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As the 1876 election approached, Grant's supporters in Congress suggested that Grant he not seek a third term. A number of scandals had come to light within Grant's administration, and while it was not suggested that Grant was personally corrupt, these had nevertheless affected his electability adversely. Grant accepted the advice of his advisors and told his wife Julia, "I do not want to be here another four years. I do not think I could stand it." Grant left the White House after his successor, Rutherford Hayes, was inaugurated and he and his wife decided to use their savings to travel around the world. John Russell Young, a reporter with the New York Herald, traveled with the Grants and documented their journey. He later published a book about the Grants' travels called Around the World with General Grant. Young noticed that Grant's popularity remained very high outside of his home country. He was given grand receptions in Tokyo and Peking, China and was feted by world leaders in both Europe and Asia.
Meanwhile at home, President Rutherford B. Hayes led a divided Republican Party. Hayes had moved away from party patronage by offering government jobs to Southern Democrats instead of Northern Republicans. His actions drew heavy criticism from those inside his party, including Roscoe Conkling of New York and James G. Blaine of Maine (two men who led opposing factions within the party, but who agreed on their opposition to Hayes). Hayes had soon realized, after the disputed and controversial 1876 election, that he was unlikely to win in 1880, and had announced at his 1877 inauguration that he would not run for a second term. Without an incumbent president in the race, the rival factions within the Republican Party, the Stalwarts (led by Conkling) and the "Half-Breeds" (led by Blaine) positioned themselves for the 1880 presidential election campaign.
Grant returned to the United States ahead of schedule. His positive reception and encouragement from the Stalwarts led him to believe that he could win a third term in office. Conkling and two other powerful party bosses, Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania and John A. Logan of Illinois, supported Grant. A confident Conkling was quoted as saying, "Nothing but an act of God could prevent Grant's nomination." But others, such as Grant's friend John Russell Young, told Grant that he would lose the election, and should withdraw to avoid embarrassment. Young told Grant that there was strong opposition to the ideas of any president serving a third term.
At first, Grant listened to Young's advice and wrote a letter to Donald Cameron, authorizing his name to be withdrawn from the nomination contest. But his wife Julia disagreed and told her husband, "If General Grant were not nominated, then let it be so, but he must not withdraw his name – no, never." Young delivered the letter, but no action was taken to remove Grant's name from nomination.
The other main contender for the Republican nomination was James G. Blaine. Blaine, a senator from Maine who had also served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Four years earlier Blaine had campaigned for the party's nomination, but he had been accused of fraudulent activities involving railroad stocks. Despite his attempt to clear his name, Blaine was tarnished by the scandal throughout the rest of his political career. On the Sunday before balloting was to begin in Cincinnati, Ohio, Blaine collapsed at the steps of Washington Congregational Church. He was unconscious for two days, and as a result, he lost support because of concerns over his health.
After Blaine's failure in 1876, his supporters once again pressed for his nomination at the 1880 convention, which was held in Chicago. Despite the previous scandal allegation, in 1880 Blaine attracted nationwide support for his candidacy. He argued for the gold standard, support for big business, a tariff to protect American jobs, civil rights for freed blacks and Irish independence.
Another leading candidate was Ohio Senator John Sherman, the brother of Grant's second-in-command William Tecumseh Sherman. Under President Hayes, Sherman served as the Secretary of the Treasury. He was a supporter of the gold standard and called for building up the country's gold reserves. Sherman was not seen as eloquent or personable, but he was an able politician.
James Garfield came to the Chicago Convention as a Senator-elect from Ohio, who had represented the state in the United States House since 1863. In 1859, as a Republican, Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate. He served as state senator until 1861, when he enlisted in the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. Garfield served honorably and rose to the rank of brigadier general in March 1862.
In 1872, Garfield faced charges for receiving $329 in tainted money from the Crédit Mobilier of America corruption scandal. Garfield denied the charges and there was not much evidence against Garfield, so his political career was not significantly affected. Four years later, when James G. Blaine moved from the House to the United States Senate, Garfield became the Republican floor leader of the House. That year, Garfield served as a member of the Electoral Commission that awarded 20 hotly contested electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes in his contest for the Presidency against Samuel J. Tilden. When John Sherman entered the race Garfield changed his allegiance from Blaine to Sherman, and placed Sherman's name in nomination.
