican party was born, Minnesota and Rhode Island, the latter the home state of Senator and future-President Nelson Aldrich. For the Republicans, history was repeating itself in an almost surreal way, as for the second time, a Republican President and administration was elected out of office after only one term for botching up a war against the Confederate States, the end result being national humiliation and a discrediting of the Republican Party. The Socialists under Lincoln and Waite, the party only its in infancy and a minor third party at that, won no states and as a result no electoral votes. Still, Lincoln remained hopeful for the future of the Socialist Party. His hopes would end up coming true.
The presidential election of 1884 would go down as one of the most significant in American history. It saw the first risings of the Remembrance movement in said faction of the Democratic Party, the second and final general decline of the Republican Party (it would take a century for the party to recover and regain the White House), the cementing of more-or-less Democratic hegemony in American politics until the 1920 election and the first participation of the new-born Socialist Party, which would grow to became a major force in American politics, eventually replacing the Republicans as the second party to the Democrats, in a presidential election.
It is also interesting to note that within a decade, all the Presidential candidates of the 1884 would be dead. Abraham Lincoln died in Chicago of a heart attack while walking home from church on Good Friday, 1885, just five months after the election. President Hancock died on February 9th, 1886, only eleven months into his presidency and five days before his 62nd birthday. James G. Blaine would be the last to die, dying in his home in Augusta, Maine on January 27th, 1893, just four days before his 63rd birthday and after almost a decade of living a life of retirement from politics and public life.
Winfield Scott Hancock (D-PA)/Allen G. Thurman (D-OH): 252 EV
James G. Blaine (R-ME)/J. Donald Cameron (R-PA): 28 EV
Abraham Lincoln (S-IL)/Davis Hanson Waite (S-CO): 0 EV
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] This quote originally comes from Craigo's Abraham Lincoln article.
[2] Map base courtesy of Turquoise Blue.
Also thanks for the info on the militia system OTL and in Timeline-191. I edited the post just a minute ago to say militia instead of reserve, so everything should be good now. Militia is what I meant to put down anyway, I just forgot the wording for a second. 
