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1867 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1867 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania

← 1861 January 15, 1867 1873 →
 
Nominee Simon Cameron Edgar Cowan
Party Republican Republican
Leg. vote 82 49
Percentage 62.60% 37.40%

U.S. senator before election

Edgar Cowan
Republican

Elected U.S. Senator

Simon Cameron
Republican

On January 15, 1867, Simon Cameron was elected to the United States Senate by the Pennsylvania General Assembly for the third time; it had previously chosen him in 1845 and 1857. The legislature voted for Cameron over the incumbent, Senator Edgar Cowan, who though a Republican was endorsed by the Democratic legislative caucus. With the Republican Party holding a large majority in the legislature, the main battle was for its endorsement: the caucus of Republican legislators had voted for Cameron over Governor Andrew Curtin.

Cameron and Curtin each led a different faction of the Republican Party and had clashed as early as 1855, resulting in a bitter rivalry. Cameron tried to prevent Curtin from getting the Republican nomination for governor in 1860, while Curtin attempted to stop Cameron from receiving a post in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet; each was unsuccessful. Cameron's time as Secretary of War ended with his resignation under pressure, and he sought, unsuccessfully, to return to the Senate in 1863. With Curtin's second term as governor ending in 1867 and Cameron still wanting to return to the Senate, each sought Cowan's seat.

Cowan had moved away from the Republican mainstream, becoming an ally of President Andrew Johnson, and was not a contender for the party endorsement. Others seeking the Republican nomination included Representative Thaddeus Stevens and Galusha Grow, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, but they needed a deadlock between the main contenders to have a chance. Both Cameron and Curtin sought support from among Republican candidates for the legislature, and also tried to place their supporters in positions that might influence the outcome.

Curtin supporter Matthew Quay was the favorite to become Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but the other Senate contenders combined to defeat him, and the victor, Cameron supporter John P. Glass, used his powers to influence Republican legislators. Cameron received the necessary majority of Republican legislators to gain the party's endorsement, while Cowan was endorsed by the Democrats. When the legislature voted, Cameron easily defeated Cowan, and served in the Senate until 1877; his powerful political machine dominated Pennsylvania politics for a half century. Curtin eventually switched to the Democratic Party, and served three terms in the House of Representatives in the 1880s; Cowan never held public office again.

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  • Reconstruction and 1876: Crash Course US History #22
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Transcription

