Political Paralysis in the Gilded
Age 1869-1896
Chapter 23
The “Bloody Shirt” Elects Grant
• Democrats nominate
Horatio Seymour – former
NY Governor
They denounced military
reconstruction
And won 80 Electoral votes
to Grant’s 214 –the
popular vote was close
(300,000)
• Republicans nominate
Ulysses S. Grant
He had no political
experience – main job
was to hand out
patronage
“Let us have Peace”
“vote as you Shoot” and
“Waving the Bloody Shirt”
The Era of good Stealings
• Railroad scandals – stock
•
market manipulation
Jim Fisk and Jay Gould
– corner the gold market
– bribed Grant’s brotherin-law not to release any
gold: Black Friday (24
Sept. 1869) almost
bought all the gold on the
market – finally federal
gold is released
• Tweed Ring: “Boss”
(William M.) Tweed NY
City embezzled $200
million – NY Times
publishes the evidence
and cartoonist Thomas
Nast continually draws
him. Samuel J. Tilden
(later presidential
candidate) will lead the
prosecution. Others are
implicated.
A Carnival of Corruption
• Credit Mobilier
Scandal 1872 Union
Pacific RR leaders
created the company
& hired themselves
348% profit,
distributed stock to
key congressmen &
the VP of US.
• Whiskey Ring: robbed
•
the government of
millions in whiskey tax
revenue – Grant’s own
private secretary (who he
protected)
William Belknap (Sec.
of War) had accepted
bribes from Indian agents
who supplied the
reservations
The Liberal Republican Revolt of
1872
• Reform-minded Republicans urged purification of the
Party & an end to military Reconstruction
They nominated Horace Greeley (editor of NY Tribune) for
president
• Democrats will also endorse Greeley (he had blasted the
Democrats as traitors, slavers, saloon keepers, horse
thieves and idiots)
• Republicans will nominate Grant (for a 2nd term) who is
elected easily 286 to 66 electoral votes
They will pass and amnesty act (southerners) vote to lower
tariffs and promote mild civil-service reform.
Depression, Deflation and Inflation
Panic of 1873
1. Over-building of Railroads, mines, factories & farms
2. Bad loans – no profits and no payments, led to
foreclosures
Hard vs. Cheap money (agrarian & debtor groups want
greenbacks (Civil War $) to be re-issued
Hard money advocates (creditors) wanted to be paid back
with gold and silver coins
Grant vetoed a bill to make more greenbacks
Congress passed the Resumption Act of 1875 (buy back
greenbacks in gold at face value by 1879)
Depression, Deflation and Inflation
• “Cheap” money advocates now promote silver attacking
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the 16-1 (16oz of silver = 1 oz of gold $$)
1870 a 7 member supreme court declares the Civil War
Legal Tender (greenbacks) Act as unconstitutional
With congressional approval Grant adds 2 members to
reverse the decision – 1871 they do so (now 9 members
of Supreme Court)
Coinage Act 1873 – no more silver coins – “crime of “73”
“contraction” of money supply (less $ available)
Resumption Act 1875 – few people turned in their bills
Spawns the Greenback Labor Party 1878 1 million votes
and 14 members of Congress
Pallid Politics in the Gilded Age
• “Gilded Age” sarcastic
•
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name given by Mark
Twain in 1873
Fight over “Patronage”
Every presidential
election was close and
very little separated the
Parties
Democrats: Lutherans
and Roman Catholics
White South, and
northern cities – political
machine
• Republicans:
•
Protestants and strict
codes of morality
believed Government
should regulate economy
and morals – support
from small town NE and
Midwest and: Grand Army
of the Republic (GAR)
Civil War veterans
Split: “Stalwart” (Roscoe
Conkling) “Half Breeds”
(James G. Blaine)
Hayes – Tilden Standoff 1876
• Rutherford B. Hayes:
•
• Samuel J. Tilden
“bagged Boss Tweed”
3-time Governor of
led the prosecution
Ohio
1
vote
short
(184
needs
20 disputed votes
185) led in the
(Louisiana, S. Carolina
popular vote
& Florida) – Both
The deadlock was to be
Parties had sent
settled by an electoral
delegates to the
commission (8
Electoral College
Republicans and 7
Democrats)
Compromise of 1877 & the End of
Reconstruction
•
The electoral commission will vote down political lines
electing Hayes
• Almost a second Civil War – Compromise
1. Troops leave south (now only 2 states)
2. Democrats will gain some patronage (help toward
Southern transcontinental RR) and have 2 members of
the new Cabinet
3. Black equality is abandoned in the South
Civil Rights Act 1875 should have equal public
accommodations & equality in jury selection
Not enforced: Civil Rights Cases 1883, 14th Amendment
only meant Government violations of Civil Rights
The Birth of Jim Crow in the Post
Reconstruction South
• Democratic South –
•
suppression of the
blacks “Redeemer”
governments –
freedmen face
unemployment,
eviction & physical
harm
Sharecropping and
tenant farming =
“Crop lien” system
• Jim Crow Laws –
State-level
segregation laws
• Plessy v. Ferguson
•
1896 “Separate but
Equal” facilities
Lynching: blacks
lynched for the
“crime” of asserting
themselves as equals
Class conflicts and Ethnic Clashes
• Since the Panic of 1873 RR workers hard times – Cut
wages by 10%
Great Railroad Strike of 1877: general strike effecting
10 states over 100 killed
Federal troop sent in to stop the strike “impeding the
federal mail”
• Racial and Ethnic conflicts: Irish and Chinese in
California Denis Kearny “Kearneyites” violence and
cutting off of pig-tails led to
• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
• US v. Wong Kim Ark 1898 guaranteed citizenship to all
persons born in the US
Garfield and Arthur – 1880 Election
• Democrats nominate Winfield Scott Hancock
• Garfield “Dark Horse” Republican
VP Chester A. Arthur of NY a Stalwart
win election 214-155
Garfield assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau over spoils
(disappointed because he was not rewarded with a
public job)
Arthur (a stalwart) promotes reform and gets congress to
pass the Pendleton Act of 1883 magna carta of civilservice reform: jobs based upon a competitive exam and
placed the Civil Service Commission in charge of
appointments
Election of 1884 Blaine-Cleveland
Mudslingers
• Republicans nominate
James G. Blaine
“Burn this letter” end of a
letter linking politics with
corruption
“Rum, Romanism,
Rebellion” = loses NY
Mugwumps left Republican
Party to support reform
• Democrats nominate
Grover Cleveland
Reformer, very honest “a
public office is a public
trust”
Wins narrow election
Election over personalities
NOT policy
“Old Grover” takes over
Vetoed a bill that would have provided seed for
drought-ravaged Texas farmers “Though the
people must support the government, the
government should not support the people”.