Party bosses Conkling, Cameron and Logan used their influence to have their delegations support Grant. Before the opening of the convention, the Albany Evening Journal predicted that Blaine had 277 votes, Grant had 317, Sherman had 106, and 49 were split among other candidates. 379 votes were needed to win. A debate ensued over whether or not states would adopt a "unit rule: that would require all delegates from a particular state must vote for the candidate preferred by the majority of that state's delegation, in order to prevent a long deadlock.
Before any voting began, the delegates had to vote on whether or not the convention would adopt the unit rule. If the rule was supported by a majority of the delegates, then state party bosses would be able to solidify Grant's nomination bid. Conkling and the other Stalwart bosses could silence the votes of nearly sixty dissenters from the states they represented. Cameron was chairman of the Republican National Committee and he planned to use his power to adopt new rules for the convention, specifically the unit rule. Supporters of the Sherman and Blaine campaigns rallied to prevent this.
At 7:00 P.M. on May 31, J. Donald Cameron convened the Republican National Committee's last meeting before the opening of the convention. At the meeting, George Frisbie Hoar, a neutral senator and delegate from Massachusetts, was elected as the convention's temporary chairman. To avoid losing control of the situation, Conkling asked his trusted supporter, Chester Alan Arthur, to come up with a compromise. Arthur proposed that the delegates decide on the unit rule in a free vote, and in return, Cameron would be restored as the chairman of the national committee. The compromise was agreed to.
At noon on Wednesday, June 2, Cameron opened the Convention. The next morning, Conkling then submitted a resolution that bound every delegate in the hall to support the party's nominee. Conkling said that "no man should hold his seat here who is not ready so to agree." A voice vote was called, and the resolution received nearly unanimous delegate support.
On Saturday night, the alphabetical roll call of the states to present nominees was conducted. Candidates were nominated, with the first candidate being Blaine. James Garfield gave the nomination speech for John Sherman. Garfield's speech was so eloquent, and well received that it caused delegates to begin thinking of Garfield as a contender for the nomination. Some members of the Sherman campaign were disappointed by Garfield's speech because it had not extolled Sherman's praises sufficiently.
On Sunday night, June 6, Indiana senator Benjamin Harrison came to Garfield's hotel suite and asked him under what conditions he would accept the nomination. Garfield said that he had come to the convention for the sole purpose of supporting John Sherman, and that he had no interest in the nomination.
At ten o'clock on Monday morning, convention chairman Hoar banged his gavel to open the convention. Eugene Hale moved to immediately proceed to the presidential nominee balloting, and Roscoe Conkling seconded the motion. The unit rule had failed to pass and delegates knew that it would take a number of ballots before a winner would be chosen. The first surprise during the balloting roll call came when John A. Logan of Illinois announced that of his state's forty-two delegates, only twenty-four were voting for Grant. New York faced a similar situation. Of its seventy delegates, fifty-one supported Grant, seventeen were for Blaine, and the remaining two supported Sherman. The situation for Grant was even worse in Pennsylvania. Only thirty-two of the state's fifty-eight delegates voted for Grant.
On the first ballot Grant received 304 votes, Blaine had 284, Sherman had 93, Vermont senator George F. Edmunds received 34, Elihu B. Washburne, who had served as the United States Ambassador to France under President Grant, had 30, and Minnesota senator William Windom received 10. Back in Washington, D.C., both Blaine and Sherman were disappointed by their first-ballot vote totals. Sherman still believed that his total would increase when the Grant vote abandoned him. In Galena, Illinois, Grant did not express any emotions after being told about the first-ballot vote totals. One newsman reported, "the silent soldier was smoking his cigar with all his usual serenity." Grant's wife suggested to her husband that he surprise the delegates in Chicago with a visit, but Grant thought this was inappropriate and unwise.
