CHAPTER 23
Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age
The “Bloody Shirt” elects Grant
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Most people believed that Generals would make good
presidents so they turned to the highest—Grant
He was a good leader but he knew nothing about politics
He was elected on a platform of continued reconstruction
The Democrats could only agree on ending reconstruction
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Put up Horatio Seymour
Grant won 214 to 80, 3 million to 2.7 million
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Only won by keeping some southern states from voting and by
getting the black vote
The Era of Good Stealings
Government and business seemed
very corrupt due to a few people
 Jim Fisk and Jay Gould
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Plotted in 1869 to corner the gold market
Used Grant and his brother in law and the
Secretary of the Treasury
Almost worked but not quite
Boss Tweed
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Used bribery, graft, fraud, etc. to steal as
much as $200 million
In 1871 the New York Times found
evidence against him and Thomas Nast a
popular political cartoonist charged after
Tweed
Tweed ended up dying in jail awaiting
A Carnival of Corruption
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Federal Gov’t was also full of
corruption
Credit Mobilier Scandal 1872
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Whiskey Ring
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Construction company used as a front for
the UP RR, they built the RR lines at
inflated prices
They bribed congressman and the VP not to
say anything
It was discovered by a newspaper reporter
Deprived the government of excise taxes
Grant’s personal secretary got acquitted
of charges with Grant’s help
Secretary of War Belknap was also
guilty of accepting bribes from
suppliers to Indian Reservations
The Liberal Republican Revolt of 1872
The Liberal Republicans were
formed as an anti Grant party, to
reform government and make it
less corrupt
 They put Horace Greeley (editor
of the New York Tribune) up as
their candidate to run against
Grant
 Grant won 286-66; 3.5 to 2.8
million votes
 The Republicans ended up
“cleaning house” in response to the
3rd party
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General amnesty act, removed high
protective tariffs, and civil service
reform
Depression, Deflation, and Inflation
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Panic of 1873
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Blacks were hit very hard
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Caused by over speculation in most
areas of industry; RR, mines, factories,
even farms
Prices dropped and companies couldn’t
pay their loans, lead to bank closures,
deflation, etc
Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company
loaned money to banks to loan to
Freedmen but they went bankrupt and
blacks lost seven million worth of
investments
Debtors wanted cheap money—
inflation
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Helps them pay off their debts faster
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Creditors wanted deflation
instead of inflation
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They didn’t want the money they
loaned out paid back in depreciated
dollars
Grant “grants” the hard money
advocates a victory
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He vetoes a law that would have
allowed more paper money printed
Resumption Act of 1875
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Silver
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Further withdrawal of paper money
Used this precious metal as another
method of trying to obtain inflation
Contraction
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The decreasing the amount of
money in circulation—leads to
deflation
Pallid Politics in the Gilded Age
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There was a balancing scale between the two parties; just a few
votes could throw the elections the other way
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Every president barely won
House majorities changed six times from 1869-91
Candidates had to straddle every fence and were too timid to try anything
that would create a wake
The two parties were almost identical save by name
Voter turn out was at its highest ever almost 80%
Why was there so much political consensus while there was so
much partisan fervor?
