Posts

Journal Review: "The Radicals' Abandonment of the Negro During Reconstruction" by Patrick W. Riddleberger

I recall many months ago eagerly researching the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party during the Gilded Age, and desperately seeking more information about its members. I came across this journal on JSTOR, which stated that the faction's members included Radical Republicans Benjamin Wade, Oliver P. Morton, and Zachariah Chandler. First off, it should be noted that the journal is describing the setting of the 1872 presidential election, where the Republican Party split into the "regulars" and the insurgent "Liberals." During 1872, the term "Stalwart" as a reference to the pro-Grant faction became during the mid-1870s. Although the leading Grant loyalists became the core of the Stalwart faction later during the Hayes presidency, the evidence suggests that they were not yet known by that term during 1872. The argument of Riddleberger in the journal suggests that the Grant loyalists and the Liberal Republicans were alike, and argues that both abandone...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: "George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans" by Richard E. Welch, Jr.

Image
Contemporary teachings about the Stalwart vs. Half-Breed feuds of the 1870s and 1880s usually contain glaring errors as they attempt to generalize the big picture. The portrayal of the Half-Breeds during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes as a clique of supporters of James G. Blaine is what standard textbooks provide, though it is anything but accurate. The historical record says something different, however. In "George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans," Richard E. Welch, Jr., in part emphasizes the true characteristics of the Half-Breeds, in addition to their original comprisal among Republican Party ranks. He summarizes it well in p. 91: By the middle of the Hayes’s administration certain politicians were already representative of the goals and prejudices of Half-Breed Republicanism. Not James G. Blaine—who at this point represented a particular wing of the Stalwarts and became a Half-Breed only with the campaign of 1880—but men like Hayes, Hoar, George Edmund...
Post a Comment
Read more

The U.S. House Investigates Tax-Exempt Foundations, pt. 1: The Cox Committee, 1952–53

Image
On April 4, 1952, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution enacting the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations. The committee was tasked to probe major foundations in the United States and publish a final report determining whether those groups carried out duties patriotic to the country, or if they made subversive moves. Chairman E. E. Cox (D–GA) The select committee was chaired by segregationist Democratic congressman Eugene E. Cox of Georgia, its namesake. It consisted of a 4–3 Democratic majority, although Cox's status as a member of the Conservative Coalition gave the committee a simultaneous conservative majority. Its three other Democratic members were: Brooks Hays of Arkansas Aime J. Forand of Rhode Island Donald L. O'Toole of New York The three Republican members were B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, Richard M. Simpson of Pennsylvania, and Angier L. Goodwin of Massachusetts. They were generally conservati...
2 comments
Read more