a
majority of the votes for presidential nominee; and B. J. Chambers of
Texas was nominated for Vice-President.

General Weaver in his letter of acceptance declared it to be his
intention "to visit the various sections of the Union and talk to the
people." This he did, covering the country from Arkansas to Maine and
from Lake Michigan to the Gulf, speaking in Faneuil Hall at Boston and
in the Cooper Union at New York, but spending the greater part of
his time in the Southern States. He declared that he traveled twenty
thousand miles, made fully one hundred speeches, shook the hands of
thirty thousand people, and was heard by half a million. Weaver was the
first presidential candidate to conduct a campaign of this sort, and the
results were not commensurate with his efforts. The Greenback vote was
only 308,578, about three per cent of the total. One explanation of the
small vote would seem to be the usual disinclination of people to vote
for a man who has no chance of election, however much they may approve
of him and his principles, when they have the opportunity to make their
votes count in deciding between two other candidates. Then, too, the
sun of prosperity was beginning at last to dissipate the clouds of
depression. The crops of corn, wheat, and oats raised in 1880 were
the largest the country had ever known; and the price of corn for once
failed to decline as production rose, so that the crop was worth half as
much again as that of 1878. When the farmer had large crops to dispose
of at remunerative prices, he lost interest in the inflation of the
currency.

After 1880 the Greenback party rapidly disintegrated. There was no
longer any hope of its becoming a major party, in the near future at
least, and the more conservative leaders began to drift back into the
old parties or to make plans for fusion with one of them in
coming elections. But fusion could at best only defer the end. The
congressional election of 1882 clearly demonstrated that the party was
moribund. Ten of the Congressmen elected in 1880 had been classified
as Nationals; of these only one was reelected in 1882, and no new
names appear in the list. It is probable, however, that a number of
Congressmen classified as Democrats owed their election in part to
fusion between the Democratic and Greenback parties.

The last appearance of the Greenbackers in national politics was in the
presidential election of 1884. In May of that year a convention of
"