“No leaders, no principles;
no principles, no parties”
Bell Work:
Explain how the following statement captures the spirit of
Politics during the Gilded Age.
Primary role of Government
“To clear the way of
impediments and dangers, and
leave every class and every
individual free and safe in the
exertions and pursuits of life”
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Major Characteristics
of Gilded Age Politics
 Voter turn out
 Professional bureaucracy
 Re-alignment
 Laissez –faire
 Passivity
1. A Two-Party Stalemate
Two-Party “Balance”
2. Intense
Voter Loyalty
to the
Two Major
Political Parties
3. Well-Defined Voting Blocs
Democratic
Bloc
 White southerners
(preservation of
white supremacy)
 Catholics
 Recent immigrants
(esp. Jews)
 Urban working
poor (pro-labor)
 Most farmers
Republican
Bloc
 Northern whites
(pro-business)
 African Americans
 Northern
Protestants
 Old WASPs (support
for anti-immigrant
laws)
 Most of the middle
class
4. Very Laissez Faire Federal Govt.
 From 1870-1900  Govt. did very
little domestically.
 Main duties of the federal govt.:
 Deliver the mail.
 Maintain a national military.
 Collect taxes & tariffs.
 Conduct a foreign policy.
 Exception  administer the annual
Civil War veterans’ pension.
5. The Presidency as a Symbolic Office
 Party bosses ruled.
 Presidents should
avoid offending any
factions within their
own party.
 The President just
doled out federal jobs.
Senator Roscoe Conkling
 1865  53,000 people worked for the federal govt.
 1890  166,000
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1880 Presidential Election: Republicans
Half Breeds
Stalwarts
Sen. James G. Blaine
(Maine)
compromise
James A. Garfield
Sen. Roscoe Conkling
(New York)
Chester A. Arthur (VP)
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The Mugwumps were Republican political activists who supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the United States
presidential election of 1884. They switched parties because they rejected the financial corruption associated with Republican
candidate, James Blaine. In a close election the Mugwumps supposedly made the difference in New York state and swung the
election to Cleveland.
After the election, mugwump survived for more than a decade as an epithet in American politics. Many Mugwumps became
Democrats or remained independents; most continued to support reform well into the 20th century. [1] During the Third Party
System, party loyalty was in high regard and independents were rare. Theodore Roosevelt stunned his upper class New York City
friends by supporting Blaine in 1884; by rejecting the Mugwumps he kept alive his Republican party leadership.[2]
New England and the northeastern United States had been a stronghold of the Republican Party since the Civil War era, but the
Mugwumps considered Blaine to be untrustworthy, and a fraudulent candidate. Their idealism and reform sensibilities led them to
oppose the political corruption in the politics of the Gilded Age. [3]
Patronage and politics
Political patronage, also known as the "spoils system," was the issue that angered many reform-minded Republicans, and lead
them to choke on Blaine's candidacy. In the spoils system, the winning candidate would dole out government positions to those
who had supported his political party prior to the election. Although the Pendleton Act of 1883 established the United States Civil
Service Commission, and made competency and merit the base qualifications for government positions, its effective
implementation was slow. Political affiliation continued to be the basis for appointment to many positions. [4]
In the early 1880s, the issue of political patronage split the Republican Party down the middle for several consecutive sessions of
Congress. The party was divided into two warring factions, each with creative names. The side that held the upper hand in
numbers and popular support were the Half-Breeds, led by Senator James Blaine of Maine. The Half-Breeds supported civil
service reform, and often blocked legislation and political appointments put forth by their main congressional opponents, the
stalwarts, led by Roscoe Conkling of New York.
The Mugwumps were Republicans who refused to support Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine in 1884.
Ironically, Blaine was from the reform wing of his own party, but the Mugwumps rejected his candidacy. This division among
Republicans may have contributed to the victory in 1884 of Grover Cleveland, the first president elected from the Democratic
party since the Civil War. In the period from 1876 to 1892, presidential elections were closely contested at the national level, but
the states themselves were mostly dominated by a single party, with Democrats prevailing in the South and the Republicans in
the Northeast. Although the defection of the Mugwumps may have helped Cleveland win in New York, one of the few closely
contested states, historians attribute Cleveland's victory nationwide to the rising power of urban immigrant voters. [5]
[edit] Historical appraisals
Several historians of the 1960s and 1970s portrayed the Mugwumps as members of an insecure elite, one that felt threatened by
changes in American society. These historians often focused on the social background and status of their subjects, and the
narratives they have written share a common outlook. [6]
Mugwumps tended to come from old Protestant families of New York and New England, and often from inherited wealth. They
belonged to or identified with the emerging business and professional elite, and were often members of the most exclusive clubs.
Yet they felt threatened by the rise of machine politics, one aspect of which was the spoils system, and by the rising power of
immigrants in American society. They excelled as authors and essayists, yet their writings indicated their social position and class
loyalties. In politics, they tended to be ineffectual and unsuccessful, unable and unwilling to operate effectively in a political
environment where patronage was the norm.
