chapter 23
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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 The Ohio Idea - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Chapter 23Political Paralysis in the Gilded
Age1869-1896
US Grant
1868 election: Grant (Republican) even without political experience
Focus on Military ReconstructionDemocrats split between wealthy
easterners and poor midwesternersThe 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 marketPaid off Grant’s brother in lawBegan buying up gold summer 1869Federal government released $4 million
in gold= Black Friday
Political Corruption
Boss William Marcy Tweed in NYC’s Tammany HallDemocratic political machineBribery, graft, cronyism and election
fraudNY Times and Thomas NastNY attorney, Samuel J. Tilden
Can the Law Reach Him? 1872Cartoonist 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
Horace Greeley
Panic of 1873
Jay Cooke and Company went bankruptCreated a domino effect unemployment,
bankruptcies, banks closedNew debtor class (agrarian)= want
greenbacks for inflationSoft Money vs. Hard MoneyResumption Act 1875: withdraw
greenbacks and pay off in gold contraction
Panic of 1873
Debtors focused on silver nowSilver 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
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 moralityMidwest, rural and small towns in New
England, freedmen, GARDemocrats= immigrants, no government
interferenceSouth and industrial cities (political machines)
Stalwarts vs. Half Breeds
Division in Republican party in 1870’s-80’s over patronageStalwarts: trade civil service jobs for
votes (Roscoe Conkling)Half Breeds: civil service reform (James
G. Blaine)
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)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
Backroom deal to let Hayes have victory would give Democrats concessions if didn’t opposeRemove federal troops from South1 Southern Democrat in CabinetTranscontinental railroadIndustrialized South
Official end to Reconstruction Redeemer governments in SouthCivil Rights Act 1875 last attempt to help
blacks
Jim Crow
Solidly white South= Redeemer state governmentsIntimidation of blacksShare cropping or tenant farming crop
lien systemJim Crow laws, lynchingsPlessy vs. Ferguson 1896
A Southern Plantation, Before and After the Civil War
Chinese Immigrants
1880: 75,000 Asians in CaliforniaGold and transcontinental railroadOutcastes, no children to help with
assimilation, most menial jobsDenis KearneyChinese Exclusion Act 1882US vs. Wong Kim Ark 1898 (jus soli vs. jus
sanguinis)
Garfield and Arthur
1880 election: James A Garfield (Half Breed) and Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart)
Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield“I am a Stalwart and now Arthur is
President”Insanity plea convicted and hung
Chester A. Arthur= reform spoils systemPendleton Act 1883Led to marriage of politics with big business
Assassination of Garfield
Grover Cleveland
Democrat Grover Cleveland won 1884 electionBourbon 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!)
The Populists
1892 The People’s Party (Populists)Adopted Omaha Platform at Convention
Inflation free and unlimited coinage of silver
Graduated income taxGovnt. ownership of RR, telegraph, telephoneDirect election of Senators1 term limit on presidentInitiatives and referendums (grassroots)8 hour work dayImmigration restrictions
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
Homestead Steel Plant (Carnegie)- workers went on strikePinkerton detectives sent in summer 189210 dead, 60 wounded, troops needed
Populists hoped to link agrarian movement to labor, but mostly seen in west and midwestSouth failed to join because of racism
Homestead Strike
Panic of 1893
Cleveland reelected 1892 (2 nonconsecutive terms)
Panic of 1893= worst downturn of 19th centuryOverbuilding, speculation, decrease in
agriculture, labor problemsLegal tender notes issued redeem for
gold or silver= run on gold!Needed to repeal Sherman Silver Purchase
Act- Treasury dropped below $100 million in gold
Panic of 1893
Needed to get past silverites (supported bimetallism) William Jennings Bryan
By 1894, still losing too much gold down to $41 millionLoan from JP Morgan in 1895 of $65
million with a $7 million commissionSeen as a deal with the devil by silverites