Seventh Grand Council

Herbert Clemens.

The Seventh Grand Council of the Confederation of North America was elected to a five-year term on 14 February 1873. The partisan makeup of the Seventh Grand Council was 77 Conservative Party, 62 Liberal Party, and 10 People's Coalition. The Conservative majority re-elected party leader Herbert Clemens to the office of Governor-General. It is not known who the Conservatives chose as Majority Leader or the Liberals as Minority Leader.

The Seventh Grand Council presided over growing discontent in the C.N.A. as nativism arose in reaction to rising immigration from Europe, especially by Roman Catholics from Ireland and the Germanic Confederation. Street gangs appeared in the major cities of the Northern Confederation and Indiana and fought each other for control of illegal activities. As people moved from the countryside to the city in search of industrial jobs, the new workers came together in labor unions such as the Mechanics National Union and the more radical Consolidated Laborers Federation. Politically, discontent led to the rapid growth of the People's Coalition, which had been founded in 1869 in the Southern Confederation but by the time of the Seventh Grand Council had spread across the country and contested every Council seat, winning ten, mostly in Indiana and the S.C.

As the Seventh Grand Council drew to a close, Clemens announced in the Conservatives' national convention in Michigan City that he was stepping down as party leader. He was able to gain the party leadership for his protégé, Indiana Governor Joseph Fellows, who pledged himself "to the continuation of the prosperity we have enjoyed for the past decade." Although the Conservative Party appeared strong, two of its core groups of supporters, urban workers and Negroes, were switching to the more radical People's Coalition. Nevertheless, the mood at the Conservative convention was optimistic.

The opposite mood prevailed at the Liberal Party convention in Philadelphia. The party had been out of power for ten years, a time which had seen a steady stream of revelations concerning the corruption of its last Governor-General, Kenneth Parkes. The current party leader, N.C. Governor Victor Astor was just as corrupt, as was former Indiana Governor Claude Baldwin. Councilman John Runk of Georgia was handsome, well-spoken, and had a reputation as a reformer, but as a protégé of the late pro-slavery spokesman John Calhoun, Runk could not hope to win the votes of Negro voters or their white allies. The convention finally settled on Councilman John McDowell of Manitoba, who had a reputation for honesty and a record as a competent legislator.

The nine-year-old People's Coaltion met in New York City for a wild, disorderly convention that the New York Herald described on 4 January 1878 as "a combination circus -- revival meeting -- German wedding -- Irish wake, managed by people who are novices at this sort of thing, and attended by some of the strangest characters ever to be seen in C.N.A. politics." Nathaniel Teller of Northern Vandalia claimed that it would be undemocratic for the convention to choose a nominee for governor-general, and the convention adopted the plan of Edward Dietrich of the N.C. that each confederation's party organization would run its own candidate for governor-general, and if necessary the Coalition could hold a second convention after the election to determine which man would be elevated.

The election campaign of 1878 was notable for its high level of political violence. Several Coalition candidates in the S.C. were attacked and beaten, the Coalition's Indiana headquarters was burned to the ground, and William Richter, the leader of the C.L.F., was kidnapped and held hostage, and the union warned that he would be killed if the P.C. won control of the Grand Council. By the time the election was held, the Coalitionists were retaliating in kind against the older parties.

The wave of political violence shocked voters, and the result was a repudiation of the older parties as the Coalition's share of the Grand Council rose from 10 seats to 39, while the Liberals fell from 63 seats to 62, and the Conservatives from 77 seats to 49.