On January 15, 1867, Simon Cameron was elected to the United States Senate by the Pennsylvania General Assembly for the third time; it had previously chosen him in 1845 and 1857. The legislature voted for Cameron over the incumbent, Senator Edgar Cowan, who, though a Republican, was endorsed by the Democratic legislative caucus. With the Republican Party holding a large majority in the legislature, the main battle was for its endorsement: the caucus of Republican legislators had voted for Cameron over Governor Andrew Curtin.
Cameron and Curtin each led a different faction of the Republican Party and had clashed as early as 1855, resulting in a bitter rivalry. Cameron tried to prevent Curtin from getting the Republican nomination for governor in 1860, while Curtin attempted to stop Cameron from receiving a post in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet; each was unsuccessful. Cameron's time as Secretary of War ended with his resignation under pressure, and he sought, unsuccessfully, to return to the Senate in 1863. With Curtin's second term as governor ending in 1867 and Cameron still wanting to return to the Senate, each sought Cowan's seat.
Cowan had moved away from the Republican mainstream, becoming an ally of President Andrew Johnson, and was not a contender for the party endorsement. Others seeking the Republican nomination included Representative Thaddeus Stevens and Galusha Grow, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, but they needed a deadlock between the main contenders to have a chance. Both Cameron and Curtin sought support from among Republican candidates for the legislature, and also tried to place their supporters in positions that might influence the outcome.
Curtin supporter Matthew Quay was the favorite to become Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but the other Senate contenders combined to defeat him, and the victor, Cameron supporter John P. Glass, used his powers to influence Republican legislators. Cameron received the necessary majority of Republican legislators to gain the party's endorsement, while Cowan was endorsed by the Democrats. When the legislature voted, Cameron easily defeated Cowan, and served in the Senate until 1877; his powerful political machine dominated Pennsylvania politics for a half century. Curtin eventually switched to the Democratic Party, and served three terms in the House of Representatives in the 1880s; Cowan never held public office again.
Background In drafting the national Constitution, the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 agreed that United States Senators would be chosen by state legislatures, not by the people. Federal law prescribed that the senatorial election was to take place beginning on the second Tuesday after the two houses of the legislature which would be in office when the senatorial term expired, convened and chose legislative officers. On the designated day, balloting for senator would take place in each of the two chambers of the legislature. If a majority of each house voted for the same candidate, then the candidate would be declared elected at the joint assembly held the following day at noon. Otherwise, there would be a roll-call vote of all legislators, with a majority of those present needed to elect. In the event that no senator was elected, the legislature was required to hold at least one vote in joint assembly each day until it ended the session or a senator was elected. Generally, the candidate of the majority party in the legislature was chosen by a vote of its legislative caucus.
Since its founding in the mid-1850s, the Pennsylvania Republican Party had generally divided into factions, reflecting its makeup, a coalition between former members of the Democratic Party and former Whigs. In the runup to the 1867 Senate contest, the onetime Democrats were led by former senator and Secretary of War Simon Cameron, while the former Whigs were led by Governor Andrew Curtin. The two men had first clashed in seeking the endorsement of the American Party (better known as the Know Nothings) for Senate in 1855, and in the course of that election had become bitter enemies.
Cameron had twice served as senator from Pennsylvania. He was elected by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1845 as a Democrat to serve the uncompleted term of James Buchanan, who had resigned to become United States secretary of state. He was elected again in 1857 as a Republican, but resigned in 1861 to become Abraham Lincoln's secretary of war, with David Wilmot his successor in the Senate. Cameron resigned as war secretary after less than a year, during the Civil War, under pressure from Lincoln and Congress, and was appointed U.S. minister to Russia, but soon resigned. He was the Republican candidate for Senate in the 1863 election, but a Democrat was elected instead.
Curtin, a lawyer, had been an activist for the Whig Party, speaking during its campaigns beginning in 1840. After helping James Pollock gain election as governor in 1855, he was given the post of secretary of the commonwealth. He became a rival to Cameron, opposing his 1857 Senate run. In 1860, he sought to become governor of Pennsylvania, with Cameron (who had presidential aspirations) opposing his candidacy. Curtin gained the nomination, but Cameron received Pennsylvania's endorsement as its favorite son candidate for president. Nevertheless, Curtin worked to defeat Cameron's candidacy, and, after Lincoln and Curtin were elected, tried to prevent Cameron from receiving a cabinet post. Cameron worked to defeat Curtin's renomination in 1863, but Curtin gained a second three-year term. In a letter, Cameron informed Lincoln, "there are many good Republicans and pious Christians who would see him [Curtin] in hell."