Episode 21: Reconstruction Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and huzzah! The Civil War is over! The slaves are free! Huzzah! That one hit me in the head? It’s very dangerous, Crash Course. So when you say, “Don’t aim at a person,” that includes myself? The roller coaster only goes up from here, my friends. Huzzah! Mr. Green, Mr. Green, what about the epic failure of Reconstruction? Oh, right. Stupid Reconstruction always ruining everything intro So after the Civil War ended, the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country, which is a challenge that we might’ve met, except Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and we were left with Andrew “I am the Third Worst President Ever” Johnson. I’m sorry, Abe, but you don’t get to be in the show anymore. So, Lincoln’s whole post-war idea was to facilitate reunion and reconciliation, and Andrew Johnson’s guiding Reconstruction principle was that the South never had a right to secede in the first place. Also, because he was himself a Southerner, he resented all the elites in the South who had snubbed him, AND he was also a racist who didn’t think that blacks should have any role in Reconstruction. TRIFECTA! So between 1865 and 1867, the so-called period of Presidential Reconstruction, Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions to establish new all-white governments. And in their 100% whiteness and oppression of former slaves, those new governments looked suspiciously like the old confederate governments they had replaced. And what was changing for the former slaves? Well, in some ways, a lot. Like, Fiske and Howard universities were established, as well as many primary and secondary schools, thanks in part to The Freedman’s Bureau, which only lasted until 1870, but had the power to divide up confiscated and abandoned confederate land for former slaves. And this was very important because to most slaves, land ownership was the key to freedom, and many felt like they’d been promised land by the Union Army. Like, General Sherman’s Field Order 15, promised to distribute land in 40 acre plots to former slaves. But that didn’t happen, either through the Freedman’s Bureau or anywhere else. Instead, President Johnson ordered all land returned to its former owners. So the South remained largely agricultural with the same people owning the same land, and in the end, we ended up with sharecropping. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. The system of sharecropping replaced slavery in many places throughout the South. Landowners would provide housing to the sharecroppers--no, Thought Bubble, not quite that nice. There ya go--also tools and seed, and then the sharecroppers received, get this, a share of their crop--usually between a third and a half, with the price for that harvest often set by the landowner. Freed blacks got to control their work, and plantation owners got a steady workforce that couldn’t easily leave, because they had little opportunity to save money and make the big capital investments in, like, land or tools. By the late 1860s, poor white farmers were sharecropping as well--in fact, by the Great Depression, most sharecroppers were white. And while sharecropping certainly wasn’t slavery, it did result in a quasi-serfdom that tied workers to land they didn’t own--more or less the opposite of Jefferson’s ideal of the small, independent farmer. So, the Republicans in Congress weren’t happy that this reconstructed south looked so much like the pre-Civil War south, so they took the lead in reconstruction after 1867. Radical Republicans felt the war had been fought for equal rights and wanted to see the powers of the national government expanded. Few were as radical as Thaddeus “Tommy Lee Jones” Stephens who wanted to take away land from the Southern planters and give it to the former slaves, but rank-and-file Republicans were radical enough to pass the Civil Rights Bill, which defined persons born in the United States as citizens and established nationwide equality before the law regardless of race. Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed the law, claiming that trying to protect the rights of African Americans amounted to discrimination against white people, which so infuriated Republicans that Congress did something it had never done before in all of American history. They overrode the Presidential veto with a 2/3rds majority and the Civil Rights Act became law. So then Congress really had its dander up and decided to amend the Constitution with the 14th amendment, which defines citizenship, guarantees equal protection, and extends the rights in the Bill of Rights to all the states (sort of). The amendment had almost no Democratic support, but it also didn’t need any, because there were almost no Democrats in Congress on account of how Congress had refused to seat the representatives from the “new” all-white governments that Johnson supported. And that’s how we got the 14th amendment, arguably the most important in the whole Constitution. Thanks, Thought Bubble. Oh, straight to the mystery document today? Alright. The rules here are simple. I guess the author of the Mystery Document and try not to get shocked. Alright let’s see what we’ve got today. Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing from his employer. Sec. 4. . . . Every negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person, or former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said negro.. Sec. 6. . . . No negro shall be permitted to preach, exhort, or otherwise declaim to congregations of colored people, without a special permission in writing from the president of the police jury. . . . Gee, Stan, I wonder if the President of the Police Jury was white. I actually know this one. It is a Black Code, which was basically legal codes where they just replaced the word “slave” with the word “negro.” And this code shows just how unwilling white governments were to ensure the rights of new, free citizens. I would celebrate not getting shocked, but now I am depressed. So, okay, in 1867, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which divided the south into 5 military districts and required each state to create a new government, one that included participation of black men. Those new governments had to ratify the 14th amendment if they wanted to get back into the union. Radical Reconstruction had begun. So, in 1868, Andrew Johnson was about as electable in the U.S. as Jefferson Davis, and sure enough he didn’t win. Instead, the 1868 election was won by Republican and former Union general Ulysses S. Grant. But Grant’s margin of victory was small enough that Republicans were like, “Man, we would sure win more elections if black people could vote.” Which is something you hear Republicans say all the time these days. So Congressional Republicans pushed the 15th Amendment, which prohibited states from denying men the right to vote based on race, but not based on gender or literacy or whether your grandfather could vote. So states ended up with a lot of leeway when it came to denying the franchise to African Americans, which of course they did. So here we have the federal government dictating who can vote, and who is and isn’t a citizen of a state, and establishing equality under the law--even local laws. And this is a really big deal in American history, because the national government became, rather than a threat to individual liberty, “the custodian of freedom,” as Radical Republican Charles Sumner put it. So but with this legal protection, former slaves began to exercise their rights. They participated