Tariff Controversies
of the Republican party but also to the adoption of many of its policies. On the question of the tariff it was verbosely non-commital. The Republican convention nominated James G. Blaine of Maine for President and John A. Logan of Illinois for Vice-President. Its platform was eminently explicit and progressive. It took strong ground for Federal regulation of interstate commerce, a national bureau of labor, the eight hour law, civil service reform, restriction of Chinese immigration, forfeiture of lapsed land grants and reservation of public lands for actual settlers, maintenance of the Monroe doctrine and restoration of the American navy and commercial marine. The salient plank was, however, that relating to the tariff which denounced the Democratic “tariff for revenue only” doctrine and demanded that “in raising the requisite revenues for the government, duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its just reward, and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity.”
The campaign was marked with much animation and energy, but unfortunately on both sides with regrettable personalities. A local quarrel in the Republican party in the State of New York caused some disaffection and the result was that the Democrats carried that State by an insignificant plurality, and thus won the election, securing the Presidency for the first time since the Buchanan administration of 1857–61. The Republicans secured 182 electoral and polled 4,851,981 popular votes; the Democrats 219 electoral and 4,874,986 popular votes; the Greenback and Anti-Monopoly parties
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