The incumbent senator whose seat was to be filled in 1867, Edgar Cowan, was also a lawyer who had been an orator for the Whigs. He became known as a successful defense attorney, and later as a prosecutor, and joined the Republican Party in 1856. An opponent of the extension of slavery into the territories, he had supported Lincoln, cast a vote for him as a presidential elector, and, although a relative unknown, defeated Wilmot for the Republican endorsement in 1861 to gain a six-year Senate term. As a senator, Cowan charted an independent course, and voted against the more punitive pieces of wartime legislation, outraging many in Congress and in the press. After the war, he became an ally of President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the 1864 National Union Party ticket, and who became president after Lincoln's assassination in 1865.
Planning When, in January 1863, Cameron was defeated in the Senate election by Charles Buckalew, 67 votes to 65, he immediately began planning to win the state's next Senate election, in 1867. To this end, he began rebuilding his personal political machine, composed of his numerous friends and supporters from around Pennsylvania, which had fallen into disrepair due to his absence from the state. Cameron's fall from cabinet office to his Senate defeat, together with Curtin's successful re-election in 1863, placed the ex-Whig faction of the Republicans in the ascendancy. In contrast with the near-disgrace that had befallen Cameron, Governor Curtin was known as "the soldier's friend" and received praise for leading the state through the war years.
Cameron boosted his chances, restoring himself to Lincoln's good graces by aiding the president's re-election. At Lincoln's request, Cameron got the Republican members of the legislature to issue a letter to the president urging him to seek a second term—Cameron had, thirty years previously, penned such a "spontaneous" letter on behalf of Andrew Jackson under similar circumstances. He also saw to it that Pennsylvania sent a united delegation in support of Lincoln to the 1864 National Union National Convention, which nominated Lincoln, and arranged support for Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, whom Lincoln wanted as running mate. Cameron campaigned for Lincoln in the fall, and the re-elected president's gratitude translated into participation in political patronage, which helped Cameron retain the allegiance of his supporters through his ability to reward them with civil and military posts. Curtin's control of Pennsylvania state patronage could not compete with Cameron's influence on federal appointments, and the governor and his supporters complained about the favoritism shown Cameron.
Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 upended the patronage arrangements, and there were battles over appointments, especially since many officials, such as postmasters, had been appointed for four-year terms. Cameron was generally successful, retaining the plum post of postmaster of Philadelphia for a supporter, but supporters of Curtin and Representative Thaddeus Stevens joined together to deny Cameron backers the positions of state attorney general and chairman of the party, which Cameron had hoped for. This gave Curtin important momentum going into the crucial year of 1866.
1866 campaign
Most important to Cameron in his planning were the office of governor—Curtin's successor would be elected in 1866—that of secretary of the commonwealth (chosen by the governor), and the speakership of the state House of Representatives. Both major contenders wanted control of these offices, since the speakers of the two houses of the legislature could reward those who would vote for senator with seats on important committees, and the governor and secretary of the commonwealth could dispense patronage. Both also wanted to influence local conventions that would nominate Republican candidates for legislative seats. Curtin, having served two consecutive terms as governor, was ineligible under Pennsylvania's 1838 constitution to run again for the office in 1866.
Curtin fell ill in December 1865 and spent two months recuperating in Cuba, hampering his strategy in advance of the March 1866 state convention at which Republicans would nominate a candidate for governor. He wanted former state legislator Winthrop Welles Ketcham as the gubernatorial candidate, but neglected to make his choice clear to his supporters, and some, such as Alexander McClure, backed Frank Johnson. Curtin wrote to his secretary of the commonwealth, Eli Slifer: "do not neglect the composition of the convention—Cameron will pack it if he can and a little work will head him." Cameron backed a declared Stevens supporter, former Union general and Kansas Territory governor, John W. Geary, who gained the former senator's support in exchange for a promise to appoint a Cameron supporter as secretary of the commonwealth. Cameron's control of the convention came as an unpleasant surprise to Curtin's supporters, to whom Geary was objectionable. Geary was easily nominated, which increased Cameron's chances of victory in the senatorial race at the expense of Curtin.
Some of the focus was taken off the intraparty rivalry between Cameron and Curtin by the increasingly-hostile relationship between Republicans and President Johnson, who differed over Reconstruction, with the president favoring easier terms to restore the seceded states to full status in the Union. Curtin and Cameron supporters, while they still battled for nominations, found themselves making uneasy common cause at local conventions to ensure the defeat of candidates who supported Johnson's policies. The major candidates did not differ over Johnson, except each vied to show that he was more anti-Johnson, and had warned against his candidacy with Lincoln in 1864. Curtin made his break with Johnson after a Radical Republican governor was elected in Connecticut in April 1866; the timing of Cameron's break is less certain, but by August, he was writing that had he been listened to, Johnson would not have been nominated for vice president.