in the political process by direct action, such as staging sit-ins to integrate street-cars, by voting in elections, and by holding office. Most African Americans were Republicans at the time, and because they could vote and were a large part of the population, the Republican party came to dominate politics in the South, just like today, except totally different. Now, Southern mythology about the age of radical Reconstruction is exemplified by Gone with the Wind, which of course tells the story of northern Republican dominance and corruption by southern Republicans. Fortune seeking northern carpetbaggers, seen here, as well as southern turncoat scalawags dominated politics and all of the African American elected leaders were either corrupt or puppets or both. Yeah, well, like the rest of Gone with the Wind, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. There were about 2,000 African Americans who held office during Reconstruction, and the vast majority of them were not corrupt. Consider for example the not-corrupt and amazingly-named Pinckney B.S. Pinchback, who from 1872 to 1873 served very briefly in Louisiana as America’s first black governor. And went on to be a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. By the way, America’s second African American governor, Douglas Wilder of Virginia was elected in 1989. Having African American officeholders was a huge step forward in term of ensuring the rights of African Americans because it meant that there would be black juries and less discrimination in state and local governments when it came to providing basic services. But in the end, Republican governments failed in the South. There were important achievements, especially a school system that, while segregated, did attempt to educate both black and white children. And even more importantly, they created a functioning government where both white and African American citizens could participate. According to one white South Carolina lawyer, “We have gone through one of the most remarkable changes in our relations to each other that has been known, perhaps, in the history of the world.” That’s a little hyperbolic, but we are America after all. (libertage) It’s true that corruption was widespread, but it was in the North, too. I mean, we’re talking about governments. And that’s not why Reconstruction really ended: It ended because 1. things like schools and road repair cost money, which meant taxes, which made Republican governments very unpopular because Americans hate taxes, and 2. White southerners could not accept African Americans exercising basic civil rights, holding office or voting. And for many, the best way to return things to the way they were before reconstruction was through violence. Especially after 1867, much of the violence directed toward African Americans in the South was politically motivated. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 and it quickly became a terrorist organization, targeting Republicans, both black and white, beating and murdering men and women in order to intimidate them and keep them from voting. The worst act of violence was probably the massacre at Colfax, Louisiana where hundreds of former slaves were murdered. And between intimidation and emerging discriminatory voting laws, fewer black men voted, which allowed white Democrats to take control of state governments in the south, and returned white Democratic congressional delegations to Washington. These white southern politicians called themselves “Redeemers” because they claimed to have redeemed the south from northern republican corruption and black rule. Now, it’s likely that the South would have fallen back into Democratic hands eventually, but the process was aided by Northern Republicans losing interest in Reconstruction. In 1873, the U.S. fell into yet another not-quite-Great economic depression and northerners lost the stomach to fight for the rights of black people in the south, which in addition to being hard was expensive. So by 1876 the supporters of reconstruction were in full retreat and the Democrats were resurgent, especially in the south. And this set up one of the most contentious elections in American history. The Democrats nominated New York Governor (and NYU Law School graduate) Samuel Tilden. The Republicans chose Ohio governor (and Kenyon College alumnus) Rutherford B. Hayes. One man who’d gone to Crash Course writer Raoul Meyer’s law school. And another who’d gone to my college, Kenyon. Now, if the election had been based on facial hair, as elections should be, there would’ve been no controversy, but sadly we have an electoral college here in the United States, and in 1876 there were disputed electoral votes in South Carolina, Louisiana, and, of course, Florida. Now you might remember that in these situations, there is a constitutional provision that says Congress should decide the winner, but Congress, shockingly, proved unable to accomplish something. So they appointed a 15 man Electoral Commission--a Super-Committee, if you will. And there were 8 Republicans on that committee and 7 Democrats, so you will never guess who won. Kenyon College’s own Rutherford B. Hayes. Go Lords and Ladies! And yes, that is our mascot. Shut up. Anyway in order to get the Presidency and win the support of the supercommittee, Hayes’ people agreed to cede control of the South to the Democrats and to stop meddling in Southern affairs and also to build a transcontinental railroad through Texas. This is called the Bargain of 1877 because historians are so good at naming things and it basically killed Reconstruction. Without any more federal troops in Southern states and with control of Southern legislatures firmly in the hands of white democrats the states were free to go back to restricting the freedom of black people, which they did. Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws that limited African American’s access to public accommodations and legal protections. States passed laws that took away black people’s right to vote and social and economic mobility among African Americans in the south declined precipitously. However, for a brief moment, the United States was more democratic than it had ever been before. And an entire segment of the population that had no impact on politics before was now allowed to participate. And for the freedmen who lived through it, that was a monumental change, and it would echo down to the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes called the second reconstruction. But we’re gonna end this episode on a downer, as we are wont to do here at Crash Course US History because I want to point out a lesser-known legacy of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction amendments and laws that were passed granted former slaves political freedom and rights, especially the vote, and that was critical. But to give them what they really wanted and needed, plots of land that would make them economically independent, would have required confiscation, and that violation of property rights was too much for all but the most radical Republicans. And that question of what it really means to be “free” in a system of free market capitalism has proven very complicated indeed. I’ll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself. And our graphics team is Thought Café. Every week there’s a new caption for the libertage. You can suggest those in comments where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thank you for watching Crash Course. Don’t forget to subscribe. And as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome. reconstruction -

