Murchison letter
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The Murchison letter was a political scandal during the 1888 United States presidential election between Grover Cleveland, the Democratic incumbent, and the Republican nominee, Benjamin Harrison.[1]
The letter was sent by the British ambassador to the United States, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, to "Charles F. Murchison", who was actually an American political operative posing as a British expatriate. In the letter, Sackville-West suggested that Cleveland was preferred as president from the British point of view.[2]
The Republicans published this letter just two weeks before the election, causing many Irish American voters to turn away from Cleveland; he consequently lost New York and Indiana, and thus the presidency. Sackville-West was sacked as British ambassador.
History
A California Republican, George Osgoodby, wrote a letter to Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British ambassador to the United States, under the assumed name of "Charles F. Murchison", who described himself as a former Englishman who was now a California citizen and asked how he should vote in the upcoming presidential election. Sackville-West wrote back and indiscreetly suggested that Grover Cleveland, the Democratic incumbent, was probably the best man from the British point of view:
The Republicans published the letter just two weeks before the election, and it had a galvanizing effect on Irish-American voters exactly comparable to the "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" blunder of the previous presidential election:[3] by trumpeting Great Britain's support for the Democrats. That drove Irish American voters into the Republican fold, and Cleveland lost the presidency.
Aftermath
Following the election, the lame-duck Cleveland administration brought about Sackville-West's removal as ambassador,[4] citing not only his letter—which could have been defended as a private correspondence unintended for publication—but also his subsequent interviews, such as one with a reporter for the New York Herald:
On October 1, Sackville-West had become Lord Sackville, due to the death of his brother Mortimer Sackville-West, 1st Baron Sackville.
Cleveland returned to the White House by winning the 1892 election.
See also
Notes
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References
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- ↑ The fake letter historians believe tipped a presidential election The Washington Post
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- ↑ Charles W. Calhoun, Minority Victory: Gilded Age Politics and the Front Porch Campaign of 1888 (2008).
- ↑ Charles S. Campbell, Jr. "The Dismissal of Lord Sackville." The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44:4 (March 1958), pp. 635–648.
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Further reading
- Brooks, George. "Anglophobia in the United States: Some Light on the Presidential Election." Westminster Review (130.1 (1888): 736-756 online, a primary source
- Campbell, Charles S. "The Dismissal of Lord Sackville." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44.4 (1958): 635-648 online.
- Hinckley, T. C. "George Osgoodby and the Murchison Letter." Pacific Historical Review (1958): 359–370. in JSTOR
- Newmark, Marco R. "The Murchison Letter Incident." The Quarterly: Historical Society of Southern California 27.1 (1945): 17–21. in JSTOR
- Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. A History of the United States since the Civil War. Volume V, 1888–1901 (1937). pp 58–64
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- 1888 United States presidential election
- Election scandals in the United States
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- 1889 in American politics
- United Kingdom–United States relations
- Political scandals in the United Kingdom
- 1888 in the United Kingdom
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