“A Bloody Shirt and a Pair of Ripe Ruby Lips”: Reconstruction, Sex Scandals, and Oliver P. Morton’s Bid for the Presidency in 1876

Abstract

As the 1876 election season began, Senator Oliver P. Morton of Indiana was widely regarded as a frontrunner for the Republication nomination for president. Morton biographer A. James Fuller examines Morton’s political history—from his time as Indiana’s war governor through his Senate career—and the tactics of his political opponents to discover why Morton failed in his bid for the presidency. By 1876, Morton’s consistent alignment with the Radical Republican faction in the Senate—centered on support for Reconstruction and the 14th and 15th Amendments—had become an unpopular stance among many Northerners. In addition, Democratic use of old political scandals, centered around accusations of financial impropriety and sexual misconduct, dogged Morton and damaged his reputation.