Background

In drafting the national Constitution, the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 agreed that United States Senators would be chosen by state legislatures, not by the people.[1] Federal law prescribed that the senatorial election was to take place beginning on the second Tuesday after the two houses of the legislature which would be in office when the senatorial term expired, convened and chose legislative officers. On the designated day, balloting for senator would take place in each of the two chambers of the legislature. If a majority of each house voted for the same candidate, then the candidate would be declared elected at the joint assembly held the following day at noon. Otherwise, there would be a roll-call vote of all legislators, with a majority of those present needed to elect. In the event that no senator was elected, the legislature was required to hold at least one vote in joint assembly each day until it ended the session or a senator was elected.[2] Generally, the candidate of the majority party in the legislature was chosen by a vote of its legislative caucus.[3]

Since its founding in the mid-1850s, the Pennsylvania Republican Party had generally divided into factions, reflecting its makeup, a coalition between former members of the Democratic Party and former Whigs. In the runup to the 1867 Senate contest, the onetime Democrats were led by former senator and Secretary of War Simon Cameron, while the former Whigs were led by Governor Andrew Curtin.[4] The two men had first clashed in seeking the endorsement of the American Party (better known as the Know Nothings) for Senate in 1855, and in the course of that election had become bitter enemies.[5]

Cameron had twice served as senator from Pennsylvania. He was elected by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1845 as a Democrat to serve the uncompleted term of James Buchanan, who had resigned to become United States secretary of state. He was elected again in 1857 as a Republican, but resigned in 1861 to become Abraham Lincoln's secretary of war, with David Wilmot his successor in the Senate. Cameron resigned as war secretary after less than a year, during the Civil War, under pressure from Lincoln and Congress, and was appointed U.S. minister to Russia, but soon resigned. He was the Republican candidate for Senate in the 1863 election, but a Democrat was elected instead.[6][7]

Curtin, a lawyer, had been an activist for the Whig Party, speaking during its campaigns beginning in 1840. After helping James Pollock gain election as governor in 1855, he was given the post of secretary of the commonwealth. He became a rival to Cameron, opposing his 1857 Senate run. In 1860, he sought to become governor of Pennsylvania, with Cameron (who had presidential aspirations) opposing his candidacy. Curtin gained the nomination, but Cameron received Pennsylvania's endorsement as its favorite son candidate for president. Nevertheless, Curtin worked to defeat Cameron's candidacy,[8] and, after Lincoln and Curtin were elected, tried to prevent Cameron from receiving a cabinet post.[9] Cameron worked to defeat Curtin's renomination in 1863, but Curtin gained a second three-year term. In a letter, Cameron informed Lincoln, "there are many good Republicans and pious Christians who would see him [Curtin] in hell."[10]

The incumbent senator whose seat was to be filled in 1867, Edgar Cowan, was also a lawyer who had been an orator for the Whigs. He became known as a successful defense attorney, and later as a prosecutor, and joined the Republican Party in 1856. An opponent of the extension of slavery into the territories, he had supported Lincoln, cast a vote for him as a presidential elector, and, although a relative unknown, defeated Wilmot for the Republican endorsement in 1861 to gain a six-year Senate term.[a] As a senator, Cowan charted an independent course, and voted against the more punitive pieces of wartime legislation, outraging many in Congress and in the press. After the war, he became an ally of President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the 1864 National Union Party ticket, and who became president after Lincoln's assassination in 1865.[11]

Planning

When, in January 1863, Cameron was defeated in the Senate election by Charles Buckalew, 67 votes to 65, he immediately began planning to win the state's next Senate election, in 1867. To this end, he began rebuilding his personal political machine, composed of his numerous friends and supporters from around Pennsylvania, which had fallen into disrepair due to his absence from the state.[13] Cameron's fall from cabinet office to his Senate defeat, together with Curtin's successful re-election in 1863, placed the ex-Whig faction of the Republicans in the ascendancy.[4] In contrast with the near-disgrace that had befallen Cameron, Governor Curtin was known as "the soldier's friend" and received praise for leading the state through the war years.[14]

