in his statement, which according to biographer David M. Jordan was "bland and general". After scorning the previous years of Republican rule, Hancock sought to tamp down fears that election of a Democrat would overturn the results of the war and Reconstruction, a common Republican campaign theme. Unlike Garfield, Hancock had no record in elected office, but the acceptance letter gave no further indication of his political preferences. Hancock remained on active duty during the campaign at his post on Governors Island in New York Harbor. Weaver James Baird Weaver was born in Ohio, and moved to Iowa as a boy when his family claimed a homestead on the frontier. He became politically active as a young man and was an advocate for farmers and laborers, joining and quitting several political parties in the furtherance of the progressive causes in which he believed. After serving in the Union Army in the Civil War, Weaver returned to Iowa and worked for the election of Republican candidates. After making several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the Greenback Party, advocating an increased money supply and stricter regulation of big business. As a Greenbacker with Democratic support, Weaver won election to the House of Representatives in 1878. Unlike the major party candidates, Weaver planned to take the field himself, giving speeches around the country. His running mate, Chambers, was to do the same, until a fall from a train in July disabled him for the duration of the campaign. As the Greenbackers had the only ticket that included a Southerner, he hoped to make inroads in that region. Weaver's path to victory, already unlikely, was made more difficult by his refusal to run a fusion ticket in states where Democratic and Greenbacker strength might have combined to outvote the Republicans. His party's message of racial inclusion also presaged difficulty in the South, as the Greenbackers would face the same obstacles the Republicans did in the face of increasing black disenfranchisement. Campaign Bloody shirt Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the Solid South, while much of the North was considered safe territory for Garfield and the Republicans; most of the campaign would involve a handful of close states, including New York and Indiana. National elections were largely decided in close elections in New York and the