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The Election of 1880 Explained

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The key players and events of the 1880 presidential election

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hey guys welcome to hip Hughes history as we hit you up with another election this time it's 1882 Republicans have been in power for 20 years and there's a big old vacancy over the front where's the White House because Rutherford B Hayes is going to walk away after one term so let's take a look at the candidates let's take a look at the campaign issues and of course we're going to take a look at that big old electoral map so giddy up for the learning let's go get her done right now I'm strolling of the stalwarts you're going to understand what that means by the end of this video really have three candidates in the beginning of the Republican nomination and none other than Ulysses muskrat the dude is back for a third term and he's going to be running really against James Blaine who is the Secretary of State and he's a former senator for Main and James Blaine is much more of what's called a reformer or a half-breed that's what they were called and they really believe in civil service reform they don't like political patronage they don't like political machines and Ulysses S Grant he's a stalwart Stallworth were a faction of these political machine politicians out of New York and Grant is aligning himself with and really it's a battle between him and lame as well as John Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman's brother he's in the mix too but at the end of the day they're going through ballot after Mahood after they get to 36 ballots when finally they enter is Dark Horse candidate and Dark Horse candidate James Garfield a House member out of the state of Ohio and James Blaine teams up with John Sherman they combined their votes to give the nomination to James Garfield who's open up a reformer he's not a stalwart so he's going to bring along with him for the ride a stalwart and that would be Chester Arthur and that's going to become really important because spoiler alert spoiler alert James Garfield get shot in July of 1881 so the vice presidential choice is going to be really important and in fact when we get to his assassination which I'm going to briefly mention because I've already made a video up on it I'm going to say those words I am a stalwart of the store so we have James Garfield basically they believe in Republican principles like high tariffs to protect Northern manufacturers they believe in hard money principles to keep inflation down there not so keen on Chinese immigration going to be an issue of the day, because they're a little closer with the business Community but they're willing to work out that issue and in terms of civil service reform they have it on the platform but in the past that's been a problem for the Republican party so we have games we have Chester Arthur let's put off into the cage here and see what happens when we go nominate ourselves a Democrat and a populist mother spoiler alert Chili Pepper crabs can't seem to win an election you know the whole secession and starting the Civil War thing is kind of hanging over their heads and the Republicans have been pounding into their brains every four years the Democrats accused Republicans of waving the bloody shirt so in their nomination process it comes down to two candidates first day of a Conservative candidate and Delaware Senator Thomas Bayard is a very traditional democratic States right kind of candidate with long record or they can go with a wildcard I could do that they could go with Major General Scott Hancock and Hancock is a union general Hancock is in charge of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg so it's going to be a little bit harder to wave that Bloody shirt you have a hero at Gettysburg on top of that Democratic ticket so the end of the day that's who they go for we have a wild-card pick not a politician a citizen a soldier out of West Point Major General Hancock party apparatus he's going to bring along with him for the ride William English a House member out of the state of Indiana which was a swing state and he's a conservative Democrat so he's showing up his support in the Democratic party but now we got ourselves a contest we have on one side of the aisle James Garfield and now we have major general Hancock but wait spoiler alert one more dudes going to show up to the party we have James B Weaver who's going to be running under the Greenback party this is really one of the first populist parties in American history they're not going to do tremendously well pulling in about three hundred thousand volts but when you look at a Hostess race it is a little bit of a factor and it's interesting just to bring it up because it is a populist party James B Weaver traveled around the country with his message of the greenbacks which was that we needed to have a larger money supply that people could borrow money that there just wasn't enough money in the system when we were relying on gold so during the Civil War the federal government in order to wide in the money supply began issuing paper currency called greenbacks now after the Civil War the Republican party in party believe in more hard money principles and they're starting to retreat from greenbacks and they're withdrawing them from circulation and a lot of people just kind of an economic panic in the 1870s believe that we need to have a wider money supply and this really going to cross party lines it's seen as being more of a spin-off of the Republican party that you certainly have a lot of poor whites and blacks in the South and in the west that are attracted to this idea so we first got to travel around hit the country with this platform not only that platform but racial Justice they believed in 8-hour working day they want to end child labor they would have regulate big business this is a very early formation of a populist party that's late you're going to become the populist party and eventually the Democratic party Rome I got FDR what am I doing to get way ahead of myself so we have our three candidates now let's take a look at the election itself and then we're getting to the big map I can't wait aren't you excited I'm so