Politics in the Gilded Age
1869-1896
The "Bloody Shirt" Elects Grant
• The Republicans nominated General Grant for
the presidency in 1868. The Republican Party
supported the continuation of the
Reconstruction of the South, while Grant stood
on the platform of "just having peace."
• The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour.
• Grant won the election of 1868.
The Era of Good Stealings
• Jim Fisk and Jay Gould devised a plot to drastically
raise the price of the gold market in 1869. On "Black
Friday," September 24, 1869, the two bought a large
amount of gold, planning to sell it for a profit. In
order to lower the high price of gold, the Treasury
was forced to sell gold from its reserves.
• "Boss" Tweed employed bribery, graft, and
fraudulent elections to milk New York of as much as
$200 million. (Tweed Ring) Tweed was eventually
put into prison.
A Carnival of Corruption
• In addition to members of the general public being
corrupt, members of the federal government also
participated in unethical actions.
• The Credit Mobilier scandal erupted in 1872 when
Union Pacific Railroad insiders formed the Credit
Mobilier construction company and then hired
themselves at inflated prices to build the railroad line,
earning high dividends. When it was found out that
government officials were paid to stay quiet about the
illicit business, some officials were censured.
The Liberal Republican Revolt of
1872
• In response to disgust of the political corruption in Washington
and of military Reconstruction, the Liberal Republican Party
was formed in 1872.
• The Liberal Republican Party met in Cincinnati and chose
Horace Greeley as their presidential candidate for the election
of 1872. The Democratic Party also chose Greeley as their
candidate. The Republican Party continued to put its support
behind President Grant. Grant won the election of 1872.
• The Liberal Republicans caused the Republican Congress to
pass a general amnesty act in 1872; removing political
disabilities from most of the former Confederate
leaders. Congress also reduced high Civil War tariffs and gave
mild civil-service reform to the Grant administration.
Depression, Deflation, and Inflation
•
•
•
•
•
•
Over-speculating was the primary cause to the panic of 1873; too much expansion
had taken place. Too many people had taken out loans of which they were unable
to pay back due to lack of profit from where they had invested their money.
Due to popular mistrust of illegitimate dealings in the government, inflation soon
depreciated the value of the greenback. Supported by advocates of hard money
(coin money), the Resumption Act of 1875 required the government to continue to
withdraw greenbacks from circulation and to redeem all paper currency in gold at
face value beginning in 1879.
The coinage of silver dollars was stopped by Congress in 1873 when silver miners
began to stop selling their silver to the federal mints - miners could receive more
money for the silver elsewhere.
The Treasury began to accumulate gold stocks against the appointed day for the
continuation of metallic money payments. This policy, along with the reduction of
greenbacks, was known as "contraction."
When the Redemption Day came in 1879 for holders of greenbacks to redeem the
greenbacks for gold, few did; the greenback's value had actually increased due to its
reduction in circulation.
The Republican hard-money policy had a political backlash and helped to elect a
Democratic House of Representatives in 1874.
Pallid Politics in the Gilded Age
•
•
•
•
•
Throughout most of the Gilded Age (a name given to the 30 years after the Civil
War era by Mark Twain) the political parties in government had balanced out.
Few significant economic issues separated the Democrats and the Republicans.
Republican voters tended to stress strict codes of personal morality and believed
that the government should play a role in regulating the economic and the moral
affairs of society. They were found in the Midwest and Northeast. Many
Republican votes came from the Grand Army of the Republic, a politically active
fraternal organization of many Union veterans of the Civil War.
Democrats were immigrant Lutherans and Roman Catholics who believed in
toleration of differences in an imperfect world. They also opposed the government
imposing a single moral standard on the entire society. Democrats were found in
the South and in the northern industrial cities.
A "Stalwart" faction led by Roscoe Conkling supported the system of swapping
civil-servant jobs for votes. (Giving someone a job if they vote for a specific
party/cause. "Spoils system") Opposed to the Stalwarts were the Half-Breeds, led
by James G. Blaine. The main disagreement between the two groups was over who
would give the jobs to the people who voted in their favor.