Cameron boosted his chances, restoring himself to Lincoln's good graces by aiding the president's re-election. At Lincoln's request, Cameron got the Republican members of the legislature to issue a letter to the president urging him to seek a second term—Cameron had, thirty years previously, penned such a "spontaneous" letter on behalf of Andrew Jackson under similar circumstances. He also saw to it that Pennsylvania sent a united delegation in support of Lincoln to the 1864 National Union National Convention, which nominated Lincoln, and arranged support for Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, whom Lincoln wanted as running mate. Cameron campaigned for Lincoln in the fall, and the re-elected president's gratitude translated into participation in political patronage, which helped Cameron retain the allegiance of his supporters through his ability to reward them with civil and military posts.[15] Curtin's control of Pennsylvania state patronage could not compete with Cameron's influence on federal appointments, and the governor and his supporters complained about the favoritism shown Cameron.[16]

Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 upended the patronage arrangements, and there were battles over appointments, especially since many officials, such as postmasters, had been appointed for four-year terms. Cameron was generally successful, retaining the plum post of postmaster of Philadelphia for a supporter, but supporters of Curtin and Representative Thaddeus Stevens joined together to deny Cameron backers the positions of state attorney general and chairman of the party, which Cameron had hoped for. This gave Curtin important momentum going into the crucial year of 1866.[17]

1866 campaign

Governor Andrew Curtin

Most important to Cameron in his planning were the office of governor—Curtin's successor would be elected in 1866—that of secretary of the commonwealth (chosen by the governor), and the speakership of the state House of Representatives.[18] Both major contenders wanted control of these offices, since the speakers of the two houses of the legislature could reward those who would vote for senator with seats on important committees, and the governor and secretary of the commonwealth could dispense patronage. Both also wanted to influence local conventions that would nominate Republican candidates for legislative seats.[19] Curtin, having served two consecutive terms as governor, was ineligible under Pennsylvania's 1838 constitution to run again for the office in 1866.[20]

Curtin fell ill in December 1865 and spent two months recuperating in Cuba, hampering his strategy in advance of the March 1866 state convention at which Republicans would nominate a candidate for governor. He wanted former state legislator Winthrop Welles Ketcham as the gubernatorial candidate, but neglected to make his choice clear to his supporters, and some, such as Alexander McClure, backed Frank Johnson. Curtin wrote to his secretary of the commonwealth, Eli Slifer: "do not neglect the composition of the convention—Cameron will pack it if he can and a little work will head him."[21] Cameron backed a declared Stevens supporter, former Union general and Kansas Territory governor, John W. Geary, who gained the former senator's support in exchange for a promise to appoint a Cameron supporter as secretary of the commonwealth. Cameron's control of the convention came as an unpleasant surprise to Curtin's supporters, to whom Geary was objectionable. Geary was easily nominated, which increased Cameron's chances of victory in the senatorial race at the expense of Curtin.[22][23]

Some of the focus was taken off the intraparty rivalry between Cameron and Curtin by the increasingly-hostile relationship between Republicans and President Johnson, who differed over Reconstruction, with the president favoring easier terms to restore the seceded states to full status in the Union. Curtin and Cameron supporters, while they still battled for nominations, found themselves making uneasy common cause at local conventions to ensure the defeat of candidates who supported Johnson's policies. The major candidates did not differ over Johnson, except each vied to show that he was more anti-Johnson, and had warned against his candidacy with Lincoln in 1864. Curtin made his break with Johnson after a Radical Republican governor was elected in Connecticut in April 1866; the timing of Cameron's break is less certain, but by August, he was writing that had he been listened to, Johnson would not have been nominated for vice president.[24]

Senator Cowan, together with a few minor Republican officials, tried to piece together a pro-Johnson movement within Pennsylvania, culminating in the 1866 National Union Convention in Philadelphia in August. However, with relatively few Republican candidates for the legislature supporting Johnson, the only means whereby supporters could back the president was by voting Democratic, but many refused to consider voting for the party they deemed responsible for the Civil War.[25] Republicans in the 1866 campaign originated the style of electioneering that would become known as "waving the bloody shirt": arguing that Republican victory was necessary so as not to squander the gains paid for with so much blood in the Civil War.[26]

