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The 27th episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1892, Grover from Sesame Street and Cleveland from Family Guy come back with a vengeance.
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The 27th Presidential election in American history took place on November 8, 1892. Benjamin Harrison had a rough term as President, and even though he had doubts himself, he decided to run for re-election. The Republican Party went ahead and renominated him, despite potential challenges from John Sherman and James Blaine.
Levi Morton would not be renominated, however. Back in 1890, Harrison supported the Lodge Bill, an election law meant to help the black vote in the South as a way to fight Jim Crow laws, but it didn’t pass. Harrison blamed Morton for the bill’s failure, and at the Republican convention, Morton was replaced by Whitelaw Reid, the editor of the New York Tribune and recent U.S. Ambassador to France.
Guess who’s back? Grover’s back!
After winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote in 1888, Grover Cleveland was back with a vengeance in 1892. While many were ready for a return to his policies, he did face opponents like David Hill, the Senator and former governor of New York. However, Cleveland survived to become the first Democrat nominated a third time to run for President. The Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson, a former U.S. Representative from Illinois, for Vice President. Stevenson was an interesting choice because he favored greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency while Cleveland was a gold standard guy who didn’t just printing money. Cleveland was cool with Stevenson on the ticket as it provided some balance.
Still, a lot of Americans were not satisfied with the two-party system, and by this time a new movement had emerged. The previous year, alliances made up of poor cotton farmers in the South and wheat farmers in the Plains states, along with some labor unions in the North and Republicans in South, all joined forces to create a new political party, called the People’s Party. More commonly known as Populists, they generally were hostile to elites, banks, railroad corporations, the gold standard, and even city folk. If you wanted to know more about the Populists, check out my Story Time video now. I’ll wait for you to come back. I promise! But only if you first pause this video, otherwise I will just keep talking.
You good now? Ok, so the Populists had their first convention in Omaha, Nebraska, where a Populist hot spot. They nominated James Weaver, the former U.S. Representative from Iowa who had previously ran for President in the Greenback Party back in 1880 but lost. His running mate was James Field, the Attorney General of Virginia.
The Prohibition Party was still going strong. At their convention, there were talks of merging with the Populists, but it just never panned out. They nominated John Bidwell, one of the original pioneers to head out west and a former U.S. Representative from California. Texas religious leader James Cranfill, aka The Reverend J.B. Cranfill, was Bidwell’s running mate.
One interesting political party that emerged in 1892 was the Socialist Labor Party. They were only on the ballot in five states, but had a unique platform that called for getting rid of the positions of President and Vice President. So they nominated camera inventor Simon Wing for President and socialist activist Charles Matchett for Vice President, even though both would willingly give up their positions after getting elected. Weird.
Just like the last presidential election, debate over tariffs dominated the campaigns. Harrison defended his support of the McKinley Tariff, while Cleveland continued to argue for tariff reductions. The campaigns all stopped after Harrison’s wife, First Lady Caroline Harrison, passed away in October from tuberculosis.