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Republicans were very Puritan based
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Democrats had a strong influence of Catholic and Lutheran immigrants
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These religions stressed tolerance of differences and didn’t want government to
interfere with a moral code
Voting bases
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Strict codes of morality, gov’t involved in economy and enforcing a moral code
Democrats had the south and industrial centers in the north
Republicans had Midwest and the rural areas in the northeast, the GAR,
Grand Army of the Republic, former Union soldiers
Patronage
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Both parties existed and continued to exist through giving followers jobs in
return for votes, kickbacks, and service
The Hayes-Tilden Standoff 1876
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Republicans had Rutherford B. Hayes (The Great
Unknown) run in 1876 against Samuel Tilden
Tilden won the popular vote 4.2 to 4 million votes
but the electoral college was unclear
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20 votes were in dispute and Tilden only needed one of
them
The states in dispute turned in two votes, one democrat
and one republican, it depended on who read the votes
as to who would win
Compromise of 1877
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Democrats threatened to go to war again
Electoral Count Act
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Set up a commission of congressmen, senators, and judges
to decide on the disputed votes
Democrats allowed Hayes to become president and in
return the Republicans promised to withdraw all federal
troops from the South
The Republicans officially abandoned the
freedmen in order to have a Republican president
Jim Crow
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South turned back into a solid Democratic
block following 1877 and blacks were
abandoned by the federal government
Blacks were forced into sharecropping
Crop-lien system
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Whites loaned supplies and food in return for a
share of next years harvest
Kept blacks perpetually in debt
By 1890 the South set up a system of legal
segregation called Jim Crow Laws, also
had literacy tests, poll taxes, voter
registration
Plessey vs. Ferguson 1896 Separate but
equal
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Blacks in fact had far inferior facilities, schools,
etc
Class and Ethnic Conflicts
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1877 Great RR Strike
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Chinese
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Had class conflicts with the Chinese over
competition for labor
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
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By 1880 there were 75,000 most went to
California for the gold rush, most went
back to China the rest performed menial
labor
Irish
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4 largest RR cut wages 10%, workers
struck and Pres. Hayes called in federal
troops to stop it
People all across the country went on
strike in support
Ended weeks later and accomplished
nothing
US closed the door on Chinese
immigration until 1943
US vs Wong Kim Ark 1898
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If a person is born in the US they are
automatically a citizen
Garfield and Arthur
The Blaine-Cleveland
Mudslingers of 1884
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Corrupt Blaine vs.
Cleveland the
Reformer
Sank to an all time
low, very few
differences and no
main issues, resorted
to mudslinging
Cleveland won 219182, 4.879 to 4.850
million
Cleveland
1st Democrat
president since
before the Civil
War (Buchanan)
 Firm believer in
Laissez-faire
 Claimed he was for
civil service reform
but he fired 2/3rds
of the 120,000
federal employees
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Tariff Battle
Republicans in the north
benefited from high tariffs ever
since the war, hurt the south,
also had a 145 million dollar
surplus
 He threw the idea right into the
middle of Congress
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Hurt Cleveland’s reelection chances in
1888
Republicans ran Benjamin
Harrison (grandson of old
Tippecanoe)
 The main issue was the tariff
 Harrison won 233 to 168 but
lost the popular vote 5.537 to
5.447 million
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Billion Dollar Congress
Speaker of the House “Czar”
Reed went to extraordinary
measures to conduct business,
Democrats refused to show up so
a quorum wasn’t present
 Spent a billion dollars—1st time
in US History
 McKinley Tariff 1890 48.4% on
goods, highest peace time rate
ever
 Off year election the Republicans
lost big the tariff hurt farmers
and it brought Cleveland back
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Drumbeat of Discontent
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Populist Party started in 1892 out of the Farmers’
Alliance
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Platform included: unlimited coinage of silver, graduated income
tax; government ownership of RR, telegraphs, telephones; direct
election of senators; one term presidential limits; initiative and
referendums; etc
A wave of strikes in 1892 raised their prospects of
bringing down the capitalist system
 Homestead Steel Strike at Carnegies steel mill
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Pinkertons tried to break it up, 10 dead, 60 wounded
Federal troops called in
South didn’t join the party because of race, gave the
south the final push for ending black suffrage, populists
became very racist
 Won 22 electoral votes and over one million but couldn’t
get the industrial workers to join them
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Cleveland and Depression
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Reelected in 1892 took office in
1893 along with the centuries worst
depression
Same old story of overspeculation
US was running out of gold only
$41 million left in the treasury and
$100 million was considered safe
Turned to JP Morgan who lent the
government $65 million in gold and
took other measures to bring gold
back from Europe
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Cleveland lost all credibility for turning
to Morgan
Republicans won back Congress