The American Presidential Election of 1888

The Ultimate American Presidential Election BookEvery Presidential Election in American History (17882024) is now available!

Mr. Beat's band

Help Mr. Beat spend more time making videos

The 26th episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1888, Cleveland tries to get re-elected, but tariffs remain popular in his home state of New York.

Feeling extra dorky? Then visit here:

The 26th Presidential election in American history took place on November 6, 1888. My birthday, again. Is that why I love this stuff? Grover Cleveland had a solid first term. The country was at peace and the economy...fantastic. He even got married, to Frances Folsom, who, at 21 years old, became the youngest First Lady in American history. Cleveland was a fairly popular dude with lots of integrity. If Cleveland was alive today, he’d be called a libertarian. He vetoed a lot of bills, tried to reduce government spending, had a non interventionist foreign policy, and wanted free trade.

Cleveland was unanimously re-nominated by the Democratic Party, which was special because this was the first time a Democratic President had been renominated since Martin Van Buren in 1840. Since his former Vice President, Thomas Hendricks, had died while in office, he needed a new one, so the Democrats nominated Allen Thurman, a former Senator from Ohio, to run with him this time.

You know how I mentioned free trade? Well many people were upset with Cleveland’s free trade leanings, and they wanted a higher tariff to protect American industries. Many Americans in industrial states wanted to vote against Cleveland because they feared losing their jobs, and they looked again to the Republicans.

James Blaine decided not to run for President this time because he feared he might just further divide the Republican Party. He backed both Benjamin Harrison, a Senator from Indiana and grandson of former President William Henry Harrison, and John Sherman, who again was a Senator from Ohio and running a second time.

The Republicans went with Harrison, because he was a Civil War veteran who was popular with other veterans and could give a darn good speech. Oh yeah, and he lived in a swing state. Thanks electoral college! Levi Morton, a New York City banker and former Representative and Minister to France, was his running mate.

It’s time for third parties! I will only mention two of them as the others were, um, pretty irrelevant. No offense, United Labor Party!

The Prohibition Party kept gaining momentum. They nominated Clinton Fisk, a general from New York, with John Brooks as running mate. As I tried to research Brooks on the internet, I couldn’t find much at all. I do know he was a human being. I think.

A new political party, the Union Labor Party, were a ragtag bunch with wide ranging views, but they were all united to fight for worker rights. They nominated Alson Streeter, a former Greenbacker and farmer and miner from Illinois. His running mate was lumberman Charles Cunningham, from Arkansas.

The campaigns between the two front runners, Cleveland and Harrison, were intense, as it looked to be a super close election. The main issue, of course, was tariffs. Cleveland wanted less, and Harrison more. While Cleveland still did not actively campaign as most presidential candidates did not before him, Harrison did so, enthusiastically giving many speeches from his front porch of his Indianapolis home to many newspaper reporters. His front porch campaign was similar to James Garfield, and it worked well for him, so why not?

So here is one development that was pretty messed up. Leading up to the election, it was exposed that William Wade Dudley, the Treasurer of the Republican National Committee, was caught buying votes in Indiana for Harrison. Remember, Indiana was a swing state so this was a big deal. The outcry of this scandal is the reason why ballots after this were cast in secret and not out in the open.