He will name 2 former Confederates to his cabinethelps sooth relations North and South
Will “cave-in” to spoils system
Military pensions: widespread $ given to Civil War
Veterans Cleveland reads each and vetoes 100’s
Cleveland Battles for a Lower Tariff
• Tariff had been high since • The Tariff issue becomes
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the Civil War
The Treasury had a
surplus of $145 million
“Pork-barrel” spending
was common
Cleveland felt a lower
tariff meant lower prices
for consumers & less
protection for monopolies
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the main issue of the
election of 1888
Cleveland runs for the
Democrats
Republicans nominate
Benjamin Harrison
(grandson of William
Henry)
Harrison will win the
electoral college 233-168
but lose the popular
The Billion-Dollar Congress
• Republicans have a thin lead in the House
• Thomas “Czar” Reed becomes Speaker of the House and
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pushes legislation through
Pensions to Civil War Veterans
Government purchases of silver (Sherman Silver
Purchase Act 1890)
McKinley Tariff = 48.4 % highest peacetime level
In the mid-term elections, Republicans lost dropping to
88 seats vs 235 Democrats also 9 members of the
Farmers Alliance, a militant organization
The Drumbeat of Discontent
•
PEOPLE’S PARTY OR
“POPULISTS”
They met in Omaha (Omaha
Platform) Demanding:
1. Free & unlimited
coinage of silver
2. Graduated income tax
3. Government ownership
of railroads, telegraph &
telephone
4. The direct election of US
Senators
5. One-term limit on the
presidency
6. Adoption of initiative &
referendum
7. A shorter workday
8. Immigration restriction
Nominated Gen. James B.
Weaver
The Drumbeat of Discontent
Homestead Strike 1892:
a Carnegie Mill
1. Steelworkers angry over pay
cuts
2. James Frick (working for
Carnegie) hires Pinkertons to
break up the strike
3. 10 killed and 60 wounded
4. Federal Troops stop the
strike and break the union
Federal troops also brutally put
down a strike in Coeur
d’Alene Idaho
• Populists made a remarkable
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1.
2.
showing in the 1892
Presidential election gaining a
million votes and 22 electoral4 states Kansas, Colorado,
Idaho and Nevada
South divided along racial lines
Colored Farmer’s Alliance
Tom Watson, Georgia appeals
to their votes
But “Bourbon” elitism prevailed
Grandfather Clause
Jim Crow Laws – segregation in
public places
Cleveland and the Depression
• Only president elected after his defeat
• Depression of 1893 (may have been worse than Great Depression)
• Railroad over-building & over-speculation, labor disorders, agricultural depression –
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free-silver hurt the international market & European banking houses demanded
repayments in gold lowering the gold reserve
8,000 business collapsed in 6 months, railroads went under (Philadelphia and
Reading RR)
Soup kitchens and hoboes common, local charities hard-pressed
Federal Government “let nature take its course” philosophy
Legal tender notes had to be issued for silver purchased (paper $) could be traded
for gold & this also drops the gold supply
Since silver was one obvious problem, Cleveland calls Congress into special session to
repeal it
William Jennings Bryan makes a plea for silver-Cleveland breaks the filibuster and
alienates “free silver” faction of the Democrat party
Cleveland finally has to go to JP Morgan for $65 million in gold
Cleveland Breeds a Backlash
• Cleveland is blamed for “selling” out to JP
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Morgan and business interests (Morgan had
made $7million on the gold loan to the
government)
Wilson-Gorman Tariff 1894 (not much % drop
over McKinley Tariff) 2% tax on incomes over
$4,000) Cleveland allows the bill to become law
without his signature
Mid-term elections, Republicans won back lost
majority in congress
Cleveland blamed for their rebound
“Forgettable” Presidents
• The word lilliputian has come into
common usage, meaning "very small
sized". (textbook p. 562)
• Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison
and Cleveland are all considered
“forgettable” presidents largely because
they did so little and they were controlled
by Congress