1880 United States presidential election in Tennessee

The 1880 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 2, 1880, as part of the 1880 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.[2]

1880 United States presidential election in Tennessee
← 1876 November 2, 1880 1884 →
Turnout15.77% of the total population Decrease 1.93 pp[1]
 
Nominee Winfield S. Hancock James A. Garfield
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Pennsylvania Ohio
Running mate William H. English Chester A. Arthur
Electoral vote 12 0
Popular vote 129,569 107,677
Percentage 53.26% 44.26%

County results

President before election

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican

Elected President

James Garfield
Republican

For over a century after the Civil War, Tennessee's white citizenry was divided according to partisan loyalties established in that war. Unionist regions covering almost all of East Tennessee, Kentucky Pennyroyal-allied Macon County, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne[3] voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the “war party” who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.[4] Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state's secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction.[5]

In 1868, Ulysses S. Grant easily carried the state due to disfranchisement of former Confederates and the Ku Klux Klan Act.[6] However, in the year after that election, Tennessee was the first state where Reconstruction was ended, and with the aid of the resurgent Klan, white Democrats rewrote the state's constitution to regain some of their lost power.[7] Nevertheless, blacks and Unionist whites forged adequate support for the GOP to create a competitive political system during that decade,[8] although the Democratic Party won all statewide elections. However, at the beginning of the 1880s, a divide in the Democratic Party on this issue of payment of state debt allowed the GOP to claim the governor's mansion,[8] but this did not seriously alter presidential voting and Tennessee was won by General Winfield Scott Hancock (DPennsylvania), running with former Representative William Hayden English, with 53.26 percent of the popular vote, against Representative James A. Garfield (R-Ohio), running with the 10th chairman of the New York State Republican Executive Committee Chester A. Arthur, with 44.26 percent of the vote.[2]

This would be the last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried Unionist Pennyroyal Macon County until Bill Clinton in 1992.[9]

Results

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1880 United States presidential election in Tennessee[2]
Party Candidate Running mate Popular vote Electoral vote
Count % Count %
Democratic Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania William Hayden English of Indiana 129,569 53.26% 12 100.00%
Republican James A. Garfield of Ohio Chester A. Arthur of New York 107,677 44.26% 0 0.00%
Greenback James B. Weaver of Iowa Barzillai J. Chambers of Texas 6,017 2.47% 0 0.00%
Total 243,263 100.00% 12 100.00%

