Politics in the Gilded Age
Essential Question:
What were the impacts of different
forms of corruption and their
consequences in American politics
during the Gilded Age?
Mark Twain describes the Gilded Age
There are many young men like him in American
society, of his age, opportunities, education and
abilities, who have really been educated for nothing
and have let themselves drift, in the hope that they will
find somehow, and by some sudden turn of good luck,
the golden road to fortune . . . He saw people, all
around him, poor yesterday, rich to-day, who had come
into sudden opulence by some means which they could
not have classified among any of the regular
occupations of life
- From Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age
Political Machine Article
• Answer the following questions on a separate
sheet of paper as you read through the article:
– Provide evidence from the article to describe how
the author define a political machine.
– Analyze the purposes of the political machine and
their impact on the public.
– Do you think Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall was
corrupt or was he trying to help the people of his
city? What evidence supports your reasoning?
“Who Stole the People’ Money”
• One a political machine got its candidates into
office, it could take advantage of numerous
opportunities for graft, the illegal use of
political influence for personal gain.
Patronage Spurs Reform
• Presidents got increasingly frustrated with the idea
of patronage, giving a political job/position to
someone who helped a candidate win an election
– During Andrew Jackson’s presidency, this was called the
“spoils system”
– Many jobs were given to under qualified people
• Reformers pushed towards a merit system of hiring
– Jobs in civil service, or government administration, should
go to the most qualified people
Ulysses S. Grant
• Under President Ulysses S. Grant’s
administration, 3 scandals occurred that
meant more trouble for American citizens
• Read through the scandals
Reform Under Presidents
Hayes, Garfield, & Arthur
• Rutherford Hayes (R), elected in 1876, could not
convince gov’t to support reform, so he took matters
into his own hands
– Named independents to his cabinets – why do this?
– Set up a commission to investigate the nation’s
customhouses, notorious centers of patronage
– Fired two top officials of New York’s customhouse
• Enraged the Boss Roscoe Conkling and republicans who ran the
house called the Stalwarts
– He did not go out for re-election in 1880 leading to a free
for all at the Republican convention that year headed by
the Stalwarts
James A. Garfield
• Since the Stalwarts and the reformers could
not come to an agreement at the convention,
everyone settled on Independent candidate
James A. Garfield
– Garfield leaned more towards the reformers
– To balance this out, V.P candidate Chester A.
Arthur was named who was a supporter of Boss
Conkling
• Despite this, most civil service jobs went to reformers,
angering the Stalwarts more
Chester A. Arthur
• On July 2, 1881, as President Garfield was walking
through the D.C. train station, he was shot twice
by a member of the Stalwarts
– He exclaimed “I did it and I will go to jail for it. I am a
Stalwart and Arthur is now president.”
– The man was overlooked for a job he was hoping to
get despite his lack of qualification
• Garfield died of his wounds on September 19th
• Despite his ties to the Stalwarts, Arthur turned
reformer after having worked along side Garfield,
and the assassination
Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1983
• In response to Garfield’s assassination, Arthur’s
first request to Congress was to pass this act
• Under the act, a bipartisan service commission
could make appointments to federal jobs through
a merit system based on candidate’s performance
on an examination
• Effects:
– Public admin. became more honest and efficient
– Because officials could not milk employees for money,
politicians turned to other sources for donations
Harrison, Cleveland, and the High
Tariffs
• If you cannot get campaign contributions from
independent people, who do you turn to?
– Big Business!
– In return, they hoped gov’t officials would raise
tariffs – what is a tariff?
• Restriction on trade
• Problem – tariffs raise prices of goods for consumers
• In 1884, the Democratic Party won (1st time in
28 yrs) with Grover Cleveland
– He tried to lower tariffs, but congress refused at
every turn
Election of 1888
• In 1888, Cleveland ran for re-election on a lowtariff platform
• His opponent was Benjamin Harrison, the
grandson of President William Henry Harrison
– His campaign was funded by big businesses, of course,
wanting high tariffs
• Cleveland won the popular election by 100,000
votes, but Cleveland won the electoral college
– His first action was the McKinley Tariff Act raising
tariffs to higher rates than ever before
Election of 1892 and 1896
• Cleveland ran for election again in 1892 and won,
the only president in history to serve two
nonconsecutive terms
– What do you suppose his first action was?
• In 1896, William McKinley (as in McKinley Tariff
Act) was inaugurated as president
– And what do you suppose he did?
• Despite the failed attempt at reducing tariffs, the
American people wanted reform, they would see
some at the turn of the century
Politics in the Gilded Age
Answer the Essential Question:
What were the impacts of different
forms of corruption and their
consequences in American politics
during the Gilded Age?