excited show the beginning of the campaign at least the Republicans are waving that Bloody shirt saying that we can't hand power back over to the Democrats and the Democrats are screaming about the 1876 election which they believed was right don't learn from them and the candidates are really trying to stay out of the Limelight letting the political machines fight their battles for them and it's not a humongous difference on some of those big issues the hard money issue there's not a lot of differences between the Republicans and the Democrats and they're certainly no a lot of differences between the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to protecting black rights in the South or anything like that but there is a difference between them on terrorist Garfield supports a high tariffs and of course that Hancock is going to support a low tariffs and part of that  it platform is going to be used against him which said that the only terrorists we should have her for Revenue only and that became a calling point for the Republican Party in the north trying to fracture the Democratic Coalition before this election guys most of those maps are mixed of Democrats winning in the northern Republicans winning in the South but now you're going to have a solid Democratic South as the Democratic Coalition falls apart you have to remember that there are Democrats in the north and most Democrats are immigrants and Catholics people that would be considered working class so when this information comes out that he's so against any type of carrots there's a fear in that community that there's going to be a loss of jobs because the federal government isn't protecting us manufacturers so they're going to fall out of democratic camp and start a lining with Republican party so that's going to be a big deal there's also an October surprise at the end of the election it was a rumor that was circulated that James. Brookfield was in cahoots with the business Community to make sure that we didn't have limits on Chinese immigration is a lot of nativism in the country in the Democrats are capitalizing on that saying that the Republicans are going to keep those Chinese here for cheap wages the story wasn't true but a hundred thousand Flyers had gotten out to the West Coast and circulated around the states of California Nevada and Oregon and that actually does influence the vote out they're pretty similar stances on civil service reform of course there are Democrats that are trying to link Garfield to the credit mobilier Scandal and there might have been kind of a soft Link in there but that doesn't take a humongous told in the country but other than that it really is a personality contest between these two guys and a we're going to take these two guys along with that Weaver dude now Weaver is a populist he's not staying on his porch he's coming around the country giving wild speeches in fact he's even going down south to bring his message of economic equality in the green bag issue but he's also talking about racial equality and some of those rallies got quite violent and had to be shut down and then we was not going to have that much success down south all right guys why do we get to the results because that's the best part all right guys it's time to bring the big map and throw up on the wall here and I want you to make sure that you stare at it for longer than 10 seconds and get used to it because this map is pretty much going to stay just like that until we get to the 1950s another 70 years down the road so poop there it is guys that's the solid South Hancock is going to sweep that southern vote in fact and future elections the things aren't really going to bother with that strategy because as you can see they can win election without the South and in fact that's what they did they're going to win swing States like Indiana and Pennsylvania and Ohio in fact Hancock from Pennsylvania and when we look at that electoral breakdown we can see that it looks like a rumpling it's from peelings that work well anyway Garfield gets 214 votes 155 votes for Mr Hancock but if you take his home state of Pennsylvania into the mix and I think I've done the math correctly it ends up as a 184 184 tie for the course that didn't occur but look at that popular vote we're talking about a difference of is an 888 votes out of almost 9 million coach cast it's really close in fact California right Hancock wins by Twenty votes maybe some of those flyers had an impact out there but at the end of the day it's just not enough this is without a doubt the closest popular vote we had in American history and we have ourselves a winner James Garfield is the legitimate electoral winner of the contest of 1880 and he's the new president now normally I would start my home so there I subscribe all that but I'm not going to do that because there's a little M clip to the story which ends up having James Garfield death Georgia life 2nd 1881 Charles get you is going to shoot James Garfield twice in a Baltimore train station eventually killing him and when he shot him he yelled stalwarts of the Star Wars offer is the president and it ended up that Charles could tell who is very mentally unstable was also somebody who was a stalwart who believe that he had a job owed to him because he wrote some bad speeches at the convention and when he didn't get job ended up killing the president putting Chester Arthur in charge who kind of disposed to be a stalwart but ends up making it his mission to do civil service reform in fact signing the Pendleton Act which created the civil service system that we know so Charles get to it didn't work so if you want to know more about the assassination of James Garfield assassination video and go learn all the nooks and crannies that horrible event today to go kids what are you waiting for what what did work is that this video is done so there you go guys make sure that you check out all the elections have we done down in the election playlist And subscribe to hit you just ruined right thing to do we have like four hundred million videos hang up on her. There's a lot of videos every week so what are you waiting for all right I hate marketing for attention goes energy flows guys will see you guys next time that you press my button

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