Results by county

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1880 United States presidential election in Tennessee by county[10][11]
County Winfield Scott Hancock
Democratic
James Abram Garfield
Republican
James Baird Weaver
Greenback
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # %
Anderson 574 35.17% 1,058 64.83% 0 0.00% -484 -29.66% 1,632
Bedford 2,504 56.82% 1,766 40.07% 137 3.11% 738 16.75% 4,407
Benton 771 56.98% 383 28.31% 199 14.71% 388 28.68% 1,353
Bledsoe 372 42.91% 484 55.82% 11 1.27% -112 -12.92% 867
Blount 882 35.58% 1,597 64.42% 0 0.00% -715 -28.84% 2,479
Bradley 665 38.26% 932 53.62% 141 8.11% -267 -15.36% 1,738
Campbell 314 23.22% 1,038 76.78% 0 0.00% -724 -53.55% 1,352
Cannon 1,035 67.74% 300 19.63% 193 12.63% 735 48.10% 1,528
Carroll 1,820 44.91% 2,208 54.48% 25 0.62% -388 -9.57% 4,053
Carter 405 19.77% 1,644 80.23% 0 0.00% -1,239 -60.47% 2,049
Cheatham 794 67.81% 291 24.85% 86 7.34% 503 42.95% 1,171
Claiborne 967 44.38% 1,212 55.62% 0 0.00% -245 -11.24% 2,179
Clay 567 63.57% 177 19.84% 148 16.59% 390 43.72% 892
Cocke 906 36.04% 1,608 63.96% 0 0.00% -702 -27.92% 2,514
Coffee 1,766 84.94% 198 9.52% 115 5.53% 1,568 75.42% 2,079
Cumberland 287 42.33% 371 54.72% 20 2.95% -84 -12.39% 678
Davidson 7,543 52.24% 6,449 44.66% 448 3.10% 1,094 7.58% 14,440
DeKalb 1,325 60.45% 867 39.55% 0 0.00% 458 20.89% 2,192
Decatur 753 59.90% 413 32.86% 91 7.24% 340 27.05% 1,257
Dickson 1,169 62.58% 497 26.61% 202 10.81% 672 35.97% 1,868
Dyer 1,060 67.39% 248 15.77% 265 16.85% 795[a] 50.54% 1,573
Fayette 2,247 42.17% 3,082 57.83% 0 0.00% -835 -15.67% 5,329
Fentress 314 38.06% 511 61.94% 0 0.00% -197 -23.88% 825
Franklin 2,187 85.43% 357 13.95% 16 0.63% 1,830 71.48% 2,560
Gibson 2,691 61.28% 1,700 38.72% 0 0.00% 991 22.57% 4,391
Giles 2,899 57.80% 2,040 40.67% 77 1.54% 859 17.13% 5,016
Grainger 870 41.39% 1,197 56.95% 35 1.67% -327 -15.56% 2,102
Greene 2,060 45.74% 2,303 51.13% 141 3.13% -243 -5.40% 4,504
Grundy 461 87.98% 63 12.02% 0 0.00% 398 75.95% 524
Hamblen 848 43.38% 1,095 56.01% 12 0.61% -247 -12.63% 1,955
Hamilton 1,595 38.23% 2,460 58.96% 117 2.80% -865 -20.73% 4,172
Hancock 493 34.21% 948 65.79% 0 0.00% -455 -31.58% 1,441
Hardeman 1,566 49.56% 1,409 44.59% 185 5.85% 157 4.97% 3,160
Hardin 972 41.84% 1,345 57.90% 6 0.26% -373 -16.06% 2,323
Hawkins 1,039 28.97% 1,907 53.18% 640 17.85% -868 -24.21% 3,586
Haywood 1,766 32.38% 3,557 65.22% 131 2.40% -1,791 -32.84% 5,454
Henderson 1,274 46.23% 1,385 50.25% 97 3.52% -111 -4.03% 2,756
Henry 2,305 66.18% 1,013 29.08% 165 4.74% 1,292 37.09% 3,483
Hickman 1,157 71.82% 392 24.33% 62 3.85% 765 47.49% 1,611
Houston 522 80.43% 127 19.57% 0 0.00% 395 60.86% 649
Humphreys 1,325 80.69% 245 14.92% 72 4.38% 1,080 65.77% 1,642
Jackson 1,299 88.85% 136 9.30% 27 1.85% 1,163 79.55% 1,462
James 209 32.86% 403 63.36% 24 3.77% -194 -30.50% 636
Jefferson 693 27.33% 1,807 71.25% 36 1.42% -1,114 -43.93% 2,536
Johnson 203 15.68% 1,092 84.32% 0 0.00% -889 -68.65% 1,295
Knox 3,119 41.61% 4,361 58.18% 16 0.21% -1,242 -16.57% 7,496
Lake 337 84.46% 28 7.02% 34 8.52% 303[a] 75.94% 399
Lauderdale 1,147 52.02% 971 44.04% 87 3.95% 176 7.98% 2,205
Lawrence 928 71.94% 362 28.06% 0 0.00% 566 43.88% 1,290
Lewis 200 84.03% 37 15.55% 1 0.42% 163 68.49% 238
Lincoln 3,652 78.84% 886 19.13% 94 2.03% 2,766 59.72% 4,632
Loudon 533 34.30% 1,021 65.70% 0 0.00% -488 -31.40% 1,554
Macon 713 54.59% 559 42.80% 34 2.60% 154 11.79% 1,306
Madison 2,834 54.36% 2,223 42.64% 156 2.99% 611 11.72% 5,213
Marion 740 45.51% 886 54.49% 0 0.00% -146 -8.98% 1,626
Marshall 2,006 76.04% 548 20.77% 84 3.18% 1,458 55.27% 2,638
Maury 3,306 54.66% 2,742 45.34% 0 0.00% 564 9.33% 6,048
McMinn 1,209 45.25% 1,463 54.75% 0 0.00% -254 -9.51% 2,672
McNairy 1,135 46.65% 949 39.01% 349 14.34% 186 7.64% 2,433
Meigs 607 60.58% 395 39.42% 0 0.00% 212 21.16% 1,002
Monroe 1,181 56.18% 919 43.72% 2 0.10% 262 12.46% 2,102
Montgomery 2,846 58.26% 2,039 41.74% 0 0.00% 807 16.52% 4,885
Morgan 245 36.08% 434 63.92% 0 0.00% -189 -27.84% 679
Obion 1,982 71.22% 583 20.95% 218 7.83% 1,399 50.27% 2,783
Overton 1,152 72.59% 430 27.10% 5 0.32% 722 45.49% 1,587
Perry 604 73.04% 223 26.96% 0 0.00% 381 46.07% 827
Polk 653 64.02% 362 35.49% 5 0.49% 291 28.53% 1,020
Putnam 1,040 68.92% 467 30.95% 2 0.13% 573 37.97% 1,509
Rhea 668 61.00% 427 39.00% 0 0.00% 241 22.01% 1,095
Roane 805 33.02% 1,628 66.78% 5 0.21% -823 -33.76% 2,438
Robertson 2,107 67.55% 951 30.49% 61 1.96% 1,156 37.06% 3,119
Rutherford 3,855 60.10% 2,482 38.70% 77 1.20% 1,373 21.41% 6,414
Scott 127 17.91% 582 82.09% 0 0.00% -455 -64.17% 709
Sequatchie 224 64.93% 119 34.49% 2 0.58% 105 30.43% 345
Sevier 431 17.36% 2,052 82.64% 0 0.00% -1,621 -65.28% 2,483
Shelby 6,927 46.24% 7,788 51.99% 264 1.76% -861 -5.75% 14,979
Smith 1,569 62.16% 705 27.93% 250 9.90% 864 34.23% 2,524
Stewart 1,322 71.58% 488 26.42% 37 2.00% 834 45.15% 1,847
Sullivan 2,264 65.23% 1,207 34.77% 0 0.00% 1,057 30.45% 3,471
Sumner 2,893 72.60% 1,092 27.40% 0 0.00% 1,801 45.19% 3,985
Tipton 1,893 53.78% 1,604 45.57% 23 0.65% 289 8.21% 3,520
Trousdale 793 76.25% 247 23.75% 0 0.00% 546 52.50% 1,040
Union 480 29.63% 1,140 70.37% 0 0.00% -660 -40.74% 1,620
Van Buren 281 82.40% 60 17.60% 0 0.00% 221 64.81% 341
Warren 1,577 73.52% 482 22.47% 86 4.01% 1,095 51.05% 2,145
Washington 1,576 42.83% 2,104 57.17% 0 0.00% -528 -14.35% 3,680
Wayne 649 41.76% 905 58.24% 0 0.00% -256 -16.47% 1,554
Weakley 2,526 63.21% 1,470 36.79% 0 0.00% 1,056 26.43% 3,996
White 1,308 84.01% 173 11.11% 76 4.88% 1,135 72.90% 1,557
Williamson 2,733 63.94% 1,541 36.06% 0 0.00% 1,192 27.89% 4,274
Wilson 2,918 68.34% 1,227 28.74% 125 2.93% 1,691 39.60% 4,270
Totals 129,569 53.26% 107,677 44.26% 6,017 2.47% 21,892 9.00% 243,263

