Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age
1869-1896

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1868 election: Grant (Republican) even without political experience
Focus on Military Reconstruction
Democrats split between wealthy easterners and poor midwesterners
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The Ohio Idea
Republicans “waved the bloody shirt”= victory for Grant

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Jim Fisk and Jay Gould= stock speculation to control Erie Railroad
Wanted to corner gold market
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Paid off Grant’s brother in law
Began buying up gold summer 1869
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Federal government released $4 million in gold= Black Friday

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Boss William Marcy Tweed in NYC’s
Tammany Hall
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Democratic political machine
Bribery, graft, cronyism and election fraud
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NY Times and Thomas Nast
NY attorney, Samuel J. Tilden

Can the Law Reach Him? 1872
Cartoonist Thomas Nast attacked “Boss” Tweed in a series of cartoons like this one that appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1872. Here Nast depicts the corrupt Tweed as a powerful giant, towering over a puny law force.

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Liberal Republican party formed 1872
“Turn the Rascals Out”
Horace Greeley nominated, Democrats backed Greeley too!
Mudslinging campaign, forced the
Republicans to pass some reforms

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Jay Cooke and Company went bankrupt
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Created a domino effect  unemployment, bankruptcies, banks closed
New debtor class (agrarian)= want greenbacks for inflation
Soft Money vs. Hard Money
Resumption Act 1875: withdraw greenbacks and pay off in gold  contraction

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Debtors focused on silver now
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Silver mines out west, inflationary tactic
Depression worsened, but US credit rating improved
Hard Money Republicans lost in House in
1874 and 1878
Greenback Labor Party created in retaliation

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All elections in Gilded Age close= politicians focused on keeping jobs
Extreme party loyalty and high voter turnout
Republicans= Puritan lineage, government should regulate economy and morality
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Midwest, rural and small towns in New England, freedmen, GAR
Democrats= immigrants, no government interference
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South and industrial cities (political machines)

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Division in Republican party in 1870’s-80’s over patronage
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Stalwarts: trade civil service jobs for votes
(Roscoe Conkling)
Half Breeds: civil service reform (James G.
Blaine)

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1876 election: Republicans nominated
Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio (unknown)
Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden of
NY  received 184 electoral votes (needed
185)
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3 Southern states contested
Electoral Count Act: electoral commission  voted along party lines (Republican)

Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election of 1876 (with electoral vote by state)
Nineteen of the twenty disputed votes composed the total electoral count of Louisiana,
South Carolina, and Florida. The twentieth was one of Oregon’s three votes, cast by an elector who turned out to be ineligible because he was a federal officeholder (a postmaster), contrary to the Constitution (see Art. II, Sec. I, para. 2).

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Backroom deal to let Hayes have victory  would give Democrats concessions if didn’t oppose
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Remove federal troops from South
1 Southern Democrat in Cabinet
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Transcontinental railroad
Industrialized South
Official end to Reconstruction  Redeemer governments in South
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Civil Rights Act 1875 last attempt to help blacks

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Solidly white South= Redeemer state governments
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Intimidation of blacks
Share cropping or tenant farming  crop lien system
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Jim Crow laws, lynchings
Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896

A Southern Plantation, Before and After the Civil War

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1880: 75,000 Asians in California
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Gold and transcontinental railroad
Outcastes, no children to help with assimilation, most menial jobs
Denis Kearney
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Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
US vs. Wong Kim Ark 1898 (jus soli vs. jus sanguinis)

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1880 election: James A Garfield (Half
Breed) and Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart)
Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield
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“I am a Stalwart and now Arthur is President”
Insanity plea  convicted and hung
Chester A. Arthur= reform spoils system
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Pendleton Act 1883
Led to marriage of politics with big business

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Democrat Grover Cleveland won 1884 election
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Bourbon Democrat- believed in laissez faire economics, gold standard, against imperialism and boss politics
Caved to spoils system, vetoed pension bills
Wanted to lower the tariff to get rid of $145 million surplus (small government)
Lost 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison over tariff issue ($ from business to Harrison to buy votes!)

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1892 The People’s Party (Populists)
Adopted Omaha Platform at Convention
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Inflation  free and unlimited coinage of silver
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Graduated income tax
Govnt. ownership of RR, telegraph, telephone
Direct election of Senators
1 term limit on president
Initiatives and referendums (grassroots)
8 hour work day
Immigration restrictions

Minnesota Farmers Loading a Husker-Shredder, 1890s
The purchase of technologically advanced farm equipment increased the productivity of farmers but also saddled them with debt. Many sought debt relief in the 1890s by clamoring for inflationary schemes, including the monetization of silver

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Homestead Steel Plant (Carnegie)- workers went on strike
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Pinkerton detectives sent in summer 1892
10 dead, 60 wounded, troops needed
Populists hoped to link agrarian movement to labor, but mostly seen in west and midwest
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South failed to join because of racism

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Cleveland reelected 1892 (2 nonconsecutive terms)
Panic of 1893= worst downturn of 19 th century
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Overbuilding, speculation, decrease in agriculture, labor problems
Legal tender notes issued  redeem for gold or silver= run on gold!
Needed to repeal Sherman Silver Purchase Act-
Treasury dropped below $100 million in gold

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Needed to get past silverites (supported bimetallism)  William Jennings Bryan
By 1894, still losing too much gold  down to $41 million
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Loan from JP Morgan in 1895 of $65 million with a $7 million commission
Seen as a deal with the devil by silverites