A Carnival of Corruption
 Federal
Gov’t was full of
corruption as a result of the
chaos of the Civil War
 Credit Mobilier Scandal 1872
 Construction company used as
a front for the UP RR, they
built the RR lines at
inflated prices
 They bribed congressman and
the VP not to say anything
 It was discovered by a
newspaper reporter
 Whiskey
Ring
 Deprived the government of
excise taxes
 Grant’s personal secretary
got acquitted of charges with
Grant’s help
 Secretary of War Belknap was
also guilty of accepting
bribes from suppliers to
Indian Reservations
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There was a balancing scale between the two
parties; just a few votes could throw the elections
the other way
 Every president barely won
 House majorities changed six times from 1869-91
 Candidates had to straddle every fence and were
too timid to try anything that would create a
wake
 The two parties were almost identical save by
name
 Voter turn out was at its highest ever almost 80%
Both
parties existed and
continued to exist through
giving followers jobs in
return for votes,
kickbacks, and service
 Republicans
had Rutherford
B. Hayes (The Great
Unknown) run in 1876
against Samuel Tilden
 Tilden won the popular vote
4.2 to 4 million votes but the
electoral college was unclear
20 votes were in dispute and
Tilden only needed one of them
 The states in dispute turned in
two votes, one democrat and
one republican, it depended on
who read the votes as to who
would win

 Compromise
of 1877
 Democrats threatened to go to war again
 Electoral Count Act
 Set up a commission of congressmen,
senators, and judges to decide on the
disputed votes
 Democrats allowed Hayes to become
president and in return the Republicans
promised to withdraw all federal troops
from the South
 The Republicans officially ended
Reconstruction
 Rutherford
B Hayes (Repub)
 James Garfield (Repub)
 Was
assassinated after seven months by
someone who wanted a job and didn’t get
one
 Chester
A Arthur (Repub)
 Grover Cleveland (Demo)
 Only
president elected twice non
consecutively
 William
Henry Harrison (Repub)
 Used
graft, election fraud, etc. to
control local politics
 Boss Tweed ran Tammany Hall in NY
 Illegally took millions from NY City
 Eventually brought down by Thomas
Nast by using political cartoons to
show how bad the corruption was.