The Hayes-Tilden Standoff, 1876
• Congress passed a resolution that reminded the country, and Grant, of the
two-term tradition for presidency after Grant was speculating about running
for a 3rd term.
• The Republicans chose Rutherford B. Hayes as their presidential candidate
for the election of 1876. The Democrats chose Samuel J. Tilden.
• In the election, Tilden won the popular vote, but was 1 vote shy from
winning in the Electoral College. The determining electoral votes would
come from three states, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida who had
each sent two sets of ballots to Congress, one with the Democrats
victorious and the other with the Republicans victorious; there was no
winner in these states.
• It was necessary to find the true political party winner of the states,
although it was unknown who would judge the winner of the states because
the president of the Senate was a Republican and the Speaker of the House
was a Democrat.
The Compromise of 1877 and the
End of Reconstruction
• The Electoral Count Act (Compromise of 1877), passed by Congress in
1877, set up an electoral commission consisting of 15 men selected from
the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. It was
made to determine which party would win the election. The committee
finally determined, without opening the ballots from the 3 disputed states,
that the Republicans had been victorious in the disputed ballots from the
three states, giving the Republicans the presidency.
• The Democrats were outraged at the outcome, but agreed that Republican
Hayes could take office if he withdrew the federal troops from Louisiana
and South Carolina.
• With the Hayes-Tilden deal, the Republican Party abandoned its
commitment to racial equality.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1875 supposedly guaranteed equal
accommodations in public places and prohibited racial discrimination in
jury selection. The Supreme Court ended up ruling most of the Act
unconstitutional, declaring that the 14th Amendment only prohibited
government violations of civil rights, not the denial of civil rights by
individuals.
The Birth of Jim Crow in the PostReconstruction South
• As Reconstruction had ended in the South, white Democrats
resumed their political power in the South and began to exercise
their discrimination upon blacks.
• Blacks were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming. Through
the "crop-lien" system, small farmers who rented out land from the
plantation owners were kept in perpetual debt and forced to continue
to work for the owners.
• Eventually, state-level legal codes of segregation known as Jim
Crow laws were enacted. The Southern states also enacted literacy
requirements, voter-registration laws, and poll taxes to ensure the
denial of voting for the South's black population.
• The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the South's segregation in the
case of Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), declaring that separate but
equal facilities for blacks were legal under the 14th Amendment.
Class Conflicts and Ethnic Clashes
• Following the panic of 1873 and the resulting depression,
railroad workers went on strike after their wages were cut by
President Hayes. The strike failed, exposing the weakness of
the labor movement.
• Masses of immigrants came to United States in hopes of
finding riches, but many were dismayed when they found
none. They either returned home or remained in America and
faced extraordinary hardships.
• People of the West Coast attributed declining wages and
economic troubles to the hated Chinese workers. To appease
them, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882,
halting Chinese immigration into America.
Garfield and Arthur
• Because President Hayes was despised by his own Republican Party, James
A. Garfield was chosen as the presidential candidate for the election of
1880. His vice-president was Chester A. Arthur, a former Stalwart. The
Democrats chose Civil War hero, Winfield Scott.
• Garfield won the election of 1880, but was assassinated by Charles J.
Guiteau at a Washington railroad station. Guiteau, claiming to be a
Stalwart, shot the president claiming that the Conklingites would now get
all the good jobs now that Chester Arthur was President.
• The death of Garfield shocked politicians into reforming the spoils
system. The reform was supported by President Arthur, shocking his
critics. The Pendleton Act of 1883 made campaign contributions from
federal employees illegal, and it established the Civil Service Commission
to make appointments to federal jobs on the basis of competitive
examination. It was basically made to stop political corruption. The civilservice reform forced politicians to gain support and funds from bigbusiness leaders.
The Blaine-Cleveland Mudslingers
of 1884
• The Republicans chose James G. Blaine as
their presidential candidate for the election of
1884. The Democrats chose Grover
Cleveland. Grover Cleveland was a very
honest and admirable man. Cleveland won the
election of 1884.
