Possibly the candidate or some of his ablest speakers stump this State; probably also it is drenched with money. The inferences from such a contest may be thought uncertain, because State elections are always complicated with local questions, and with the character of the particular candidates for State offices. But it is a maxim among politicians that in a presidential year local issues vanish, the voters being so warmed with party spirit that they go solid for their party in spite of all local or personal obstacles. The truth of this view was illustrated by the fact that Ohio often returns a majority of Democrats to Congress and has a Democratic majority in her own legislature, but has for several elections given a majority for the presidential candidate of the Republican party. The eagerness shown to carry the October elections in this great and often doubtful State used to be scarcely second to that displayed in the presidential contest. She has now put her fall elections later, and makes them coincide (every second term) with the presidential election, in order to avoid the tremendous strain which they had been forced to bear.1 Before this change it was often made an argument why the party should select its candidate from Ohio, that this would give a better chance of winning the preliminary canter, and thereby securing the advantage of a presageful victory.2

So far I have described the contest as one between

1 No State now holds an October State election, Indiana, whose election fell then, having put it later for the same reason.

2 There is a touch of superstition in the value set in America upon the first indications of the popular sentiment, like that which made the Romans attach such weight to the vote of the century first called up to vote in the comitia centuriata. It was selected by lot, perhaps not merely because the advantage of calling first a century which he might know to be favourable to his own view or candidate was too great a one to be left to the presiding magistrate, but also because its declaration was thus deemed to be an indication of the will of the gods who governed the lot.

two parties and two candidates only. But it is usually complicated by the appearance of other minor parties and minor candidates who, although they have no chance of success, affect the main struggle by drawing off strength from one side or the other. In the elections of 1876, 1880, and 1884, the Prohibitionist party and the Greenback (now the Labour) party each held a national convention, nominated candidates for presidency and vice-presidency, and obtained at the polls a number of votes far too small to carry any single State, and therefore, of course, too small to choose any presidential electors, but sufficient to affect, perhaps to turn, the balance of strength between Republicans and Democrats in two or three of the doubtful States. The Prohibitionist candidate draws most of his votes from the Republican side; the Greenbacker or Labour man from the Democratic: hence there is a sort of tacit alliance during the campaign between the Republican organs and the Greenback party, between the Democratic organs and the Prohibitionists; and conversely much ill blood between Republicans and Prohibitionists, between Democrats and Greenbackers. In 1884, the Democrats charged the Republicans with secretly encouraging and supporting by money the candidature of General Benjamin F. Butler, nominated by the Greenbackers and Labour men, while the Republicans bitterly reproached the temperance people with playing into the hands of the liquor-loving Democrats. Any one can see what an opening these complications give for intrigue, and how much they add to the difficulty of predicting the result.

CHAPTER LXXII

THE ISSUES IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

UPON what does a presidential election turn? The presidential candidate has a double character. He is put forward as being individually qualified for the great place of executive head of the nation, because he is a man of integrity, energy, firmness, intellectual power, experience in affairs. He is also recommended as a prominent member of a great national party, inspired by its traditions, devoted to its principles, and prepared to carry them out not only in his properly executive capacity, but, what is more important, as the third branch of the legislature, armed with a veto on bills passed by Congress. His election may therefore be advocated or opposed either on the ground of his personal qualities or of his political professions and party affiliations. Here we have a marked difference between the American and European systems, because in England, France, Germany, and Italy, elections turn chiefly on the views of the parties, secondarily on the character of individual leaders, seeing that the leaders are not chosen directly by the people, but are persons who have come to the top in the legislatures of those countries, or have been (in Germany) raised to office by the Crown. In America therefore we have a source of possible confusion between

issues of two wholly distinct kinds-those which affect the personal qualifications of the candidate, and those which regard the programme of his party.

Whether, in any given presidential election, the former or the latter class of issues are the more conspicuous and decisive, depends partly on the political questions which happen to be then before the people, partly on the more or less marked individuality of the rival candidates. From about 1850 down to 1876, questions, first of the extension of slavery, then of its extinction, then of the reconstruction of the Union, had divided the nation, and made every contest a contest of principles and of practical measures. Since the controversies raised by the war have been settled, there have been few real differences of political principle between the parties, and questions of personal fitness have therefore become relatively more important.

The object of each party naturally is to put forward as many good political issues as it can, claiming for itself the merit of having always been on the popular side. Any one who should read the campaign literature of the Republicans would fancy that they were opposed to the Democrats on many important points. When he took up the Democratic speeches and pamphlets he would be again struck by the serious divergences between the parties, which however would seem to arise, not on the points raised by the Republicans, but on other points which the Republicans had not referred to. In other words, the aim of each party is to force on its antagonist certain issues which the antagonist rarely accepts, so that although there is a vast deal of discussion and declamation on political topics, there are few on which either party directly traverses the doctrines of the other. Each pummels, not his true enemy, but a stuffed figure

set up to represent that enemy. During the presidential elections of 1880 and 1884, for instance, the Republicans sought to force to the front the issue of Protection versus Free Trade, which the Democrats refused to accept, having avowed Protectionists within their own ranks, and knowing that the bulk of the nation was at most prepared only for certain reductions in the tariff. Hence the odd spectacle was presented of Republican orators advocating a protective tariff on a thousand platforms, and hardly any Democrat referring to the subject except to say that he would not refer to it. Both sides declared against monopolists and the power of corporations. Both professed to be the friends of civil service reform. Both promised to protect the rights of the Americans all over the world, to withstand Bismarck in his attacks on American bacon, and to rescue American citizens from British dungeons. Both, however, were equally zealous for peace and good-will among the nations, and had no idea of quarrelling with any European power.

What impression did these appeals and discussions make upon the voters? Comparatively little. The American, like the Englishman, usually votes with his party, right or wrong, and the fact that there is little distinction of view between the parties makes it easier to stick to your old friends. The tariff issue did, however, tell in favour of the Republicans in 1880 and 1884, and while the Southern men voted against the Republican party because it was the party which had carried on the war and crushed Secession, the bulk of the North voted for that party for the same reason. It was associations of the past rather than arguments on the present and the future that determined men's action.

When politics are slack, personal issues come to the