Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre

by Heather Cox Richardson

Even worse, it seemed a short step from high tariffs to “socialism or communism,” for if the government could protect businesses at the expense of laborers, it would only be a question of time before labor interests demanded the same government protection.9

Pro-tariff Republicans not only attacked the policies of the free traders, but also made personal attacks on the individuals who wanted lower tariffs. They impugned the loyalty of Democratic free traders, charging that Democrats who backed the Mills Bill were from the states that had supported slavery before the Civil War and could not shake their fondness for the institution. Tariff reformers from the South either wanted to turn white workers into slaves, or were so woefully ignorant that they didn’t understand finance.

Protectionists were hostile to all Democrats, but the majority of their venom was reserved for Grover Cleveland, who they feared might win again in 1892. According to pro-tariff Republicans, Cleveland was a broken old man who wanted the office for the spoils it would bring.

The Republicans’ relentless attacks on their opponents did not manage to sway voters’ growing belief that the administration was out of touch with what was happening in the nation. Mrs. Harrison had drawn up plans for a $700,000 extension of the White House with conservatories, winter gardens, and a statuary hall, “so as to make it a fit home for the Presidential family.”

As the weakening economy threw urban laborers out of work and the brutally hot summer of 1890 baked dry the gardens of the Sioux and fields of western settlers, anti-Republican sentiment spread. By the summer of 1890, the administration realized that name calling and cheery promises of prosperity were not enough to quiet the growing clamor against the tariff.

Pro-tariff Republicans knew that they had to solidify their power to keep control of the government. Turning their eyes to the upcoming midterm elections, and with the presidential election of 1892 on the horizon, they planned an aggressive campaign to rig the electoral system to the Republicans’ advantage.15

Republicans adopted the language of ballot reform in 1890, but their real goal was to skew the vote toward their candidates, not to purify the system.

In the nineteenth century, American voting was much more public than it is today and was largely controlled by party leaders. Ballots were printed by the political parties, and listed only the names of each party’s own candidates. A voter did not have to mark the ballot, and he couldn’t “split the ticket,” voting for some of his party’s candidates but not others. He simply handed his party’s ballot to a voting official in a public place crowded with onlookers, often a saloon. To make certain an illiterate voter couldn’t be duped into voting for the wrong party, and to guarantee that he couldn’t promise to vote one way but then quietly switch, parties color-coded their ballots.

Everyone knew how a man voted, and votes were often for sale—either indirectly, as party bosses brought whiskey to the polls and made sure supporters got jobs from cooperative employers, or directly, with cash bribes.

The voting system implemented in Australia, and increasingly popular in America by 1890, promised to clean up this system. It would make voting secret and limit participation to men who could read, those citizens who, reformers presumed, would vote intelligently rather than at the behest of a party machine. Under the new program, government officials rather than political bosses would prepare a single ballot, which would be used by all voters. Men would mark the ballots in private voting booths, in a polling place designed solely for that purpose, rather than in a saloon or other public gathering place.

Opponents complained that the secret ballot would disfranchise the illiterate, take too long as voters pondered their decisions, and create great confusion.18

Still, many Americans gravitated toward the idea that the voting system must be cleaned up. Few were principled advocates of pure elections, though. Most wanted to purge elections of voters who supported the other party.

By 1890, with Democrats increasingly comfortable that they enjoyed the support of the majority of Americans, cries for ballot reform came primarily from Republicans, and they were increasingly shrill.

The Democratic city government was notoriously corrupt. Politicians from the Tammany Hall political machine distributed public contracts to friends in business who, in turn, hired immigrants and struggling workers. These men voted to keep the Democratic machine in power.

Tammany’s tight grip on New York City’s voters made Republicans furious. It was bad enough that immigrants and other workers determined the policies of the city rather than the men who paid the taxes that funded those policies. Worse, though, in the minds of national leaders anyway, was that the vote in New York City often determined the outcome of a presidential election.

The other area of Republican focus on ballot reform was the South. Southern African Americans overwhelmingly voted Republican, but the number of them who made it to the polls had been dropping steadily since Democrats had taken over Southern state governments in the 1870s.

There was no getting around the fact, though, that increasing black attendance at the polls would also help the Republican Party. Indeed, administration Republicans claimed that Southern Democrats only won national office when they suppressed the black vote, and they insisted that the election of 1884 had been a defeat of the true will of the people, as Southern Democrats terrorized potential black voters and kept them from the polls.

From the time Harrison was elected, Republicans positioned themselves as defenders of oppressed African Americans in the South with the goal of getting Congress to protect black voting.

Harrison’s men were hardly principled proponents of black voting. They relied on racist cartoons to attract white voters and, when opponents charged that they were promoting black equality, they strongly denied any interest in racial equality.

There is no doubt that black voters needed protection, but there is also no doubt that most of the Republicans promoting the idea were interested in the votes rather than the voters.

The administration insisted on the rights of African American men to vote for members of Congress, but declined to protect their right to participate in state or local governments, the entities that most affected their lives.

Harrison’s men insisted that if immigrant voting in New York City could be curtailed and black voting in the South assured, a long-term Republican ascendancy would be guaranteed.

The measures would have the effect of suppressing immigrant voting in New York and supporting black voting in the South. Frank Leslie’s was honest about what it liked about the plan: it would dramatically increase the number of Republicans in the House of Representatives. The paper warned that party members would be “fatally remiss” in their duties if they did not push the matter.

With opposition to their policies mounting, Republicans no longer pretended to want fair and clean elections. Now they made it clear they simply wanted to win.

Administration Republicans defended their bill by ratcheting up the rhetoric about the dangers of voter fraud. They warned that it was imperative to guarantee the purity of elections, because if citizens had any doubts on that score, they would revolt. At the very least, they would lose faith in government, and form posses to uphold the law.

All summer, administration Republicans insisted the measure was the only thing that could save American government from being stolen by corrupt Democrats. In the House, Speaker Reed forced the bill through by shutting down debate and using the party lash freely. But apocalyptic rhetoric and the administration’s high-handed silencing of congressional critics only strengthened the Republicans’ opponents.