The presidential election of 1880 was the closest, in terms of the popular vote, of any in U. S. history.  Republican James Garfield won the electoral college decisively, but his margin of victory in the popular vote was less than 2,000.

Sheshequin Universalist Society member O. H. P. Kinney, a. k. a., “Peter Klaus,” wrote in his “Our Short Sunday Sermon” column about that election and the American system of democracy.  He said, in part:

“The country has just passed through the most intensely exciting, and, in many respects, the most important political campaign known to its history.  The result has been ascertained, and the verdict of the people recorded and it becomes us, as good citizens, to lay aside our passions and prejudices, to step above the fog and dust of the past few days, and calmly survey the situation with the view to draw some practical and useful lessons therefrom…

“The great practical idea of a Republican form of government is tersely and comprehensively set forth in the few words of my text…  No other known form of government is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ … In a democracy, … in accordance with nature, all power resides in the people, and whatever is exercised by Presidents, Governors and other officials, is delegated to them by the people to be exercised as servants merely…

“But how do the people run a republic?  The two or three great political parties assemble in their respective conventions, nominate candidates for their servants, and set forth a platform of principles and policies which will govern them if entrusted with the management of public affairs.  The people, at the ballot box, are supposed to choose, not only between the servants, but particularly between the sets of principles and policies on which they stand.  But alas! too frequently the choice is based on some personal characteristic, or personal like or dislike of candidates, instead of upon the mightier matter of principles by which the respective parties propose to be governed.  Candidates are assailed, their characters blackened and bedaubed to render them personally unpopular with the people, instead of dealing fairly and squarely with what parties propose to do…

“But when a decision is reached, although it be not intelligently and conscientiously reached, it is the duty of the minority, as out-voted sovereigns of a great nation, to acquiesce…

“Should any threaten to overturn ballot results, they should be reminded that there is deep down in the hearts of the great mass of the American people a strong and abiding love of country which no surface storms of passion can ever shake.  The world has logically concluded that order reigns in the universe, and that the world is a cosmos, not a chaos, and the man or parties that sticks a puny hand into the moving machinery will be likely to be drawn in and crushed.  There never has been an election, state or national, since the formation of our government, in which there was not a defeated party; and always, except in one notable instance, those defeated have… generously acquiesced in the result, and the late election ought to furnish no exception to the rule.

“You may think from this talk that I apprehend danger.  Far from it.  I have too much faith in the good sense and love of law and order among the people to suppose any such danger threatens.  I believe that henceforth and forever, and that is long enough, the man [sic] that is elected, even by a single electoral vote, will be peacefully inaugurated.  It is not because I apprehend danger, but because this is a propitious time to impress good lessons upon the mind… that laws and decrees made by the people and for the people will be upheld by the people.  From them there is no appeal, except through the ballot-box…

“[The] majority rule and the minority must acquiesce till it is able to reverse the verdict.  Judge Glover used to say that, when the verdict of a jury was rendered and recorded, there were only two remedies left to the defeated party – one to take an appeal, and the other to go down to the tavern and swear at the court.  The former a defeated political party may do every four years; the latter is one of the inalienable rights of an American which may be indulged at all times, and is regarded as a harmless pastime of political bummers. But any attempt at mobbing the jury, or egging the court may be attended with serious consequences, and is evidence of a lingering barbarism still having root in American soil.”