Republican Party
Sharing a love for horses and a common friend in Ohio congressman John Sherman, he became friends with General and later President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1872, Harlan gave a speech in Saratoga Springs, New York, in support of Grant against former Republican-turned-Democrat Horace Greeley, who he felt betrayed blacks in switching allegiances. The speech included a joke about a parrot which became a regular part of Harlan's speeches. At the State Colored Convention on August 22, 1872, Harlan and another black leader, Peter Clark, were strongly divided over whether black Ohioans should support Republican efforts for civil rights, or if Republican leadership was taking advantage of black support, and Harlan spoke strongly in favor of Republicans. Harlan's support was rewarded, and he was elected a delegate to the 1872 Republican National Convention. In December, Harlan was a prominent delegate at the National Colored Convention in Washington, D.C. led by P. B. S. Pinchback, William Nesbit, and Robert B. Elliott. Harlan led a delegation from the convention to call on President Grant, and met with Grant privately for about 15 minutes. In 1873, Grant appointed Harlan mail agent at large, and Harlan made great efforts to support Grant and the Republican Party. In 1874, Harlan was briefly removed as special agent of the Postal Service on the behest of senator John Quincy Smith, but soon was reinstated and given an apology by Smith. Harlan supported Republican efforts for civil rights, and in 1875 asked Benjamin Butler to clarify the scope of the Civil Rights Act, which Butler had authored and which John Marshall Harlan would, in 1883, be the lone Supreme Court Justice to support in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883). Butler's clarification, in the form of an open letter to Harlan, became a national story.
Harlan frequently was a prominent member of other Colored National Conventions, including in April 1876 led by M. W. Gibbs and held in Nashville, Tennessee, in May 1879 led by John R. Lynch again in Nashville. in 1890 (called the Colored Congress and a founding meeting of the National Afro-American League) in Chicago led by T. Thomas Fortune, and in 1892 led by D. A. Rudd in Cincinnati. In 1884 and 1888, Harlan was elected an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention for the Ohio delegation led by his friend and the future president, William McKinley. He was denied a spot in the 1880 convention, although recommended for the position by a group of black Ohio Republicans.
