1. A Two-Party Stalemate
2. Intense
Voter Loyalty
to the
Two Major
Political Parties
Gilded Age Politics
• High Voter Participation— Why?
• (1) People believed that the
issues were important
• (2) People believed that their
votes counted
• (3) Politics = Entertainment
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)
1880 Presidential Election: Democrats
1880 Presidential Election
1881: Garfield Assassinated!
Charles Guiteau:
I Am a Stalwart, and Arthur is
President now!
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.
Gilded Age Politics
• The Underwood Tariff (1913)
• Income Taxes (XVI Amendment
1913)
• Currency
• debtors vs. creditors
Gilded Age Politics
• Legal Tender—
US can require
creditors to
accept its paper
money as
payment for
debt.
• Greenbacks
• $450,000,000
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…!
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!
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.
1888 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
(DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
* (REP)
1888 Presidential Election
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.
While the rich
wore diamonds,
many wore rags.
In 1890, 11
million of the
nation's 12
million families
earned less than
$1200 per year;
of this group, the
average annual
income was
$380, well below
the poverty line.
The Vanderbilt Chateau
In New York, the
opera, the theatre,
and lavish parties
consumed the ruling
class' leisure hours.
Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish
once threw a dinner
party to honor her
dog who arrived
sporting a $15,000
diamond collar.
The Metropolitan
Opera House
For immediate relief, the
urban poor often turned
to political machines.
During the first years of
the Gilded Age, Boss
Tweed's Tammany Hall
provided more services
to the poor than any city
government before it,
although far more money
went into Tweed's own
pocket.
The frustrations of
Gilded Age workers
transformed the
labor movement
into a vigorous, if
often violent, force.
Workers saw men
like Andrew
Carnegie getting
fabulously rich, and
raged at being left
behind.
Andrew Carnegie's
private study
They saw John D.
Rockefeller as one of
the wealthy
controlling the
country
Corruption extended to
the highest levels of
government. During
Ulysses S. Grant's
presidency, the
president and his cabinet
were implicated in the
Credit Mobilier, the Gold
Conspiracy, the Whiskey
Ring, and the notorious
Salary Grab.
With their own labor
the only available
bargaining chip,
workers frequently
went on strike. The
1880's witnessed
almost ten thousand
strikes and lockouts;
close to 700,000
workers struck in
1886 alone.
The results were often
explosive-none more
than the Great
Railroad Strike of
1877. When the B&O
Railroad cut wages,
workers staged
spontaneous strikes,
which spread
nationwide.
When George Pullman slashed
wages and hiked rents in his
company town, a national strike
and boycott was called on all
railways carrying Pullman cars.
Railroad traffic ground to a halt
as 260,000 workers struck, and
battles with state and federal
troops broke out in 26 states.
The strike ultimately failed, its
leaders imprisoned and many
strikers blacklisted.
Meanwhile, the wealthy
factory and business owners
enjoyed their luxury “cottages”
for the few weeks of summer
in Newport
The workers lived in a
little less luxurious
circumstances.
The doctrine
of Social
Darwinism
didn’t
increase the
sympathy of
people with
wealth for the
less
fortunate.
Herbert Spencer coined
the phrase “survival of the
fittest”. To Spencer,
human society should be
modeled on nature.
Humans should never
interfere with the selection
of the fittest humans for
survival to the next
generation.
Handouts to the
poor, state
schooling, and
systematized
health care were
considered
dangerous by
Spencer, they
could only help the
weak survive,
thereby damaging
the “purity” of the
rest of the human
race.
New York Foundling
Hospital, 1899–1900
Although Darwinists might disagree
Misconception: “Evolution supports
the idea that ‘might makes right’ and
rationalizes the oppression of some
people by others.”