American election campaigns in the 19th century

During the Reconstruction Era, Republicans in Congress used the military to create a biracial electorate, but when the troops were removed in 1877, blacks steadily lost political power in the increasingly one-party Southern United States.

The system was characterized by two major parties who dominated government at the local, state and national level, and enlisted most voters into a loyal "army" of supporters.

In an era when many if not most political leaders had experience as militia officers, and perhaps had engaged in actual combat, structuring parties along a militaristic chain of command seemed logical enough.

He explains how the machine worked: Cheatham explores in detail many of the fine points including mass rallies, auxiliary organizations, women's groups, music, pamphlets, and material objects such as banners, marching uniforms and buttons.

As a Boston Federalist complained, "The jacobins have at last made their own discipline perfect; they are trained, officered, regimented and formed to subordination in a manner that our own militia have never yet equaled."

The Democratic-Republican caucus in Congress chose presidential candidates for the party, while the Federalists invented (in 1812) a much more flexible system of a national convention.

To find new supporters politicians systematically canvassed their communities, talking up the state and national issues of the day, and watching which themes drew the best responses.

The Democrats did much better among Catholics and other high-church (liturgical) groups, as well as among those who wanted minimal government, and among whites who demanded that African Americans not be granted political or social equality.

[14] The Democrats talked of agrarian virtues of the yeoman farmer, westward expansion, and how well rural life comported with Jeffersonian values.

[15] Both parties set up campaign clubs, such as the Wide Awakes where young men paraded in torchlight processions wearing special uniforms and holding colorful banners.

The parties used rallies, parades, banners, buttons and insignia to display partisanship and promote the theme that with so much strength, victory must be inevitable.

They set up networks of activists in every county charged with visiting every potential supporter in a specified neighborhood, especially in the critical last days before the election.

Top publishers, such as Horace Greeley, Whitelaw Reid, Schuyler Colfax, Warren Harding and James Cox, were nominated on the national ticket.

By becoming non-partisan they expanded their base to include the opposition party and the fast-growing number of consumers who read the ads but were less and less interested in politics.

There was less political news after 1900, apparently because citizens became more apathetic, and shared their partisan loyalties with the new professional sports teams that attracted growing audiences.

[20][21] Whitelaw Reid, the powerful long-time editor of the Republican New York Tribune, emphasized the importance of partisan newspapers in 1879: Campaigns were financed internally for most of the century.

Aspirants for office volunteered their services as speakers; wealthy leaders contributed cash, and patronage appointees not only worked for the party but also donated 2 to 5 percent of the salaries.

Abraham Lincoln, for example, was a leading western supporter of Zachary Taylor in 1848, and wanted in return to be named Commissioner of the United States General Land Office.

[24] A new body of intensely moralistic politicians would suddenly discover that the opposition was ensconced in power, was thoroughly corrupt, and had plans to utterly destroy republicanism.

Andrew Jackson in 1828 started the Second Party System by crusading against the "corrupt bargain" that had denied him the White House in 1824, and again against the Bank of the United States in 1832.

The most dramatic crusade was that of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, as he identified the gold and monied interests as responsible for depression, poverty and plutocracy.

America stood in stark contrast with Europe, where the middle classes, peasants and industrial workers had to mobilize to demand suffrage.

Late in the century, Americans did create farmer and labor movements, but most were nonpartisan, and those that fielded candidates rarely lasted more than an election or two.

[29] George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) was an American artist whose paintings of elections in the 1850s are used by historians to explain the complexities and details of grassroots democracy.

Before creating the painting, Bingham had made preliminary sketches of the three aforementioned people, who represented his ideas of the past, present, and future of American politics.

The "Outstanding Citizen", as Bingham's sketch refers to him, represents the past, as the man's sharp edges and fine clothes show how he is unwilling to bend his beliefs, and instead works among the people.

The "Stump Speaker" appears to be swaying the assembled crowd by bending to the people's desires, shown by the curving arm that is outstretched to the audience.

"Waving the bloody shirt" was a phrase used to ridicule opposing politicians who made emotional calls to avenge the blood of political martyrs.

The phrase gained popularity with a fictitious incident in which Benjamin Franklin Butler of Massachusetts, when making a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, allegedly held up a shirt stained with the blood of a carpetbagger whipped by the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction Era.