The United States Presidential Election of 1888 was held on November 6, 1888. Incumbent President Grover Cleveland received the greatest number of popular votes, but Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison's 233 electoral votes topped Cleveland's 168 to win the election. Just 12 years earlier, in the election of 1876, the same thing had happened where the President-elect had failed to win the popular vote. It would not happen again until the election of 2000, 112 years later.^[1]

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Republican candidates

• Benjamin Harrison, former U.S. senator from Indiana
• John Sherman, U.S. senator from Ohio
• Walter Q. Gresham, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from Indiana
• Chauncey Depew, president of the New York Central Railroad from New York
• Russell A. Alger, former U.S. governor of Michigan

Candidates gallery

<gallery> Image:Benjamin Harrison Portrait.jpg|Former Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana Image:John-Sherman-2.jpg|Senator John Sherman of Ohio Image:Walter Q. Gresham - Brady-Handy.jpg|Fromer Secretary of the Treasury Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana Image:CMDepew.jpg|President of the New York Central Railroad Chauncey Depew of New York Image:Russell Alexander Alger2.jpg|Former Governor Russell A. Alger of Michigan </gallery>

Harrison-Morton campaign poster

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, Benjamin Harrison won nomination receiving 544 delegate votes, defeating John Sherman (who received 249 delegates), Russell A. Alger (142) and Walter Q. Gresham (123). New York politician and financier Levi Morton was the party's Vice Presidential choice, receiving 592 delegate votes to beat William Walter Phelps (119 delegates) and William O. Bradley (103).

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates

• Grover Cleveland, President of the United States from New York

Candidates gallery

<gallery> Image:President Grover Cleveland.jpg|President Grover Cleveland of New York </gallery>

Cleveland/Thurman campaign poster

President Grover Cleveland was unanimously renominated for President at the Democratic National Convention in Saint Louis. Ohio's Allen G. Thurman was chosen as the party's Vice Presidential nominee by a large margin, garnering 684 delegate votes to Isaac P. Gray's 101 and John C. Black's 36.

Other nominations

The Prohibition Party ticket of Clinton B. Fisk and John Brooks captured nearly a quarter million popular votes as the prohibition movement gained steam. Another group, the Union Labor Party, was formed with Alson J. Streeter as their nominee. The Union Labor Party garnered nearly 150,000 popular votes, but failed to gain widespread national support.

General election

Campaign

Cleveland set the main issue of the campaign when he proposed a dramatic reduction in tariffs in his annual message to Congress in December 1887. Cleveland contended that the tariff was unnecessarily high and that unnecessary taxation was unjust taxation. The Republicans responded that the high tariff would protect American industry from foreign competition, guaranteeing high wages, high profits, and high growth. The argument between protectionists and free traders over the size of the tariff was an old one, stretching back to the Tariff of 1816. In practice the tariff was practically meaningless on industrial products, since the United States was the low-cost producer in most areas (except woolens), and could not be undersold by the less efficient Europeans. Nevertheless the tariff issue motivated both sides to a remarkable extent.

Besides the obvious economic dimensions, the tariff argument also possessed an ethnic dimension. At the time, the policy of free trade was most strongly promoted by the British empire, and so any political candidate who ran on free trade instantly was under threat of being labelled pro-British and thereby losing the swing Irish-American voting bloc. Cleveland neatly neutralized this threat by pursuing punitive action against Canada (which was still viewed as part of the British empire) in a fishing rights dispute.

Harrison was well funded by party activists and mounted an energetic campaign by the standards of the day, giving many speeches from his front porch in Indianapolis which were covered by the newspapers. Cleveland adhered to the tradition that presidential candidates did not campaign, and forbade his cabinet from campaigning as well, leaving his 75 year old vice presidential candidate Thurman as the spearhead of his campaign.

Blocks of Five

One of the most notorious electoral frauds was perpetrated for this election in Indiana. William Wade Dudley, Treasurer of the Republican National Committee, wrote a circular letter to Indiana's county chairmen telling them to "Divide the floaters into Blocks of Five, and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these five, and make them responsible that none get away and that all vote our ticket."

The Murchison letter

A California Republican named George Osgoodby wrote a letter to Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British ambassador to the U. S., under the assumed name of "Charles F. Murchison". "Murchison" described himself as a former Englishman who was now a California citizen and asked how he should vote in the upcoming presidential election. Sir Lionel wrote back and indiscreetly suggested that Cleveland was probably the best man from the British point of view.

The Republicans published this letter just two weeks before the election, where it had an effect on Irish-American voters exactly comparable to the "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" blunder of the previous election: Cleveland lost New York state and the presidency and Sackville-West was sacked as British ambassador.^[2]

Results

Cleveland was defeated. He actually led in the popular vote over Benjamin Harrison (48.6% to 47.8%), but Harrison won the Electoral College by a 233-168 margin, largely by virtue of his 1% win in Cleveland's home state of New York. Had Cleveland won his home state, he would have won the electoral vote by a count of 204-197 (201 votes then needed for victory). Note that Cleveland earned 24 of his electoral votes from states that he won by less than 1% (Connecticut, Virginia, and West Virginia).

Cleveland thus became one of only three men to clearly win the popular vote but lose the presidency; there would not be another such election until Al Gore's narrow loss to George W. Bush in 2000. As Frances Cleveland and the ex-president left the White House, she assured the staff that they would return in four years, which they did.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

In Popular Culture

In 1968 the Michael P. Antoine Company produced the musical film, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band which centers around the election of 1888 and the annexing and subdividing of the Dakota Territory into states (which was a central issue of the election).

See also

Business advertising card with an election theme

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States (1865?1918)
• History of the United States Democratic Party
• The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band
• History of the United States Republican Party
• Third Party System

Notes

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Books

Journal articles

Web sites

External links

• 1888 popular vote by counties
• Wrong way elections table at the Center for Range Voting
• How close was the 1888 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

Navigation

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