Chapter 23 Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

“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” Tweed 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.

Credit Mobiler 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.

Glided 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.

Compromise of 1877

The agreement that finally resolved the 1876 election and officially ended Reconstruction.

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.

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.

Jim Crow

System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century.

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.

Chinese Exculsion Act

Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the United States.

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.

Homestead Strike

A violent labor dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred in 1892 , Pennsylvania.

grandfather clause

A legal or constitutional mechanism passed by seven Southern states during Reconstruction to deny suffrage to Blacks.Those who voted before 1867 would be exempt from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting.

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; 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

Tom Watson

A successful criminal lawyer, a leading populist politician, a popular author, and an influential publisher.

William Henning Bryan

American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1896, 1900, and the 1908 elections.

J.P. Morgan

an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age.