An all-but-forgotten hardball political maneuver designed to keep Republicans in power in Washington is behind-the-image story of today’s #stampoftheday. Although these actions are quite salient today, they aren’t recent. Rather, they date back to the late 1800s, when five of what are now the nation’s least populated states were admitted to the union. That decision, which was aimed at ensuring Republican control of Congress in the late 1800s, is helping ensure Republican control of the Senate in 2020.
The stamp highlighting this maneuver is a 3-cent stamp, issued in November 1939, that marks the admission of four states to the union in November 1889: North and South Dakota, which were admitted on November 2; Montana on November 9; and Washington on November 11.
The stamp, which features a map showing the four states, is one of several whose initial design was drawn by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A stickler for detail, Roosevelt made sure the map shows the curving border the separates three of the states from Canada. In doing so, the design made the states resemble laundry hanging on a wash line, leading to the stamp’s nickname of the “clothesline stamp.”
The stamp doesn’t tell the story of how those states came to be admitted to the union. But as Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor at Boston University detailed in a September 2019 article in the Atlantic, admitting these lightly populated territories, was “a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority.”
As Richardson explains, in the 1870s, Republicans, who had dominated the federal government since the Civil War, began to worry that they were losing their grip on power. The southern states readmitted to the Union after the Civil War were voting for Democrats and many voters from outside the South were turning away from the Republican’s increased embrace of the business interests that were remaking America.
As a result of these changes, in 1874, Republicans lost control of the House for the first time; in 1876 they almost lost the presidency (and were saved, in part, by three electoral votes provided by newly admitted Colorado). In 1884, they did lose the presidency to Democrat Grover Cleveland. Republicans mounted a ferocious campaign to regain control in 1888, and succeeded in securing the presidency for Benjamin Harrison, who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote.
In early 1889, before Harrison even took office, Congress voted to admit North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Montana (which was a concession to Democrats who had been pressing to admit Montana and New Mexico). According to Richardson, “Republicans did not hide their intentions. In the popular Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, President Harrison’s son crowed that the Republicans would win all the new states and gain eight more senators, while the states’ new electors meant that Cleveland’s New York would no longer dominate the Electoral College.”
Moreover, Richardson noted, in 1890, when it was clear that Republicans’ popularity was still falling nationally, Congress added Wyoming and Idaho-whose populations in 1880 were fewer than 21,000 and 33,000 respectively….Democrats objected that Wyoming and Idaho would have four senators and two representatives even though there were fewer people in both together than in some of Massachusetts’s congressional districts….[But] Harrison’s men didn’t care. ‘The difference between the parties is as the difference between the light and darkness, day and night,’ one supporter argued in Frank Leslie’s. The Republican Party, he insisted, must stay in power to protect Big Business. If that meant shutting more populous territories out of statehood and admitting a few underpopulated western states to enable a minority to exercise political control over the majority of Americans, so be it. ”
Moreover, although the New Mexico Territory had more than twice the residents as many of these new states, Republicans balked at admitted that territory as a state not only because it was likely to support Democrats but also because it was largely Hispanic. A New York Times article from the 1870s cited by Richardson, for example, argued against admitting New Mexico because it was inhabited by “ignorant, priest-ridden ‘Greasers'”-a slur for people of Mexican origin-and should not be given “the right to send two Senators to vote equally with those of New-York, Pennsylvania, and other great States of the Union.” (New Mexico was finally admitted in the union in 1912).
In the end, the Republican power plays of 1889 and 1890 resulted in the admission of six states, which combined have 12 senators and 18 electoral votes. And while those states have, at times, elected and supported Democrats, with the notable exception of Washington, they largely are represented by and support Republicans.
This has powerful implications. While Washington, which has 7.6 million residents, is the nation’s 13th most populous state, the other five states all have fewer residents than Puerto Rico (which has 3.2 million residents). In fact, the five states are among the country’s ten least populous states. Idaho, the 39th most populous state has 1.8 million residents; Montana, which ranks 43rd has 1.1 million residents. The other three states have less than 1 million residents and Wyoming, the least populous state, has only 579,000 residents, which is less than the population of Washington, DC. Put another way, the five small states have a total population of about 5.1 million residents – a figure that is less is 12 percent of the population of California, which like Wyoming, has 2 senators. In fact, the total population of the five states is smaller than the population of 23 states.
In short, while today’s stamp might jokingly be called the clothesline stamp, the story behind clearly shows that many people were hung out to dry by the decisions it commemorates. And, unfortunately, it’s a system that won’t be changing any time soon. Hopefully, it won’t lead to continued gridlock at a time when coordinated action is needed.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.