During the election campaign for state offices, both Cameron and Curtin tried to pick up votes for their senatorial campaigns—Curtin wrote that he was working closely with the Philadelphia Republican organization, and hoped to pick up all but three Republican votes from there.[27] Governor Curtin was a better speaker than Cameron, and most of the Republican Party's chief orators supported the governor. Cameron could not afford to abandon the field to them, and though he made few outdoor speeches to large crowds, often presided over campaign rallies, and sometimes introduced the main speaker with remarks of his own. Although Stevens was the acknowledged master of dissecting opponents with cutting oratory, Cameron was better than most in this field. He and Curtin crossed paths several times during the campaign, and shared the platform at a Philadelphia meeting alongside Geary and General Ambrose Burnside. The Republican campaign was highlighted by the August Soldiers and Sailors Convention in Pittsburgh, with the main speaker being General Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts.[28]

In the state elections held in October, Geary was elected, and the Republicans gained a combined majority of over 30 seats in the houses of the legislature, assuring them that they had the votes to replace Cowan.[29] With Republicans holding 84 seats out of 133 in the 1867 legislature, a candidate needed 43 Republican votes to gain the party's endorsement, and likely the senatorship, since it was unusual for legislators to defy their party.[3][30] With the 1866 elections meaning that the legislature would be dominated by the Republicans, not even the most optimistic Democratic newspaper saw a path for their party to win the seat.[5]

Maneuvering

Following the October elections, Cameron and Curtin were the frontrunners, but a number of other Republican political figures were spoken of for the Senate seat. Most prominent was Thaddeus Stevens, whose vocal opposition to the Johnson administration had captured the imagination of many in the Pennsylvania Republican Party. However, Stevens's age (74 at the time of the election), lack of a political organization outside his home county of Lancaster, and the fact that he was deemed indispensable in the federal House of Representatives meant he was unlikely to emerge even as a compromise candidate. Other contenders, each of whom had only minimal, regional support, were former U.S. speaker of the House Galusha Grow, representatives James K. Moorhead and Thomas Williams, and the secretary of the United States Senate, John W. Forney.[31] More was at stake than the Senate seat, at least for Cameron and Curtin; the winner would control the state Republican Party, with the loser lacking office and influence.[32][33]

There was bitterness after the state elections between the two main contenders; one defeated legislative candidate accused the Cameron faction of allying with the Democrats to beat him.[34] McClure, the state party chair, tried to secure the vote of newly elected state representative Frederick S. Stumbaugh by getting the local party in his home county of Franklin to instruct him to vote for Curtin, but Stumbaugh refused to recognize the instructions as binding. Many local papers predicted Curtin's election, but the large metropolitan dailies did not. Former president James Buchanan, remembering unlikely victories by Cameron in the past, suspected he would be returned to the Senate.[35] Cameron gained the support of Curtin's 1863 campaign manager, Wayne MacVeagh, perhaps for reasons having nothing to do with politics, as in 1866 MacVeagh married Cameron's youngest daughter, and MacVeagh's followers in the legislature voted for Cameron in the caucus.[36][37]

Final days and election

As part of his Christmas 1866 greetings to Butler, Cameron wrote, "I expect and intend to win".[36] Cameron won a victory when Governor-elect Geary, who had given the impression his cabinet would be above faction, appointed a close friend of Cameron, Benjamin H. Brewster, as state attorney general.[38] L. Kauffman, a Stevens supporter, wrote to the congressman, "Why did he not hold up the appointment until after the contest for the Speakership? But it is done and we must fight."[39] As it became clear Stumbaugh would support Cameron, Stevens wrote him a bitter letter stating that Stumbaugh could not have been elected without his aid.[40] McClure, in his memoirs, deemed Stumbaugh one of 3 "monuments of perfidy" whom he named as traitors to the Curtin cause, and among 21 legislators who he said had promised to vote for Curtin but had not.[41]

Nevertheless, Curtin was still seen as the frontrunner, with his supporter, Matthew Quay, the favorite to become speaker of the state House of Representatives. Control of the speakership and its powers to assign members to committees would likely assure Curtin's victory, and his rivals combined to try to defeat Quay. Cameron hoped a Quay defeat would lead to his victory, while Stevens and Grow wanted a deadlock that might be resolved with a compromise candidate. According to Quay biographer James A. Kehl, "with a little maneuvering by Cameron, the combination of anti-Curtin forces united behind [John P.] Glass and elected him. Without realizing the consequences of their actions, they enabled Cameron to harvest all the fruits of victory for himself, because Glass was secretly 'his man'."[42] When the legislature convened in early January, Glass was easily elected over the Democratic candidate.[43] Glass used his control of committee assignments to influence supporters of Stevens, Grow and other minor candidates.[44] Stevens saw these events as presaging Curtin's defeat, writing, "I believe the latter's [Curtin's] friends consider the game up for him."[45]

