The 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election. It saw the first election of a Democrat as President of the United States since 1856. Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. President Chester A. Arthur had acceded to the presidency in 1881 following the assassination of James A. Garfield.
About 1884 United States presidential election in brief
The 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election. It saw the first election of a Democrat as President of the United States since 1856. Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. President Chester A. Arthur had acceded to the presidency in 1881 following the assassination of James A. Garfield, but he was unsuccessful in his bid for nomination to a full term. Cleveland won 48. 9% of the nationwide popular vote and 219 electoral votes, carrying the Solid South and several key swing states. Arthur did not make a serious bid for a full-term term, knowing that his health problems meant he would probably not survive a second term. William Tecumseh Sherman was considered a possible Republican candidate, but ruled himself out with what has become known as the Sherman pledge: I will not run if I am not nominated, if I become the Republican candidate for president, and if I are nominated, I will refuse to accept the Republican nomination and run as a Democrat for president. The election was set apart by unpleasant mudslinging and shameful allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, for example, civil administration change. The campaign was marred by exceptional political acrimony and personal invective. The 1884 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, on June 3–6, with former Secretary of State James Blaine from Maine, President Arthur, and Senator George F.
Edmunds from Vermont as therunners. On the first ballot, Cleveland led the field with 392 votes, more than 150 votes short of the nomination. Arthur and Blaine led on the second, third, and fourth ballots, but Blaine increased his lead on the fourth ballot and he won a majority on the fifth ballot. The last former or current Secretary of state to be nominated by a major political party until the nomination of Hillary Clinton 132 years later. In the election, Cleveland won his home state by just 1,149 votes; had he lost New York, he would have lost the election. Two third-party candidates, John St. John of the Prohibition Party and Benjamin Butler of the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party, each won less than 2% of the popular vote. The Democrats convened in Chicago on July 8–11, 1884, with New York Governor Cleveland as clear frontrunner, the candidate of northern reformers and sound-money men. Tammany Hall bitterly opposed his nomination, but the machine represented a minority of the New York delegation, and this it failed to block Cleveland’s nomination. This move, together with the Southern bloc scrambling aboard the Cleveland bandwagon, was enough to put him over the top of the second ballot, with 683 votes to 81 for Bayard and 45. 5 for Thomas A. Hendricks for vice-president. The Republicans convened in New York on July 12–13, 1883, and chose Senator John A Logan from Illinois as the presidential nominee.
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