WI: Grant wins nomination in 1880

Minty_Fresh

Banned
The 1880 Republican convention eventually came down to a compromise candidate in the person of James Garfield. However, it is often forgotten that Grant had the most first ballot votes and a strong base of support through the Conklite faction of the party.

If Grant was to win the nomination, what are his chances against Hancock in the general election, and how would that campaign end up looking (remember, the two men were friends and Grant campaigned for Garfield but refused to say anything negative about Hancock)?

Would this lead to more deviations from the two term tradition going forward?

And lastly, what would a Grant term 3 look like? Keep in mind who in the party backed him to the hilt. A combination of the Conklinites and the more radical and racially progressive party members. This might mean that Grant would seek to overturn the Southern Redeemers victories from '76 onwards. It also might mean a gross amount of corruption infects the federal government.

The 1870s and rapid industrialization that kicked off the gilded age was a hell of a lot worse in the 1880s in terms of machine politics and corruption. Grant, while personally honest, was well known to be an easy mark, trusting people who were gratuitously corrupt, and not really having much of a grasp of economics or of the massive changes occurring to the US economy during the period. I think a Grant term 3 would lead to a watershed period of economic corruption and government dysfunction. At the same time, it might be more judicious in its dealings with Native American tribes and do a better job of promoting civil rights for African Americans.

Any thoughts?
 
And lastly, what would a Grant term 3 look like? Keep in mind who in the party backed him to the hilt. A combination of the Conklinites and the more radical and racially progressive party members. This might mean that Grant would seek to overturn the Southern Redeemers victories from '76 onwards.


How does he go about that? The Union army is far too small to police the South, and any move to revive Reconstruction (with which northern voters were thoroughly fed up) will ensure a Democratic Congress in 1882.

And even if he could get over that, how much difference does it make? Even first time round, there was no instance of the Radicals regaining power in any Southern state after it had been "redeemed". Once ousted anywhere, they stayed ousted. And by 1881 the Redeemers have had four years to consolidate their position.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
How does he go about that? The Union army is far too small to police the South, and any move to revive Reconstruction (with which northern voters were thoroughly fed up) will ensure a Democratic Congress in 1882.

And even if he could get over that, how much difference does it make? Even first time round, there was no instance of the Radicals regaining power in any Southern state after it had been "redeemed". Once ousted anywhere, they stayed ousted. And by 1881 the Redeemers have had four years to consolidate their position.
I would assume he would start with the easier targets or the states that had not fully gone through a Redeemer revolution. For one thing, before the 1890s, widespread disenfranchisement of Blacks simply wasn't the case. The post 1876 reality saw essentially spheres of influence form, where black voters weren't openly suppressed in many states (Mississippi and South Carolina were different, however, due to the intensity of KKK/Red Shirt violence), up until the 1890s, and Republicans can and did get elected, although often with the growing Fusion movement with the Populists.

Federal troops all over the South would be too much. Federal troops in South Carolina, a state reviled and hated by most Northerners ever since the Nullification crisis and seen as an evil symbol, would be more politically possible. The state's black majority and federal troops would probably be enough to overthrow the Redeemers. Such an intervention could occur in reaction to a highly publicized Klan related atrocity that all the Northern Newspapers cover to the hilt, as ordered to do so by the Republican machines. The humbling of South Carolina, much like it did for Andrew Jackson, would be a popular move for Grant. And it might set an example of what the Redeemers could actually get away with.

And Grant could exert influence on Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana, which had strong scalawag sentiment anyways and were relatively more lax in enforcing the worst excesses of Redeemer rule.

1890 was certainly too late to make a difference. The old spheres of influence, like for example, black voting being allowed and not messed with in some areas (Georgetown and Shermanland in South Carolina) while being suppressed in others (most of the rest of the state), were dissolved and the era of lynching began. But 1880 was not at all too late. The election of Grant was bound to bring into the open the much reviled KKK and associated groups again, and this would be treated with more gravity by the northern populace than a few corrupt carpetbaggers being chased out of their homes.
 
Federal troops in South Carolina, a state reviled and hated by most Northerners ever since the Nullification crisis and seen as an evil symbol, would be more politically possible. The state's black majority and federal troops would probably be enough to overthrow the Redeemers.

Then why did Grant order the troops withdrawn in 1877? Remember it was he, not Hayes, who made that decision, though through some foul-up the order wasn't delivered and Hayes had to reissue it.

And how was the situation in SC any different from in Mississippi, where Blacks were also a majority? Local Republicans there asked Grant for troops in 1876, but when he questioned them, admitted that even if he did, they still had little hope of retaining power. Why would it be any different in SC?

And what exactly would the Federal troops do? They are too few to guard every polling place in the state, let alone all the country lanes down which blacks would have to travel (at risk of their lives) in order to reach the polls.


And Grant could exert influence on Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana, which had strong scalawag sentiment anyways and were relatively more lax in enforcing the worst excesses of Redeemer rule.

Not sure what you mean. VA and TN were redeemed as far back as 1870, and nothing Grant did over the next seven years had come anywhere near reversing that. As for LA, in 1880 it had gone Democratic by almost two to one (as did SC despite its Black majority). What kind of "influence" is going to overturn victory margins like that?
 
Top