What Could Have Been – Maine Presidential Leadership Part II

No politician in Maine history can claim to have gotten closer to the White House than James G. Blaine.

Blaine had not one, not two but in fact three opportunities to be elected president, and indeed ended up losing his election to Grover Cleveland in 1884 by only 36 electoral votes (essentially, the state of New York) and an unbelievably narrow 25,685 in the popular vote.

James Blaine was an institution in Maine. In fact, in many ways he still is, as the Governor’s mansion that more than 20 people are currently trying to move in to next year was originally his house, and still bears his name.

Blaine was actually not a native Mainer – he was born in Pennsylvania in January of 1830. He went to what is today Washington and Jefferson College and began his career teaching at the Western Military Institute, which was in Kentucky. He later studied law.

Blaine settled in Maine, however, in 1854 – a place he would call home for the rest of his life. While he began his Maine life as an editor for the Kennebec Journal, it wasn’t long before he was called to a life of politics.

His rise was rapid. He was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in the late 1850s, and served as speaker from 1860-1862. He was also the Chairman of the Maine Republican Party, and was, more than anyone, responsible for the success of the Republican Party in Maine during the infancy of the newly created GOP.

He translated that power into a run for Congress, successfully capturing a seat in Maine’s third district in the 1862 election. Six years later, he would rise to be Speaker of the House – a post he would hold through three Congresses. In 1876 he was appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat.

How it could have happened (First Chance – 1876) – Right out of the gate, James Blaine was the front runner for the 1876 Republican nomination. However, many within the Republican Party felt that Blaine would not be able to win the general election, and a considerable “anti-Blaine” faction emerged.

On the first ballot at the nominating convention, Blaine secured 285 of the 378 delegates required to secure the nomination. Voting continued into a second, third, fourth and fifth ballot with little change, except for a minor surge from Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. On the sixth ballot, Blaine was up to 308 delegates, and the anti-Blaine forces began to panic. As a result, they started coalescing around Hayes as an anti-Blaine alternative, as the factions loyal to Benjamin Bristow, Roscoe Conkling, Oliver Morton, and John Hartranft withdrew their candidates’ names from consideration.

In the seventh ballot, Hayes narrowly edged out Blaine by a vote of 384 to 351.

What followed was probably the closest, most scandal ridden and destructive elections in United States history. In the end, Hayes “won” the presidency after coming to an agreement with Democrats that essentially finished the process of Republicans selling out blacks in the south by removing remaining troops, ended reconstruction, and buying off the southern states regarding industrial development.

Would Blaine have done any better? Could he have beaten Sam Tilden outright and avoided any deal-making to grab power? If he was in the White House, what would the next 4-8 years looked like?

No one can say for sure. Blaine may have been able to do better in some areas Hayes struggled in, but we will never know. Regardless, Blaine’s path to the presidency in 1876 would have been tight, bitter, and potentially disputed.

What a Blaine Administration would have looked likeWhat happened in the 1876 general election was the first major black eye (there were indeed some previous bruises, however) that separated African-Americans from the Republican Party – it told blacks that the Republicans would turn their backs on them if it meant clinging to power. Indeed, the very reason this election was not an outright victory for Hayes was because the reconstructed south had already seen many troops removed, and black voters were openly targeted and intimidated from going to the polls with no Federal protection.

This black eye turned into a slow drip of waning support for the GOP among the community – a process that would be completed during the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century that has resulted in nearly monolithic support for the Democratic Party. It also destroyed any base of Republican support in the south until the 1960s.

Blaine, however, was not a Radical Republican. He belonged to a similar wing of the party as Abraham Lincoln, portrayed as “moderate” for the time. He viewed reconciliation with the south after the Civil War to be of utmost importance, and did not feel a military occupations and military governorships of southern states was necessarily appropriate. However, Blaine was an outspoken advocate of black suffrage and had strong support from the Grand Army of the Republic, so it is possible he would have attempted to keep/impose some level of protection for freedmen in the south. In the end, however, the power of the redeemer movement was likely too strong for any president to fight, and at some point the south would likely have been on their own without big brother enforcing the rules.

One major change is likely to have happened, however. As the leader of the so called “half-breeds” (the opponents to the U.S. Grant wing of the party who favored political machines, patronage and the spoils system), Blaine likely would have attempted to reshape politics by instituting civil service reform and issuing government jobs based on the merit system. This change would eventually happen, but not until Chester Arthur pressed for it five years later.

How it could have happened (Second Chance – 1880) – By 1880, the war within the Republican Party between Blaine’s “half-breeds” and Grant’s “stalwarts” had reached a stalemate. Neither faction could formally take over the party, and at the 1880 convention both Grant (who was seeking an unprecedented third term as president) and Blaine were the representatives of their respective wings of the party. A third man, John Sherman of Ohio (brother of William Tecumseh) was also running, and siphoned off votes from members of the delegation unhappy with either Grant or Blaine.

Grant was able to top 300 delegates on the first ballot, followed by Blaine with 284 and Sherman with 93. Incredibly, for an additional 33 ballots, the vote totals stayed essentially the same, with none of the candidates flinching, and support only mildly waxing and waning for each of the three candidates. After the 34th ballot, Wisconsin announced it would switch its support to one of the minor candidates, James Garfield, saying that it had grown tired of the same candidates. Indiana, one of Blaine’s states, followed suit, and it became clear a compromise candidate was emerging. The 36th ballot decided the race. Iowa, Blaine’s most important base of support (it contained the most votes in his column), switched their support to Garfield as well, setting off a cascade of delegates doing the same. It was clear Blaine could no longer win, and both his, and Sherman’s delegates peeled off to support Garfield as the anti-Grant candidate.