The days before the Republican caucus on January 10, 1867,[45] saw increasing depression in the Curtin camp. On January 7, Cameron wrote to a friend,

I am I think going to win. Indeed, I do not see how I can be defeated ... Forney and Stevens and Grow all believed the fight would be so violent and so evenly divided between Curtin and me, that one of them would get the prize—and each believed himself the fortunate expectant, but my strength was developed so early that they found Curtin was beaten—and now they are combining against me. I feel certain they will be disappointed again. They are all to be here, in person, and for the next 4 days I will be the best abused man in 'there parts'. I like a fight, and if I don't whip them, they will have more luck than they merit.[46]

Anxious to head off any possible revolt and alliance with the Democrats to elect a senator, Cameron's son J. Donald "Don" Cameron, his father's campaign manager, met with Quay, asking him to move to make the nomination unanimous after the caucus vote, and offering amnesty for Curtin supporters. Quay conferred with Curtin, who agreed to the proposal.[44] Nevertheless, a few days before the caucus, Stevens, Grow and Curtin met with Forney in his hotel suite to try to deny Cameron the election. The only plan they could come up with was an alliance with the Democrats, which Curtin refused to consider.[47]

The caucus took place in Harrisburg on the evening of January 10. Cameron was nominated for Senate on the first ballot with 46 votes, with 23 for Curtin, 7 for Stevens, and 5 for Grow. Two senators, both from Lancaster County, did not vote. At Quay's motion, the nomination was made unanimous. The previous day, Democrats had convened to select their caucus's candidate. State Senator William A. Wallace received votes, as did Chief Justice George Washington Woodward of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, but Cowan received a majority of the vote and his nomination was made unanimous.[44][48]

John W. Geary was elected Pennsylvania's governor in 1866.

On January 14, the two houses of the legislature voted. Cameron initially received 62 votes in the House to Cowan's 37, and 19 votes in the Senate to Cowan's 10, but at the joint assembly of the houses the following day, three senators who had been unable to vote asked leave to cast their ballots, with one for Cameron and two for Cowan, making the final Senate tally 20 votes to 12. One Democratic representative voted for Cameron; one Republican representative for Cowan. With both houses having cast a majority vote for Cameron, he was declared elected at the joint assembly.[30][49] In a speech after his election, Cameron stated that the vote vindicated him against the accusations he had been subjected to over the years, called President Johnson a traitor, and called for a higher protective tariff for the manufacturers of Pennsylvania. Curtin, whose term as governor had expired, departed for Europe.[50] There were accusations of corruption in Cameron's election, by Stevens, McClure and others. An investigative committee, appointed by Speaker Glass and led by Representative Stumbaugh, found no evidence of it.[41][51]

Aftermath

According to his biographer, Paul Kahan, Cameron's victory "represented a decisive turning point in Pennsylvania's political history. Cameron not only won the Senate seat, he also crushed Curtin and McClure's bid to control Pennsylvania's Republican Party. While Cameron still faced challenges to his power, moving forward he was generally recognized as the political 'boss' of Pennsylvania."[52] Ambitious young politicians, such as Matthew Quay, drifted into the Cameron camp, with the alternative being political oblivion.[53] With many of his opponents defeated, converted or forced from politics, by the time Cameron was re-elected to the Senate in 1873, almost every Republican in the legislature was a "Cameron man".[54]

According to William H. Egle in his essay on his second term as governor, Curtin's great popularity with former Union soldiers "seemed to have but little weight with the political demagogues who controlled the actions of the General Assembly of the State. The overwhelming sentiment of the people succumbed to base political strategy."[55] Many rank-and-file Republicans were upset at the wartime governor's defeat by what they feared was a Cameron cabal, and reacted by denying Cameron the chair of Pennsylvania's delegation to the 1868 Republican National Convention. The state convention required the delegation to vote to have Curtin named as Ulysses S. Grant's running mate, but the vice presidential nomination went to Schuyler Colfax of Indiana. Grant appointed Curtin as minister to Russia in 1869, meaning the former governor was absent from Pennsylvania as Cameron consolidated his power.[56][57]