At the convention the voting continued. On the second ballot of the day, a Pennsylvania delegate named W. A. Grier cast a vote for James Garfield. Delegates cast eighteen ballots before taking a recess for dinner. After dinner, they came back and cast ten more ballots, but no candidate was close to the 379 votes needed to win. After twelve hours of balloting, Massachusetts delegate William Lovering moved to adjourn for the night and the motion passed. After twenty-eight ballots, Grant had 307 votes, Blaine had 279 and Sherman had 91, and the rest of the votes were split between favorite son candidates like William Windom and George F. Edmunds.
During the recess, backers for Sherman and Blaine met but no deal could be struck. Surprisingly, Roscoe Conkling refused to be considered as a candidate himself. He said "I am here as the agent of New York to support General Grant to the end. Any man who would forsake him under such conditions does not deserve to be elected, and could not be elected.
The first ballot on Tuesday morning, June 8, Massachusetts switched their twenty-one votes from Senator George Edmunds to John Sherman, spiking his total to 116. Three Minnesota delegates switched their support from William Windom, to James G. Blaine. By the thirty-second ballot, Blaine had dropped six votes from the night before, and Grant had increased his total to 309. On the thirty-third ballot, nine Wisconsin delegates shifted their support from Grant to Elihu Washburne. On the next ballot, sixteen of twenty Wisconsin delegates changed their vote to James Garfield.
On the thirty-fifth ballot, Benjamin Harrison of Indiana announced that his state would shift all twenty-seven of its votes (mostly coming from the Blaine column) to Garfield. Four Maryland delegates and one delegate each from Mississippi and North Carolina also switched their vote to Garfield, bringing his total to 50. Blaine saw that his chances for winning the nomination were slipping. He felt that the most suitable candidate was James Garfield. Garfield was a close friend, and he felt that by supporting Garfield, he could defeat Grant and Conkling and possibly receive an appointment in Garfield's cabinet.
John Sherman also listened to advice from his key advisers and decided to shift all his support to Garfield. Finally, on the thirty-sixth ballot, James Garfield won the Republican nomination. He received 399 votes, 93 higher than Grant's total. Blaine finished with 42, Washburne had 5, John Sherman had 3, and the remaining were split amongst other minor candidates.
By many accounts, Garfield was genuinely overwhelmed with emotion after winning the nomination. One reporter described him looking "as pale as death, and seemed to be half-unconsciously to receive the congratulations of his friends." Grant followers, including Roscoe Conkling, made no effort to conceal their disappointment. Conkling made note of the 306 delegates who had supported Grant throughout the entire balloting and formed a "Three Hundred and Six Guard" society that held annual dinners, and even drew up a commemorative coin with the inscription, "The Old Guard".
Later, Garfield wrote a letter to his wife Lucretia stating that "if the results meet your approval, I shall be content." She was thrilled with her husband's good news. Garfield subsequently resigned the Senate seat to which he had been elected for the term beginning in 1881, and the Ohio Legislature then elected Sherman to fill the vacancy.
Garfield decided that it would be best if a New York Stalwart as Garfield's vice presidential running mate, partly to placate Conkling, and partly to balance the ticket geographically. Levi P. Morton declined after consulting with Conkling, who was unhappy about Grant's loss. He told Morton not to accept. The nomination was then offered to Chester A. Arthur, who had close Stalwart ties to Conkling, but who had impressed delegates with his work to broker the compromise on the selection of a convention chairman. Conkling tried to talk Arthur out of accepting, but Arthur declined to follow Conkling's wishes. Arthur had never held any elected political office and he said that the Vice Presidency was "a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining." Arthur won the nomination after he received 468 votes, finishing first over Elihu Washburne (193 votes), and Marshall Jewell (44 votes).
Convention chairman Hoar banged his gavel at 7:25 P.M. on June 8, the longest ever Republican National Convention was adjourned. Garfield and Arthur would go on to win the election. Less than a year after that, James Garfield would be dead, the victim of an assassin's bullet followed by negligent medical treatment. Chester Alan Arthur, the man who had never held any elected office before becoming Vice-President, would succeed Garfield as President.