The 36 ballots to settle on a nominee represents the single longest vote in the party’s history.

It is a shame that Blaine couldn’t edge out the other candidates, because that year James Garfield was able to squeak out a win in the closest popular vote election in United States history, but did win handily in the electoral college.

What a Blaine Administration would have looked likeAt this point, reconstruction had already ended, troops had been withdrawn, and it seems unlikely that Blaine would have sent them back in. Indeed, as the presidency of Garfield and then later Chester Arthur was for all intents and purposes defined by a “half-breed” worldview, it seems unlikely that a Blaine presidency would have been much different than what we saw in the following four years.

One of the major difference may have simply been his survival. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau four months after his inauguration, and died two months later. While the motive is unlikely to have changed were Blaine to have been president instead of Garfield (Guiteau’s anger over not being given a position in the government), it seems likely to me that the entire dynamic of how it all took place – from the timeline of his stalking the president and the subsequent results, to the very facts of the shooting itself (logistics, height/weight of the man shot, etc) – I have to imagine it is at least reasonable to assume that Blaine may have either avoided the shooting, or survived the attempt.

If that were to have occurred, the actions of the American president may not have changed much (especially since Blaine himself was in Garfield’s cabinet), but history itself may have been significantly altered. The Curse of Tippecanoe would have stopped before it ever started, and we would remember a different statesman guiding the country at this juncture.

It also seems likely that Blaine would have been renominated for a second term by his party, having governed essentially how he set off to. If he was in fact renominated, he probably would have stood a better chance against Grover Cleveland as an incumbent than he did as an outsider, and the election was so close already that it may have tipped the scales.

This would have made him a two term president in an era where that was a rarity, and would have changed some of the decisions from the White House in what would have been his second term.

How it could have happened (Third [and best] Chance – 1884)James Blaine actually DID obtain the Republican nomination in 1884, and remains to this day the only politician from the state of Maine to have actually been a major party candidate for president in the general election. Republicans felt in 1884 that it was simply Blaine’s “turn”, after coming so close the previous two election cycles. Incumbent Chester Arthur was never trusted by half-breeds, hated by stalwarts, and was generally impotent within the party, leading to his defeat.

In the general election, it was a mud fight – and a dirty one. The so called “Mulligan letters” accused Blaine of selling his influence while in Congress to a number of businesses. Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. This was made all the worse with the accusations that the illegitimate child was sent to an orphanage, and the mother of the child had been committed to an asylum.

In the end, what probably doomed Blaine was one of the earliest versions of a “macaca moment“. Blaine was present at a Republican meeting at which a Reverend used an anti-Catholic slur. A Democratic operative was present at the meeting, and handed it to the Cleveland campaign, who used it as a hammer in the Irish Catholic community against Blaine – especially in New York City. It was this, more than anything, that lead to Cleveland winning the state of New York (by only 1,047 votes), its 36 electoral votes, and with them, the presidency. Under normal circumstances, it seems likely that Blaine would have won New York.

Had this one incident not happened, Blaine would have won the electoral college by a 218-183 margin, and the popular vote would have likely been essentially tied, just like the previous election.

What a Blaine Administration would have looked likeOne of the biggest issues of the Cleveland presidency was his attempt to lower tariffs. Interestingly, Blaine himself was out of politics, but the Republican Party at this time was staunchly protectionist – arguing in favor of higher tariffs. Blaine, however, had worked in his career for a reduction in the tariff, so his potential actions on this subject are somehwhat unclear.

It is unlikely that a Blaine Administration would have been all that different from Cleveland on the issue of the gold standard. Northeastern politicians of both parties generally backed the “gold only” policy for currency.

One area that may have produced some differences were dealings with Congress. Cleveland faced a Republican Congress, and because of this vetoed a great deal of legislation. Blaine, on the other hand, being a Republican, would likely have had a more harmonious relationship with Congress.

Foreign Affairs also would likely have looked different. The Cleveland Administration was staunchly non-interventionist, and reversed many of the policies of the previous administration, which Blaine himself served in as Secretary of State.

But as this period was free of many of the larger concerns that had dominated the American landscape previously (which is why we remember presidents like Cleveland and Hayes much less than the Lincolns and Roosevelts of the world), it seems unlikely that regardless of how different a Blaine presidency would have been, he would have elevated himself into the pantheon of “great presidents”.

Believe it or not, Blaine was once again the front runner in 1888. He, however, withdrew his name, as he believed the only way to defeat Cleveland was by presenting a united front. He knew that if he were to be nominated, it would be after a long and bitter struggle. In 1892 his name was once again submitted for election at the Republican convention, but did not gain significant support.

Blaine is one of Maine’s most consequential figures, and he is without a doubt the Mainer who came closest to becoming president. His legacy as a national political figure – as the Speaker of the House, a Senator, a presidential candidate, and as Secretary of State – is unequaled in the Pine Tree State, and shows no signs of being threatened in the future.

Next up: Thomas Brackett Reed

Matthew Gagnon

About Matthew Gagnon

Matthew Gagnon, of Yarmouth, is the Chief Executive Officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. Prior to Maine Heritage, he served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C. Originally from Hampden, he has been involved with Maine politics for more than a decade.