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b In this county where Weaver ran second ahead of Garfield, margin given is Hancock vote minus Weaver vote and percentage margin Hancock percentage minus Weaver percentage.

References

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  1. ^ "1880 Presidential Election Results Tennessee Total Population Turnout".
  2. ^ a b c "1880 Presidential Election Results Tennessee".
  3. ^ Wright, John K.; ‘Voting Habits in the United States: A Note on Two Maps’; Geographical Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (October 1932), pp. 666-672
  4. ^ Key (Jr.), Valdimer Orlando; Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York, 1949), pp. 282-283
  5. ^ Lyons, William; Scheb (II), John M. and Stair Billy; Government and Politics in Tennessee, pp. 183-184 ISBN 1572331410
  6. ^ Bergeron, Paul H.; Ash, Stephen V. and Keith, Jeanette; Tennesseans and Their History, p. 175 ISBN 1572330562
  7. ^ Bergeron; Ash, and Keith; Tennesseans and Their History, pp. 176-178
  8. ^ a b Kousser, J. Morgan; The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910, p. 104 ISBN 0-300-01973-4
  9. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 298-304 ISBN 0786422173
  10. ^ "Presidential election of 1880 Popular Vote". Géoelections. (.xlsx file for €15)
  11. ^ "Presidential election of 1880 Popular Vote for James B. Weaver". Géoelections. (.xlsx file for €15)