After resigning from his post in St. Petersburg, Curtin supported the Democratic and Liberal Republican candidate for president in 1872, Horace Greeley. He remained with the Democratic Party, serving three terms in Congress from 1881 to 1887, after which he practiced law in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and died in 1894.[8] Cowan was nominated as minister to Austria by Johnson, but was never confirmed by the Senate. He returned to his law practice in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and died in 1878.[11]

Cameron was re-elected to the Senate in 1873, and resigned in 1877 to allow his son Don Cameron to take the seat, which he held for a further twenty years. Simon Cameron died in 1889 at the age of 90.[6][58] The Cameron machine dominated politics in Pennsylvania for a half-century after 1867, with control of it passing to Matthew Quay, who became a senator himself, and then to Senator Boies Penrose.[59][60]

Notes

  1. ^ Pennsylvania held two Senate elections in 1861. Cowan was elected for a full six-year term in January.[11] Cameron's resignation necessitated an election to fill the remainder of his term, to expire in 1863, which Wilmot won.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bybee, pp. 509–510.
  2. ^ Schiller & Stewart, pp. 43–44.
  3. ^ a b Bradley, pp. 273–274.
  4. ^ a b Kelley 1963, p. 376.
  5. ^ a b Bradley, p. 271.
  6. ^ a b Baker, Jean (1999). "Cameron, Simon". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0400195.
  7. ^ Kelley 1966, pp. 107–113.
  8. ^ a b Ferris, Norman B. (1999). "Curtin, Andrew Gregg". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0400286.
  9. ^ Stewart, pp. 31–32.
  10. ^ Furniss, pp. 168–169.
  11. ^ a b c Siddali, Silvana (1999). "Cowan, Edgar". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0400272.
  12. ^ "Wilmot, David". United States House of Representatives. Archived from the original on March 11, 2023. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
  13. ^ Stewart, pp. 22, 34.
  14. ^ Bradley, p. 273.
  15. ^ Kahan, pp. 231–237.
  16. ^ Kahan, p. 238.
  17. ^ Kelley 1963, pp. 377–378.
  18. ^ Stewart, p. 34.
  19. ^ Kelley 1963, p. 378.
  20. ^ Akagi, p. 326.
  21. ^ Kelley 1963, pp. 378–379.
  22. ^ Kelley 1963, pp. 379–381.
  23. ^ Kahan, pp. 240–241.
  24. ^ Kelley 1963, p. 381.
  25. ^ Bradley, pp. 263–265.
  26. ^ Bradley, p. 268.
  27. ^ Stewart, p. 35.
  28. ^ Bradley, pp. 267–268.
  29. ^ Bradley, p. 269.
  30. ^ a b "U.S. Senate Election – 15 January 1867" (PDF). Wilkes University. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 1, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2013.
  31. ^ Bradley, pp. 271–272.
  32. ^ Bradley, p. 272.
  33. ^ Kahan, p. 242.
  34. ^ Kelley 1963, p. 383.
  35. ^ Bradley, p. 274.
  36. ^ a b Stewart, p. 36.
  37. ^ Furniss, p. 173.
  38. ^ Bradley, p. 280.
  39. ^ Stewart, p. 37.
  40. ^ Kelley 1963, p. 389.
  41. ^ a b Bradley, p. 284.
  42. ^ Kehl, pp. 21–23.
  43. ^ Bradley, p. 281.
  44. ^ a b c Kehl, p. 23.
  45. ^ a b Stewart, p. 38.
  46. ^ Bradley, pp. 281–282.
  47. ^ Bradley, p. 282.
  48. ^ "From Harrisburg". Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. January 11, 1867. p. 6. Archived from the original on February 27, 2023. Retrieved February 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  49. ^ "United States Senator". Harrisburg Telegraph. January 16, 1867. p. 2. Archived from the original on February 27, 2023. Retrieved February 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  50. ^ Bradley, p. 391.
  51. ^ Kelley 1963, pp. 389–390.
  52. ^ Kahan, p. 244.
  53. ^ Kehl, p. 31.
  54. ^ Bradley, p. 275.
  55. ^ Egle, pp. 205–206.
  56. ^ Kehl, pp. 23–24.
  57. ^ ""Smiler" March 4, 1869". United States Senate. Archived from the original on April 10, 2023. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
  58. ^ Kehl, pp. 207–209.
  59. ^ Kehl, pp. 28–30.
  60. ^ Schiller & Stewart, p. 215.

Bibliography

External links

Preceded by Pennsylvania U.S. Senate election (Class III)
1867
Succeeded by
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