Chapter 23: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869–1896

“waving the bloody shirt”

The use of Civil War imagery by political candidates and parties to draw votes to their side of the ticket.

Tweed Ring

A symbol of Gilded Age corruption, “Boss” ______ and his deputies ran the New York City Democratic party in the 1860s and swindled $200 million from the city through bribery, graft, and vote-buying. Boss ______ was eventually jailed for his crimes and died behind bars.

Crédit Mobilier scandal

A construction company was formed by owners of the Union Pacific Railroad for the purpose of receiving government contracts to build the railroad at highly inflated prices—and profits. In 1872 a scandal erupted when journalists discovered that the _____ _______ _______ had bribed congressmen and even the vice president to allow the ruse to continue.

panic of 1873

A worldwide depression that began in the United States when one of the nation’s largest banks abruptly declared bankruptcy, leading to the collapse of thousands of banks and businesses. The crisis intensified debtors’ calls for inflationary measures such as the printing of more paper money and the unlimited coinage of silver. Conflicts over monetary policy greatly influenced politics in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Gilded Age

A term given to the period 1865–1896 by Mark Twain, indicating both the fabulous wealth and the widespread corruption of the era.

patronage

A system, prevalent during the Gilded Age, in which political parties granted jobs and favors to party regulars who delivered votes on election day. _________ was both an essential wellspring of support for both parties and a source of conflict within the Republican party.

Compromise of 1877

The agreement that finally resolved the 1876 election and officially ended Reconstruction. In exchange for the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, winning the presidency, Hayes agreed to withdraw the last of the federal troops from the former Confederate states. This deal effectively completed the southern return to white-only, Democratic-dominated electoral politics.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

The last piece of federal civil rights legislation until the 1950s, the law promised blacks equal access to public accommodations and banned racism in jury selection, but it provided no means of enforcement and was therefore ineffective. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared most of the act unconstitutional.

sharecropping

An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain “share” of each year’s crop. Sharecropping was the dominant form of southern agriculture after the Civil War, and landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in perpetual debt and unable to leave their plantations.

Jim Crow

System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century. Based on the concept of “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites, the Jim Crow system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transportation. An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by custom, violence, and intimidation.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of segregation laws, saying that as long as blacks were provided with “separate but equal” facilities, these laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision provided legal justification for the Jim Crow system until the 1950s.

Great Strike of 1877

Wage cuts by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company triggered a forty-five-day strike that engulfed Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Missouri. One hundred people died in the unrest.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the United States. This was the first major legal restriction on immigration in U.S. history.

Pendleton Act

Congressional legislation that established the Civil Service Commission, which granted federal government jobs on the basis of examinations instead of political patronage, thus reining in the spoils system.

Jay Gould

(1836-1892) A railroad magnate who was involved in the Black Friday scandal in 1869 and later gained control of many of the nation’s largest railroads, including the Union Pacific. He became revered and hated for his ability to manipulate railroad stocks for his personal profit and for his ardent resistance to organized labor.

Horace Greeley

(1811-1872) A New York newspaper editor, _______ ran for president in 1872 under the mantles of the Liberal Republican and Democratic parties.

Rutherford B. Hayes

(1822-1893) The former Republican governor of Ohio who became president after the contested 1876 election. By 1880 he had lost the support of his party and was not renominated for the office.

James A. Garfield

(1831-1881) Elected to the presidency in 1880, _______ served as president for only a few months before being assassinated by Charles Guiteau, who claimed to have killed him because he was denied a job through patronage when Garfield was elected. The assassination fueled efforts to reform the spoils system.

Chester Arthur

(1829-1886) Elected as vice president in 1880, _____ became president after Garfield’s assassination. He was primarily known for his efforts at civil service reform, which culminated in the Pendleton Act.

Grover Cleveland

(1837-1908) President from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897; ________’s first term was dominated by the issues of military pensions and tariff reforms. He lost the election of 1888, but he ran again and won in 1892. During his second term, he faced one of the most serious economic depressions in the nation’s history but failed to enact policies to ease the crisis.

Thomas B. Reed

(1839-1902) The Republican congressman from Maine who became Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1889 and then led the Billion-Dollar Congress like a "czar," making sure that his agenda dictated the business of the legislature.