The Stalwarts were a conservative faction of the Republican Party which existed from 1877 to 1890. They consisted of supporters of President Ulysses S. Grant's administration, and they were "stalwart" in their opposition to President Rutherford B. Hayes' attempts to reconcile with the South, opposed civil service reform, supported the protective tariff, supported the patronage system led by Grant, Roscoe Conkling, and Chester A. Arthur, and supported a third term for Grant. Essentially, they kept the Radical Republican flame on Reconstruction policy and black civil rights, hoping that the Democratic resurgence in the South could be reversed, and opposing the efforts of the reformist "Half-Breeds" to establish a meritocracy and put an end to Radical Reconstruction. The Stalwarts were backed by the New York political machine, Republicans from former Confederate states, Union veterans of the American Civil War who overwhelmingly supported Grant, and urban Republicans. The Stalwart-Half Breed rivalry later escalated into violence during James A. Garfield's presidency. The Stalwart office-seeker Charles J. Guiteau's assassination of Garfield because of his refusal to grant him patronage jobs led to a massive decline in support for machine politics, and even President Arthur supported civil service reform. The Stalwarts declined in power, and they dissolved in 1890.
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