+
Module 2: Gilded Age
Politics
APSUH Unit 6-2 Chapter 20 pages 636-650
+
Gilded Age Politics
+
The “Gilded Age”
 Gilded
Age: Name given by Mark Twain to the post
Civil War era in 1873. Shiny on the outside, bad on the
inside (income inequality, political corruption,
monopolies, etc).
 Politics
in the Gilded Age were a competitive battle
between very similar parties. Control of the House,
Senate, and White House see-sawed each election and
each election saw narrow margins.

Strongly run parties
 Massive party loyalty that caused 80% voter turnout with rare
ticket splitting.
+
Gilded Age Political Terms
 Spoils
System: Embraced in the Gilded Age as
supporters won government jobs, especially in the
postal system.
 Stalwart: “One
who steadfastly supports an organization
or cause: party stalwarts.” Faction of the Republicans in
the 1870’s and 1880’s led by Roscoe Conkling (Senator
from NY). Who openly embraced the spoils system.
 Half-Breed: The
other faction in the Republican Party.
Fought with Conklingites. Still did spoils system but
really had issues with who should give the spoils. Led by
James G. Blaine (Congressman from Maine).
 Stalwarts
and Half-Breeds deadlocked themselves and
the Republican Party.
+
Two-Party Stalemate
+
Well Defined Voting Blocs
Real differences were
in culture and ethnicity
Democratic Bloc
Republican Bloc

Lutherans and Catholics
(less stern)

Puritans (stern view of human
condition)

Against government effort
to put a single moral
standard on society

Northern whites (pro-business)

African Americans

Northern Protestants

Old WASPs (support for antiimmigrant laws)

Most of the middle class

Midwest and small town NE

GAR (Union Vets)


White southerners
(preservation of white
supremacy)
Recent immigrants (esp.
Jews)

Urban working poor (prolabor)

Most farmers
+
Very Laissez Faire Federal Gov
 From
1870-1900: Government did very little
domestically.
 Main
duties of the federal government.:
 Deliver
the mail.
 Maintain a national military.
 Collect taxes & tariffs.
 Conduct a foreign policy.
 Exception: administer the annual Civil War
veterans’ pension.
+
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.


1865 = 53,000 people worked for
the federal government
1890 = 166,000 people worked for
the federal government
Senator Roscoe Conkling
+
Pageant p 534 Last two paragraphs
 Ms. Hamer
will read you this amazing critique of
Gilded Age Politics
 It
explains why TR ended up with his face on a
mountain … everything between Lincoln
(assassinated 1865) and Teddy Roosevelt (became
president 1901) was awful
+
The Party System in American Politics
1st Party System: Federalist/Republican clashes of
the 1790’s- early 1800’s
2nd Party System: Jacksonian era of mass based
parties
3rd Party System: Mass voter turnout and waffling
between Republicans and Democrats from 18681896
4th Party System: 1896-1932 - reduced voter
turnout, weakening of party organizations, and
fading of issues like money and civil service reform
5th Party System: FDR -1980
+
Government Reform
Civil Service and Economic
+
1881 Garfield Assassinated
Charles Guiteau:
Garfield was
besieged with
office-seekers
including mentally
ill Charles J.
Guiteau who shot
Garfield in the back
in Washington DC.
Garfield’s death did
manage to shock
the country into civil
service reform.
I Am a Stalwart, and Arthur is President now!
His attorneys used the insanity defense – one
of the first times
+
Pendleton (Civil Service) Act 1883
 Led
by Chester A. Arthur
who became president
after Garfield died
 1883
 14,000 out of
117,000 federal govt.
jobs became civil
service exam positions.
 1900
 100,000 out of
200,000 federal govt. jobs
were civil service
 Caused
party machines to
look towards businesses
for money
1884
Presidential
Election
+
Grover Cleveland
* (DEM)
Former governor of NY.
Reformer. “Grover the
Good”
James Blaine
(REP)
Half-Breed Champion and
spoils-man, caused reformers
to become Mugwumps
+
Republican “Mugwumps”
 Reformers
who were upset about corruption with
the Republicans so they switched to the
Democratic Party in 1884
 Reform to them: create a disinterested, impartial
government run by an educated elite like
themselves.
 Laissez faire government to them:
 Favoritism & the spoils system seen as
government intervention in society.
 Their target was political corruption, not
social or economic reform!
+
Regulating the Trusts
1877  Munn. v. IL
 Business interests used for public good should be regulated
by state governments
1886  Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. IL
 states cannot directly regulate interstate commerce…anti
Munn and led to ICC
1890  Sherman Antitrust Act
 This forbid combinations in restraint of trade – bigness, not
badness was the sin
1895  US v. E. C. Knight Co.
 Anti-Sherman. Known as the Sugar Trust Case – federal
government cannot regulate manufacturing monopolies
+
Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890
 Benefits:
 First
real government regulation of the trusts –
would lead to more
 Problems:
 This
was an all talk, no show act as it was unable
to control trusts at all until 1914.
 The one thing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was
used for was attacking and curbing the power
of labor unions that were deemed to be
restricting trade.
+
Depression of 1893
+
Depression of 1893





