Transcript Chapter 23 Notes

Chapter 23
Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age
1869-1896
US Grant
1868 election: Grant (Republican) even
without political experience
 Focus on Military Reconstruction
 Democrats split between wealthy
easterners and poor midwesterners
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The Ohio Idea
Republicans “waved the bloody shirt”=
victory for Grant
Financial Corruption
Jim Fisk and Jay Gould= stock speculation
to control Erie Railroad
 Wanted to corner gold market
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Paid off Grant’s brother in law
 Began buying up gold summer 1869
 Federal government released $4 million in
gold= Black Friday
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Political Corruption
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Boss William Marcy Tweed in NYC’s
Tammany Hall
Democratic political machine
 Bribery, graft, cronyism and election fraud
 NY Times and Thomas Nast
 NY attorney, Samuel J. Tilden
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Can the Law Reach Him? 1872
Cartoonist Thomas Nast attacked “Boss” Tweed in a series of cartoons like
this one that appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1872. Here Nast depicts the
corrupt Tweed as a powerful giant, towering over a puny law force.
Similarity?
The Liberal Republicans
Liberal Republican party formed 1872
 “Turn the Rascals Out”
 Horace Greeley nominated, Democrats
backed Greeley too!
 Mudslinging campaign, forced the
Republicans to pass some reforms
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Horace Greeley
Panic of 1873

Jay Cooke and Company went bankrupt
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Created a domino effect unemployment,
bankruptcies, banks closed
New debtor class (agrarian)= want
greenbacks for inflation
 Soft Money vs. Hard Money
 Resumption Act 1875: withdraw greenbacks
and pay off in gold contraction
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Panic of 1873
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Debtors focused on silver now
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Silver mines out west, inflationary tactic
Depression worsened, but US credit rating
improved
 Hard Money Republicans lost in House in
1874 and 1878
 Greenback Labor Party created in
retaliation
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Run on the 4th National Bank
Republicans vs. Democrats
All elections in Gilded Age close= politicians
focused on keeping jobs
 Extreme party loyalty and high voter turnout
 Republicans= Puritan lineage, government
should regulate economy and morality
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Midwest, rural and small towns in New England,
freedmen, GAR
Democrats= immigrants, no government
interference
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South and industrial cities (political machines)
Stalwarts vs. Half Breeds
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Division in Republican party in 1870’s-80’s
over patronage
Stalwarts: trade civil service jobs for votes
(Roscoe Conkling)
 Half Breeds: civil service reform (James G.
Blaine)
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Hayes vs. Tilden
1876 election: Republicans nominated
Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio (unknown)
 Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden of
NY received 184 electoral votes (needed
185)
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3 Southern states contested
Electoral Count Act: electoral commission
voted along party lines (Republican)
Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election of 1876 (with electoral vote by state)
Nineteen of the twenty disputed votes composed the total electoral count of Louisiana,
South Carolina, and Florida. The twentieth was one of Oregon’s three votes, cast by an
elector who turned out to be ineligible because he was a federal officeholder (a
postmaster), contrary to the Constitution (see Art. II, Sec. I, para. 2).
Compromise of 1877
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Backroom deal to let Hayes have victory
would give Democrats concessions if didn’t
oppose
Remove federal troops from South
 1 Southern Democrat in Cabinet
 Transcontinental railroad
 Industrialized South
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Official end to Reconstruction Redeemer
governments in South
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Civil Rights Act 1875 last attempt to help blacks
Jim Crow
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Solidly white South= Redeemer state
governments
Intimidation of blacks
 Share cropping or tenant farming crop lien
system
 Jim Crow laws, lynchings
 Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896
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A Southern Plantation, Before and After the Civil War
Chinese Immigrants
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1880: 75,000 Asians in California
Gold and transcontinental railroad
 Outcastes, no children to help with assimilation,
most menial jobs
 Denis Kearney
 Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
 US vs. Wong Kim Ark 1898 (jus soli vs. jus
sanguinis)
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Garfield and Arthur
1880 election: James A Garfield (Half
Breed) and Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart)
 Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield
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“I am a Stalwart and now Arthur is President”
 Insanity plea convicted and hung
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Chester A. Arthur= reform spoils system
Pendleton Act 1883
 Led to marriage of politics with big business
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Assassination of Garfield
Grover Cleveland
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Democrat Grover Cleveland won 1884
election
Bourbon Democrat- believed in laissez faire
economics, gold standard, against imperialism
and boss politics
 Caved to spoils system, vetoed pension bills
 Wanted to lower the tariff to get rid of $145
million surplus (small government)
 Lost 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison over
tariff issue ($ from business to Harrison to buy
votes!)
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The Populists
1892 The People’s Party (Populists)
 Adopted Omaha Platform at Convention
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Inflation free and unlimited coinage of silver
 Graduated income tax
 Govnt. ownership of RR, telegraph, telephone
 Direct election of Senators
 1 term limit on president
 Initiatives and referendums (grassroots)
 8 hour work day
 Immigration restrictions
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Presidential Election of 1892
(showing vote by county)
Minnesota Farmers Loading a Husker-Shredder, 1890s The
purchase of technologically advanced farm equipment increased the productivity of
farmers but also saddled them with debt. Many sought debt relief in the 1890s by
clamoring for inflationary schemes, including the monetization of silver
The Populists
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Homestead Steel Plant (Carnegie)- workers
went on strike
Pinkerton detectives sent in summer 1892
 10 dead, 60 wounded, troops needed
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Populists hoped to link agrarian movement
to labor, but mostly seen in west and
midwest
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South failed to join because of racism
Homestead Strike
Panic of 1893
Cleveland reelected 1892 (2 nonconsecutive
terms)
 Panic of 1893= worst downturn of 19th
century
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Overbuilding, speculation, decrease in
agriculture, labor problems
 Legal tender notes issued redeem for gold or
silver= run on gold!
 Needed to repeal Sherman Silver Purchase ActTreasury dropped below $100 million in gold
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Panic of 1893
Needed to get past silverites (supported
bimetallism) William Jennings Bryan
 By 1894, still losing too much gold down
to $41 million
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Loan from JP Morgan in 1895 of $65 million with
a $7 million commission
 Seen as a deal with the devil by silverites
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