Chester A. Arthur Republican Grover Cleveland Democratic Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1884.

Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York narrowly defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine.

For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.

Blaine, who had served as Secretary of State under President Garfield, defeated Arthur and other candidates on the fourth ballot of the 1884 Republican National Convention.

The Democrats convened in Chicago on July 8–11, 1884, with New York Governor Grover Cleveland as clear frontrunner, the candidate of northern reformers and sound-money men (as opposed to inflationists).

Its only chance to block Cleveland was to break the unit rule, which mandated that the votes of an entire delegation be cast for only one candidate, and this it failed to do.

But this rather lackluster address was eclipsed by the seconding speech of Edward S. Bragg from Wisconsin, who roused the delegates with a memorable slap at Tammany.

As the convention rocked with cheers, Tammany boss John Kelly lunged at the platform, screaming that he welcomed the compliment.

Trailing him were Thomas F. Bayard from Delaware, 170; Allen G. Thurman from Ohio, 88; Samuel J. Randall from Pennsylvania, 78; and Joseph E. McDonald from Indiana, 56; with the rest scattered.

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 81.5 for Bayard and 45.5 for Thomas A. Hendricks from Indiana.

Hendricks was nominated unanimously for vice president on the first ballot after John C. Black, William Rosecrans, and George Washington Glick withdrew their names from consideration.

[2] The 1884 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, on June 3–6, with former Secretary of State James G. Blaine from Maine, President Arthur, and Senator George F. Edmunds from Vermont as the frontrunners.

Though he was still popular, Arthur did not make a serious bid for a full-term nomination, knowing that his increasing health problems meant he would probably not survive a second term (he ultimately died in November 1886).

The convention nominated former Massachusetts Governor Benjamin F. Butler for president over chairman Jesse Harper on the first ballot.

Butler initially hoped to organize fusion tickets with the minority party in each state, a strategy designed to capitalize on the cross-partisan popularity of many elements of the candidate's program.

The Greenbacks succeeded in negotiating fusion arrangements with the Democrats in Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska and with the Republicans in Missouri and West Virginia.

He traveled throughout northern states in the spring and gave an address entitled "The American Party – Its Principles and Its Claims."

St. John later unanimously won the Prohibition Party nomination, with Pomeroy and Conant withdrawing from the presidential contest and endorsing him.

In just one deal, he had received $110,150 (over $1.5 million in 2010 dollars) from the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad for securing a federal land grant, among other things.

Aided by sermons from a minister named George H. Ball, they charged that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo.

[12] Shortly before election day, the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland her "life was pure and spotless," and "there is not, and never was, a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland, or his friends, to couple the name of Oscar Folsom, or any one else, with that boy, for that purpose is simply infamous and false.

They also noted that there was no proof that Cleveland was the father, and claimed that, by assuming responsibility and finding a home for the child, he was merely doing his duty.

The greatest threat to the Republicans came from reformers called "Mugwumps" who were angrier at Blaine's public corruption than at Cleveland's private affairs.

Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure it was widely publicized.

By contrast, Butler earned less than half the popular vote share that James B. Weaver had won in 1880, accelerating the decline of the Greenback Party.

[26] In Burke County, Georgia, 897 votes were cast for bolting "Whig Republican" electors for president (they were not counted for Blaine).

Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.