American History: Garfield’s Short Presidency Ends in Tragedy
21 April 2010
James Garfield
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.
In eighteen eighty, President Rutherford Hayes completed four successful years in the White House. He did not want to serve another term. Hayes was a Republican. His party had great hopes of electing another Republican in the election of eighteen eighty.
This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe report on that election.
KAY GALLANT: Many Republicans wanted to nominate former President Ulysses Grant. Grant had been out of office four years. People seemed to have forgotten the political problems that shook his administration.
Other Republicans supported the powerful party leader, Senator James Blaine. A third candidate was John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury.
The Republicans had great difficulty choosing among Grant, Blaine and Sherman. At their national convention, Republican delegates voted again and again. None of the three men received a majority.
HARRY MONROE: The delegates voted ten times, twenty times, thirty times. Finally, on the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen of the delegates voted for a compromise candidate. He was James Garfield, a Republican leader in Congress. Soon, both Sherman and Blaine asked all of their delegates to vote for Garfield. The compromise candidate won the nomination.
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