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The "Half-Breeds" were a political faction of the United States Republican Party that existed in the
late 19th century. The Half-Breeds were a moderate-wing group, and they were the opponents of
the Stalwarts, the other main faction of the Republican Party. The main issue that separated the
Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds was political patronage. The Stalwarts were in favor of political
machines and spoils system-style patronage, while the Half-Breeds, led by Maine senator James
G. Blaine, were in favor of civil service reform.
In the 1880 Republican National Convention, the Stalwart candidate, former president Ulysses S.
Grant, was pitted against Half-Breed James G. Blaine for the party nomination. Grant's campaign
was being led by Stalwart leader, Roscoe Conkling of New York, a state that had the biggest split
between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds. Despite Conkling's attempts at imposing a unit-rule in the
Republican National Convention, in which a state's votes would be grouped together for only one
candidate,[1] a number of Stalwarts went against him by vocalizing their support for the HalfBreed, Blaine. The Half-Breeds united together to defeat the unit rule in a vote, and elected
George Frisbie Hoar, a Half-Breed, to the position as the temporary chairman of the
convention.[2][3]
Both sides knew that there was no chance of victory for either candidate, and the Half-Breeds
chose a compromise candidate, James Garfield, who won the party's nomination on the thirty-sixth
ballot,[4] and later the presidential election.[5] Blaine was chosen to be Secretary of State in the
Garfield administration, and he carried heavy influence on the political appointments Garfield
issued for congressional approval. After Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau, a
Stalwart, who proclaimed, "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts and Arthur will be President",[6] the
new Stalwart president Chester A. Arthur surprised those in his own faction by promoting civil
service reform and issuing government jobs based on a merit system.[7]
The Half-Breeds wrote the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, and Arthur signed the bill into law
on January 16, 1883. The act put an end to the spoils system, and placed all federal employees
under the merit system, which exists to this day. The act also set up the United States Civil Service
Commission, banished political tests, denied jobs to alcoholics and created competitive measures
for some federal positions.[8] The Half-Breed and Stalwart factions both dissociated towards the
end of the 1880s
1880 Presidential Election: Democrats
Inspecting the Democratic Curiosity Shop
1880 Presidential Election
1881: Garfield Assassinated!
Charles Guiteau:
I Am a Stalwart, and Arthur is
President now!
Chester A. Arthur:
The Fox in the Chicken Coup?
Pendleton Act (1883)
 Civil Service Act.
 The “Magna Carta” of
civil service reform.
 1883  14,000 out of
117,000 federal govt.
jobs became civil
service exam positions.
 1900  100,000 out of
200,000 civil service
federal govt. jobs.
Republican “Mugwumps”
 Reformers who wouldn’t re-nominate
Chester A. Arthur.
 Reform to them  create a
disinterested, impartial govt. run by an
educated elite like themselves.
 Social Darwinists.
 Laissez faire government to them:
Favoritism & the spoils system seen as
govt. intervention in society.
Their target was political corruption,
not social or economic reform!
The
Mugwumps
Men may come
and men may go,
but the work of
reform shall go
on forever.
 Will support
Cleveland in the
1884 election.
1884 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
* (DEM)
James Blaine
(REP)
A Dirty Campaign
Ma, Ma…where’s my pa?
He’s going to the White House, ha… ha… ha…!
Little Lost Mugwump
Blaine in 1884
1884 Presidential Election
Cleveland’s First Term
 The “Veto Governor” from New York.
 First Democratic elected since 1856.
 A public office is a public trust!
 His laissez-faire presidency:
 Opposed bills to assist the poor as
well as the rich.
 Vetoed over 200 special pension bills
for Civil War veterans!
Bravo, Señor Clevelando!
The Tariff Issue
 After the Civil War, Congress raised
tariffs to protect new US industries.
 Big business wanted to continue this;
consumers did not.
 1885  tariffs earned the US $100 mil.
in surplus!
 Mugwumps opposed it  WHY???
 President Cleveland’s view on tariffs????
 Tariffs became a major issue in the 1888
presidential election.
Filing the Rough Edges
Tariff of 1888
1888 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
(DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
* (REP)
Coming Out for Harrison
1888 Presidential Election
Disposing the Surplus
Changing Public Opinion
 Americans wanted the federal govt. to deal
with growing soc. & eco. problems & to curb
the power of the trusts:
 Interstate Commerce Act – 1887
 Sherman Antitrust Act – 1890
 McKinley Tariff – 1890
 Based on the theory that prosperity
flowed directly from protectionism.
 Increased already high rates another 4%!
 Rep. Party suffered big losses in 1890 (even
McKinley lost his House seat!).
1892 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
again! * (DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
(REP)
1892 Presidential Election
Cleveland Loses Support Fast!
 The only President to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
 Blamed for the 1893 Panic.
 Defended the gold standard.
 Used federal troops in the 1894
Pullman strike.
 Refused to sign the Wilson-Gorman
Tariff of 1894.
 Repealed the Sherman Silver
Purchase Act.
Local Politics
Bossism
A system of political control
centering about a single
powerful figure (the boss) and
a complex organization of
lesser figures (the machine)
bound together by reciprocity
in promoting financial and
social self-interest.
 A boss is usually NOT an
elected official
George Washington Plunkitt
Tammany Hall (NYC)
The Democratic Party Political Machine that played a major role in
controlling New York City politics from the 1790s to 1960s