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 brother-in-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 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 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: 3-time Governor of Ohio

• 20 disputed votes (Louisiana, S. Carolina & Florida) – Both Parties had sent delegates to the Electoral College

• Samuel J. Tilden “bagged Boss Tweed” led the prosecution

1 vote short (184 needs 185) led in the popular vote

The deadlock was to be settled by an electoral commission (8 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. Ferguson1896 “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” RepublicanVP Chester A. Arthur of NY a Stalwartwin 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 civil-service 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 cabinet-helps 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 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

• The Tariff issue becomes 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 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 unionFederal troops also brutally put

down a strike in Coeur d’Alene Idaho

• Populists made a remarkable showing in the 1892 Presidential election gaining a million votes and 22 electoral-4 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 prevailed1. Grandfather Clause2. 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 –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 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. 528)

• Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison and Cleveland are all considered “forgettable” presidents largely because they did so little and they were controlled by Congress