"Old Grover" Takes Over
• Questions were raised about whether Cleveland and the
Democratic Party, "the party of disunion," could be trusted to
govern the Union.
• Cleveland replaced thousands of federal employees with
Democrats.
• Cleveland summed up his political philosophy when he vetoed
a bill in 1887 to provide seeds for drought-ravaged Texas
farmers, stating that the government should not support the
people.
• The Grand Army of the Republic lobbied hundreds of
unreasonable military pension bills through Congress, but
Cleveland vetoed many of the bills.
•
Cleveland Battles for a Lower Tariff
• The growing surplus of money in the Treasury coming from
the high tariff, which was made to raise revenues for the
military during the Civil War, caused President Cleveland to
propose lowering of the tariff in order to bring lower prices to
consumers. The lower tariff, introduced to Congress in 1887
and supported by Cleveland, tremendously hurt the nation's
factories and the overall economy. Cleveland lost support
because of the tariff.
• The Republicans chose Benjamin Harrison as their presidential
candidate for the 1888 election. During the election, the first
major issue between the two parties had
arisen: tariffs. Cleveland won the popular vote, but Harrison
still won the election.
The Billion-Dollar Congress
• When the Democrats were prepared to stop all House business,
the Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed, took control and
intimidated the House to his imperious will. The BillionDollar Congress, named for its lavish spending, gave pensions
to Civil War veterans, increased government purchases on
silver, and passed the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890.
• The McKinley Tariff Act raised tariffs yet again and brought
more troubles to farmers. Farmers were forced to buy
expensive products from American manufacturers while selling
their own products into the highly competitive world markets.
• The Tariff Act caused the Republican Party to lose public
support and become discredited. In the congressional elections
of 1890, the Republicans lost their majority in Congress.
The Drumbeat of Discontent
•
•
•
•
The People's Party, or "Populists," formed from frustrated farmers in the
agricultural belts of the West and South. The Populists demanded inflation through
free and unlimited coinage of silver. They also called for a graduated income tax;
government ownership of the railroads, telegraph, and telephone; the direct election
of U.S. senators; a one-term limit on the presidency; the adoption of the initiative
and referendum to allow citizens to shape legislation more directly; a shorter
workday; and immigration restriction.
The Populists nominated General James B. Weaver for the presidential election of
1892.
In 1892, a series of violent worker strikes swept through the nation.
The Populist Party fell far short of winning the election. One of the main reasons
was that the party supported and reached out to the black community. Its leaders,
such as Thomas Edward Watson, felt that a black man had every right to vote. The
Populist Party counted on many blacks votes from the South. Unfortunately, many
Southern blacks were denied the right to vote due to literacy tests. The Southern
whites voted against the party due the party's equal rights views toward blacks.
Cleveland and Depression
•
•
•
•
•
Grover Cleveland again ran for the presidency in the election of 1892 and won,
beating out the divided Populist Party and the discredited Republican Party.
The panic of 1893 was the worst economic downturn for the United States during
the 19th Century. It was caused by overbuilding and over-speculation, labor
disorders, and the ongoing agricultural depression.
The Treasury was required to issue legal tender notes for the silver bullion that it
had purchased. Owners of the paper currency would then present it for gold, and by
law the notes had to be reissued. This process depleted the gold reserve in the
Treasury to less than $100 million.
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 was created by the administration of
Benjamin Harrison in order to increase the amount of silver in circulation. The
drastic rise in silver caused the American people to believe that the less expensive
silver was going to replace gold as the main form of currency. The American
people therefore began to withdraw their assets in gold, depleting the Treasury's
gold supply. Cleveland was forced to repeal the Sherman Silver Act Purchase in
1893.
Cleveland turned to J.P. Morgan to lend $65 million in gold in order to increase the
Treasury's reserve.
Cleveland Breeds a Backlash
• The Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 lowered tariffs
and contained a 2% tax on incomes over $4,000. The
Supreme Court ruled income taxes unconstitutional in
1895.
• The Wilson-Gorman Tariff caused the Democrats to
lose positions in Congress, giving the Republicans an
advantage.
• Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and
Cleveland were known as the "forgettable
presidents."