Lasted for approximately 4 years
Most devastating economic downturn of the
century
First large scale depression of the urban and
industrial age

Brought much hardship to the urban poor
Caused by:

Overbuilding

Over speculation

Labor disorders

Agricultural depression

Reduced American dollar because of free-silver
Sound familiar?
+
Here Lies Prosperity
+
The Government and the Panic of 1893



Under the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, the
Treasury had to issue notes for the silver it bought.
Owners of the paper currency would exchange it
for gold. But then the notes had to be reissued and
the process would begin again.
The Treasury dipped below $100 million of gold –
the safe line – Congress repealed the Sherman Act
By February of 1894, the US was on the verge of
going off the gold standard as gold reserves sank
to $41 million

Because other currency was still being
exchanged

Would cause an unstable economy
+
What could Cleveland do to stop
the flood?

Sold government bonds for more than $100
million in gold

Worked out a deal with JP Morgan for a $65
million loan




½ of the gold would be from abroad
Would take the “necessary steps” to fill the holes
in the Treasury
Paid Morgan $7 million commission
These measures reassured the economy but
freaked out the silverites and those who
thought the government was selling out
Coxey’s Army
Marched on Washington DC demanding relief for
unemployment through a federal works program
financed by $500 million in legal tender notes



Got arrested for walking on the grass
Just like the Bonus Army of the Great Depression
+
African Americans in the
Gilded Age
+
African Americans Lose the Right to
Vote in the South
 Southerners
and some westerners shot down the
Lodge Bill proposed by reform Republicans in
1890
 Would have allowed for federal oversight of
elections and would have been used to enforce
African Americans’ right to vote.
 Voting
Rights of African Americans are restricted
through poll taxes and literacy tests (upheld by
Williams v. Mississippi 1898)
 This
disenfranchised Southern Black voters until
the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s
+
Plessy v. Ferguson
 Plessy
v. Ferguson was the Supreme Court case in
1896 that said that separate but equal was legal

(7-1 majority)
 This
legally supported the Jim Crow system in
the South
 Segregation
that affects laws (the right to vote,
segregation in schools, etc.) is called de jure
segregation
 Segregation
that occurs from the way people act
(whether or not you get hired for a job or accepted
to college) is called de facto segregation
+
Booker T. Washington and Education
for Blacks
 From
the South
 Washington
attacked
racism by attacking
economic problems
 He
believed that
educating the black
communities and helping
them help themselves to
better work would
naturally fight against
segregation
+
Booker T. Washington and Education
for Blacks
 Headed
the normal and industrial school
at Tuskegee, Alabama in 1881
 Focused

on agriculture and the trades
George Washington Carver began teaching
there in 1896
+
W.E.B. Du Bois
 Called Washington “Uncle Tom”
 Born
in Massachusetts – exemplified the difference
between Northern and Southern black
experiences

PhD from Harvard
 Believed
in complete social and economic equality
for the black - founded the NAACP in 1910
 Was against Washington’s gradualism and
demanded that the “talented tenth” of the black
population be given immediate full access to
American life
 Died at 95 as a self-exile in Ghana in 1963
+
New South / “Solid South”
The South in the Gilded Age suffered from economic inequity with
the North and overbearing, racist Democratic leadership
+
Gilded Age Southern Industry
By 1900 the South was producing a smaller % of the nation’s
manufactured goods than before the war
 The only thing that helped southern agriculture was the
machine made cigarette
 South faced unfairness in pricing from railroads

Treated South like a 3rd world nation from which the
North would get raw materials and send
manufactured goods
 Pittsburgh Plus pricing system made it cost even more to
ship Birmingham Steel
 The South did begin to build textile mills to process their
own cotton

This fed off of impoverished Southerners who were
cheap labor willing to be paid 1/2 of the wages of
their northern counterparts

+
The “Solid South”

