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HISTORY 1865-1910] states marked the boundaries between the Republican and the Democratic states, except that Hancock also carried New Jersey, Nevada and California. The Republicans won the elections for the House of Representatives which would meet in 1881, and the Senate was at first nearly evenly divided, two independents holding the balance. In the ensuing four years party lines were badly broken, factions made bitter war upon each other, and the independent reformers or “” (q.v.) grew in numbers. The selection of Blaine as secretary of state committed Garfield to the anti-Grant wing, and the breach was widened by his appointment of the collector of the port of New York against the protests of Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt, the “Stalwart” senators from New York. They resigned, then sought re-election in order to vindicate the right of senatorial recommendation; but were defeated.

339. In the midst of this excitement the president was assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker of unsound mind.

Vice-President Arthur, who succeeded Garfield in September 1881, by his tact and moderation won the admiration of former opponents; but the bad crops in 1881 and the dissatisfaction with boss rule among independent voters caused a Democratic victory in the Congressional campaign of 1882. Gar6eld's assassination had given new impetus to the movement against the spoils system, a National Civil Service Reform League had been organized in 1881, President Arthur presented the question in his message of December of that year, and in 1882 George H. Pendleton, a Democratic

senator from Ohio, urged the subject upon the attention of Congress. Stimulated by the elections of 1882 Congress passed an act (January 16, 1883) authorizing the president to appoint a commission to classify certain of the Federal employees, and providing for appointment and promotion within this classified list by competitive examination, the employees being distributed among the states and territories according to population, with preference for soldiers and sailors of the Civil War. Congressional recommendations for these offices were not to be received, and political assessments for campaign purposes were forbidden. This was an effective beginning in the purification of the civil service; but the evil of assessment of employees was succeeded by the evil of soliciting campaign contributions from corporations interested in legislation. The extension of the competitive

list proceeded gradually through succeeding administrations. The Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act (1882) was levelled at the (q.v.), and the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed at the demand of labour, after a long agitation in 1882, the way having been prepared by the Treaty of Peking in 1880. Bills to this effect had been vetoed by Hayes and Arthur as violative of international agreement, but the desire of the politicians to win the California vote, and the compromise by which the exclusion was limited to ten years finally carried the measure, and the Supreme Court (1889) held it constitutional. Later acts modified and extended the exclusion.

340. From 1879 to 1890 the treasury showed a surplus of revenue over expenditure. This furnishes the explanation of much of the legislation of that period. It led to extravagant appropriations, such as the Arrears of Pensions Act of 1879, and the River and Harbor Act of 1882 providing for the expenditure of more than $18,000,000, which was passed over the veto of Arthur. Appropriation bills were merely constructed in various committees of Congress under a system of bargaining between interests and sections with primary reference to the political fortunes of the congressmen.

341. The surplus also strengthened the demand fora reduction of the tariff. A tariff commission, composed of men friendly to protection, appointed in 1882, proposed an average reduction of 20 to 25%. Nevertheless in the act as passed in 1883 duties were increased in general on those protected articles which continued to be imported in large volume, especially on certain woollen goods and about two-thirds of

the imported cotton goods, and on iron ore and some steel products, while they were lowered on finer grades of wool and cheaper grades of woollen and cotton fabrics, &c. It was unsatisfactory to large portions of both parties and did not materially lower the revenue; but the act of 1883 made extensive reductions in internal taxes. As the Senate had just fallen into the hands of the Republicans, and the House would not become Democratic until the new Congress met, this protective law gave the former the advantage of position. Moreover the Democrats were themselves divided, nineteen Representatives (one-third from Pennsylvania) voting with the Republicans on the act of 1883. In the next Congress (1884), when the leaders made an attempt to rally the Democrats to show their position by passing a bill for a horizontal reduction of 20% in general, forty-one Democrats voted against the bill and prevented its passage through the House.

342. Thus the campaign of 1884 found both parties still lacking unity of policy although it seemed possible that the tariff might become the touchstone of the contest. The Republicans challenged the independents by nominating Blaine, whose record was objectionable to many reformers, and who had been chiefly identified with the Reconstruction politics. The Democrats, taking advantage of the situation, nominated (q.v.) of New York. He had won approval by his reform administration as mayor of Buffalo and as governor of New York during the past two years, when he had shown an independence of party “bosses” and had convinced the public of his sincerity and strength of character. He represented conceptions and interests which had grown up since the war, and which appealed to a new generation of voters.

The platform emphasized the idea that “new issues are born of time and progress,” and made the leading question that of reform and change in administration, lest the continued rule of one party should corrupt the government. On the question of tariff the Democrats took a conservative attitude, emphasizing their desire to promote healthy growth, rather than to injure any domestic industries, and recognizing that capital had been invested and manufactures developed in reliance upon the protective system. Subject to these limitations, they demanded correction of the abuses of the tariff and adjustment of it to the needs of the government economically administered. The Greenbackers nominated General Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, recently chosen governor of that state on the Democratic ticket, but he polled only 175,000 votes, while John P. St John, the candidate of those who would prohibit the liquor traffic, secured 150,000 votes, an unprecedented gain. The Prohibitionist platform included a demand that all money, coin and paper, should be made, issued and regulated by the government and be a legal tender for all debts, public and private.

343. The campaign abounded in bitter personalities, and the popular vote was close, Cleveland's plurality being only

twenty-three thousand. The great state of New York, with electoral votes enough to have turned the scale, was carried by the Democrats by only a few more than one thousand votes out of a total of over a million. Cleveland's electoral majority was 37. The election was nevertheless recognized as making an epoch. For the first time since victory came to Lincoln and the Republicans on the eve of the Civil War, nearly a quarter of a century earlier, the country had entrusted power to the Democrats, although over two-thirds of their electoral vote came from the former slave states. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Indiana constituted their Northern territory. Perhaps the most significant thing about the result was the evidence that in the North political and sectional habits and prejudices were giving way among a sufficient number of independent voters, responsive to strong personal leadership on reform issues, to turn the political scale. The transition from war issues which began in 1872, and became marked in 1876, was completed by the election of Cleveland in 1884.