Half-Breed Republicans

Half-Breed William A. Wheeler, who betrayed Southern blacks.

Half-Breed William H. Robertson, who President Garfield appointed to a position in New York.

Half-Breed was a pejorative term designated for the more moderate wing of the Republican Party from 1877–84 that pushed for a certain degree of civil service reform. A civil service system in the South would effectively bar black Americans from government jobs and stifle economic mobility.

Conservatives in the rival Stalwart faction called them "Half-Breeds" because they advocated allowing former Confederate rebels into the civil service and did little to combat the Democrats' voter suppression of African American civil rights. They were considered only "half Republican" (an equivalent to the contemporary term Republican in Name Only, or RINO) due to having helped facilitate the Democratic Party's take over of the South at the end of Reconstruction. However, not all of them wavered on the specific issue of civil rights; Half-Breed leader George F. Hoar, a strong conservative in particular, was a leading advocate of the Federal Elections of 1890 introduced by Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. Another Half-Breed, Henry W. Blair, pushed for additional federal funding of education to relieve illiteracy among former slaves.

The Half-Breeds were later led by corrupt U.S. Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, whose political inclinations in the 1870s aligned more with the Stalwarts on the issue of patronage. The group's main achievement was the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1884, which led to the creation of the bureaucratic Deep State. Under the Pendleton Act, racist civil servants were no longer dependent on the patronage of an elected Democrat official, and were protected from firing when Democrats were voted out of office.

The early Half-Breed leaders were Rutherford B. Hayes and George Frisbie Hoar, and other members included James A. Garfield as well as William H. Robertson. Hoar was among the earliest members of the faction, and his membership was attributed to his sharp disdain towards corruption, evident in his stated reasoning when advocating for impeaching Grant Administration Secretary of War William W. Belknap.

Ideology and leadership

Portrait of George F. Edmunds.

Although the Half-Breeds had no rigid organization as a congressional bloc and were viewed as merely a group of disgruntled Blaine supporters promoting factionalism, their influence proved to be highly significant. They viewed the term attributed negatively to them as either badges of honor or an identifying mark, similar to the the Democratic Party's embracing of the donkey as their symbol after Jacksonian Democrats were dubbed "jack***es."

When accused of lacking sufficient political loyalty to the Republican Party, Half-Breeds would often accuse Stalwarts of holding excessive allegiance to their associated political machines and patronage. Among the group's ambitions aside from moderate civil service reform included advocating industrial strength, railroad interests, higher protective tariffs, expanding markets abroad, and a business-friendly currency system on the national level.

Undated picture of Blaine.

According to Professor Richard E. Welch, Jr., the Half-Breeds were "party regulars" who "damned" bolters, were not uniformly independent in political nature nor advocates of the spoils system, and more intelligent than personal in comparison to the Stalwarts.

James Gillespie Blaine, who led the faction in 1880, was personally opposed to civil service reform and opposed questionable policies pushed by President Hayes. He emerged as one of its main members largely due to sheer contempt for Stalwart Roscoe Conkling, pertaining to a rivalry dating back to the 1860s.

Many sources published in the contemporary era tend to attribute the leader of the Half-Breeds to Blaine and sometimes even suggest that he himself was a supporter of civil service reform, which is misleading and erroneous. Per the writings of Professor Welch:

“	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 Edmunds, William Wheeler, Stanley Matthews, Henry Blair, William Evarts, George McCrary, Henry Dawes, and John Sherman.	”
—Welch, p. 91

Timeline

Painting of President Hayes, who betrayed his Radical Republican roots.

Hayes presidency

The Compromise of 1877 that resolved the controversies and disputes of the 1876 presidential election gave the White House to Republican Rutherford Hayes over Bourbon Democrat opponent Samuel J. Tilden. Soon after taking office, Hayes abandoned his past Radical Republicanism and pulled federal troops from the the South, all but ensuring a Jim Crow Democrat takeover of the region.

President Hayes also pushed for civil service reform, aligning himself with the Half-Breeds. Seeking to curb the powers of Conkling and the latter's powerful New York political machine, Hayes removed a number of the senator's allies from the state's patronage system.

Setback and rebuke

The Collector of the Port of New York was a highly prized position, as the port functioned as a center of international trade between the United States and other countries. Hayes vainly attempted to wrest control of appointments to the position from the Conkling machine to no avail, twice failing to appoint a like-minded political figure due to the successful congressional blockade initiated by the Stalwarts.

Soon afterwards, Conkling appointed close ally and future president Chester A. Arthur to the post of Collector. Arthur proved to be corrupt, giving away jobs only on the basis of party affiliation with no regard for competence and qualifications. Hayes then investigated the Customs House, and along with John Sherman (the Secretary of the Treasury) removed Arthur from the position.

Half-Breeds join Stalwarts against Hayes

Hayes' decision to remove Arthur from the New York Customs House angered not only Stalwarts but even elicited the criticism of Half-Breeds who questioned the wisdom of the action and had earlier stood side-by-side with the president.

Any remaining hopes of a party renomination for Hayes in the 1880 presidential election depended on support from potential Half-Breed allies. With this needed bolstering evaporating, he faced no chance of becoming the Republican nominee for the race. Half-Breeds instead turned their sights to Blaine.

1880 Republican factionalism: Grant vs. Blaine

In the 1880 presidential election, Stalwarts led by Conkling who previously were steadfast allies of President Ulysses S. Grant as Radical Republicans pushed Grant to run for an unprecedented, non-consecutive third term. Half-Breeds pushed heavily for nominating Blaine, and both factions were uniformly prioritized in their contempt for the other side, refusing to allow either candidate to be the nominee.

Grant, a Civil War Union commander and Radical Republican who never wavered in his advocacy for racial equality and notably accomplished a breakup the First Ku Klux Klan, sympathized with the Stalwarts' frustrations towards Hayes' efforts that stifled equal protection under the law. Blaine was placed in a more difficult position, similarly opposing Hayes' decisions out of concern for the plight of Southern blacks though accepting his standing among the Half-Breeds due to his rivalry with Conkling.

Ultimately, the Republican National Convention selected dark horse candidate James A. Garfield of Ohio to be the party nominee as a compromise. Garfield was favorable among Half-Breeds, and attempted to simultaneously garner sufficient support from Stalwarts by vowing to meet the Conkling machine's demands in a party unity effort. With Stalwart Chester Arthur as his running mate, he won the general election over Winfield S. Hancock.

See also

• Thomas A. Jenckes, Rhode Island Republican congressman and early advocate of civil service reform