When the Populists tried to gain African American farmer
votes, the white Democrats in the South realized that African
Americans had political power with their votes
 The right to vote was then taken from African Americans in
the South and solidified with white Democrats

Racist whites in the South began to increase violence against
Blacks (lynching – Ida B. Wells wrote about this) and the Jim
Crow system was strengthened

Part of this saw a large number of African American men jailed
for non-crimes such as vagrancy and then convicts in the South
were forced to work - the money went to the prison director,
county, and state
 This was known as convict leasing and later chain gangs
+
Populism
This political party was a continuation of the work done by the
Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance
+
Deflation Dooms the Debtor

While farming was sustainable in the
decades after the Civil War, as more and
more people began farming for grain,
supply outpaces demand

Grain prices fell in the 1880’s and 1890’s and
Western farmers are living in debt

Example:
 If a farmer borrowed $1000 in 1855, then
they would have to grow 1000 bushels of
wheat to pay it back (not counting the
interest)
 But if they paid it back in 1890, then it
would take 2000 bushels of wheat plus
interest
+
Why Do Grain Prices Fall in the 1880’s and
1890’s?
 Increased
American production of
grain from Homesteaders with new
farm equipment
AND
 Increasing
world production of
grain since trade now happened on
a global scale
RR Propaganda
from 1907
+
Farmers Lose their Farms
 Farmers
placed mortgages on their homes and
land to raise money, but soon couldn’t pay off the
high mortgage rates so many lost their farms to
foreclosure.
 By
1880 ¼ of American farms were operated by
tenant farmers
+
Price Indexes for Consumer and Farm
Products 1865-1913
+
Populist platform:
 The
farmers’ movement that began with the
Grange and the Farmers’ Alliances grew into a
strong political party called the Populists
Free and unlimited coinage of silver at a 16:1 ratio
Graduated income tax
Government ownership of telephone, telegraph,
and RR
Direct election of Senators
One-term limit on the Presidency
Use of initiatives and referendums
8-hour workday
Immigration restrictions









(the last two were to attract labor votes)
+
1892 Presidential Election
James Weaver
Greenback / Populist
Grover Cleveland
again! * (DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
(REP)
+
Election of 1892
+
Results of 1892

Cleveland won again – the only person to be
RE-elected after defeat

Populists got over a million votes (22 electoral)
from the Midwest and west.


Only 3rd party to be a MAJOR player
Didn’t get poor white vote in the South because the
Populists were trying to woo black farmers
Major blow to black voters in the South as this
was the year that the final Jim Crow nail was put
into black voting


Oddly enough the Populists became more racist after
this
+
Election of 1896: William McKinley
 From
the president creating
state of Ohio
 Author
of that terrible tariff of
1890
 Minor
Civil War record
 Major
Congressional Record
 Republican
 Supported
by super-rich Marc
Hanna from Ohio
+
Election of 1896: William Jennings
Bryan
 On
the Democratic ticket instead of
Cleveland AND on the Populist ticket
 Good
speaker, young
 Made
Cross of Gold speech at the
Democratic convention
 Unlimited
coinage of silver at 16:1
though it was worth 32:1
 Idea of both a gold and silver
standard known as bimetallism
 Scared
away hard money Democrats
+
Bryant’s Cross of Gold Speech
You shall not press
down upon the
brow of labor this
crown of thorns; you
shall not crucify
mankind upon a
cross of gold!
+
Bi-Metallism Cartoon
+
Campaign Politics in 1896
 Bryan
traveled 18,000 miles making speeches
 Became almost a religious messiah to those
wanting inflation
 Scared big business
 Hanna
played up the fear to get tons of money out
of big business for McKinley
 Raised money at a 16:1 ration with the
Democrats!
 Caused workers to worry about reduced value of
wages because of inflation
18,000 miles of campaign “whistle stops.”
+
The Seasoned
Politician vs.
The Newcomer
+ 1896 Election Results
•Victory for big business, big cities, “middle-class values”
and financial conservatism
•The 1896 Election introduced a run of Republican leadership
that wouldn’t take a real hit until the 1932 election
+
Gold Standard Act
 1900  Gold
Standard Act
 Confirmed the
nation’s
commitment to
the gold standard.
 A victory for the
forces of
conservatism.
+
Pinnacle of Western Populism
+
Why did Populism Decline?
1.
The economy experienced rapid change.
2.
The era of small producers and farmers was
fading away.
3.
Race divided the Populist Party, especially in the
South.
4.
The Populists were not able to break
existing party loyalties.
5.
Most of their agenda was co-opted by
the Democratic Party.