After the election he wrote to John about the fickleness of the voter, “The result of the election was as much a surprise to the Democrats here as to the Republicans, and nobody seems able to account for it satisfactorily yet. I do not think it much use to blame Chairman Carter [Thomas Henry Carter, the chairman of the Republican National Committee] or the tariff or the Homestead affair, the reason seems to be in the never satisfied mind of the American and in the ever desire to shift in hope of something better and in the vague idea of the working and farming classes that somebody is getting
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