The campaign of 1880 reflected the lack of definite utterances in the party platforms. Since each side was loath to press forward to the solution of any real problem facing the nation, the campaign was confined, for the most part, to petty or even corrupt partisanship. The career of General Garfield was carefully overhauled for evidences of scandal. Arthur's failings as a public officer were duly paraded. General Hancock was ridiculed as "a good man weighing two hundred and forty pounds." Some attempt was made by the Republicans to make an issue of the tariff, and a remark of Hancock to the effect that the tariff was a "local issue" was jeered at as proving an ignorance of public questions. There was little response to the "bloody shirt" and little interest in "the great fraud." A modicum of enthusiasm was injected into the canvass by the participation of Conkling and General Grant. The former was not happily disposed toward the Republican candidate and Grant had always refused to make campaign speeches, but as the autumn came on and defeat seemed imminent, these two leaders were prevailed upon to lend their assistance. Near the end of the campaign a letter was circulated in the Pacific states, purporting to have been written by Garfield to a Mr. Morey, and expressing opposition to the restriction of Chinese immigration. The signature was a forgery, but complete exposure in the short time before election day was impossible and the letter perhaps injured Garfield on the coast. Nevertheless Garfield and Arthur won, although their popular plurality was only 9,500 in a total of about nine millions. The electoral vote was 214 to 155 and showed that the division among the states was sectional, for in the North Hancock carried only New Jersey, together with Nevada and five electoral votes in California, the result probably of the Morey letter. Two aspects of the campaign had especial significance. The attempt by Conkling and his associates to choose the Republican nominee through the shrewd manipulation of political machinery, and against the wishes of the rank and file of the party, was a move on the part of the greater state bosses to get control of the national organization, so that they might manage it as they managed their local committees and conventions. The second notable circumstance concerned the collection and expenditure of the campaign funds.