The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880 by Benjamin T. Arrington

This book is an account of the 1880 presidential election, which produced one of the highest levels of voter turnout and the narrowest popular-vote margin of victory in American history. It seeks to demonstrate that the victor, Ohio’s James A. Garfield, was committed to fulfilling the promises of emancipation and equality for African Americans even as many of his fellow Republicans were no longer interested, or saw little advantage, in it. Arrington aptly lays out the backdrop of the contest, including the lingering effects of Rutherford B. Hayes’ disputed election four years earlier, and the jockeying for power between the “establishment” Republicans led by John Sherman, Roscoe Conkling’s “Stalwarts,” and James Blaine’s “Half-Breeds .” The factions evinced few policy differences. Along with Garfield, they all favored the gold standard, and Arrington rejects the conventional wisdom that the Half-Breeds were more committed than the Stalwarts to civil-service reform (which Garfield gradually...