AP US History Chapter 23 Terms and People to Know

**“Waving the bloody shirt”**

reviving gory memories of the Civil War. For the first time, it became a prominent feature of a presidential campaign. 

**Jay Gould**

Notorious in the financial world. Millionaire partners with “Jubilee Jim”. Provided the brains in the duo.  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 profit and his ardent resistance to organized labor.

**Tweed Ring**

led by Boss tweed. He 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 Tweed was eventually jailed for his crimes when the New York Times published evidence of his corruption and died behind bars.

**Credit Mobilier Scandal**

involved many of Grant’s family and cabinet members. Tainted Grant’s presidency. A construction company was formed by owners of the Union Pacific Railroad to receive government contracts to build the railroad at highly inflated prices and profits. The workers hired themselves at highly inflated prices. In 1872 a scandal erupted when journalists discovered that the Crédit Mobilier Company had bribed congressmen and even the vice president to allow the ruse to continue.

**Horace Greely**

Democratic and Liberal Republican candidate of the election of 1872. Editor of the New York tribune. Ironic thing was that Greely hated the democrats. 

**Panic of 1873**

another failure of the Grant presidency. A worldwide depression 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**

sarcastic nickname for the three-decade-long post-civil war years.

**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. Patronage was an essential wellspring of support for both parties and a source of conflict within the Republican party.**

**Rutherford B. Hayes**

**compromise candidate of the Republican Party. Wins the election but has to end reconstruction to do so. Very unknown before the election. Served three terms as a senator in Ohio. Ran against Samuel J. Tilden.** 

**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 Laws**

**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.**

**Great Strike of 1877**

**This started when owners of the nation’s four largest railroads decided to cut the wages of the worker by 10%. Descended into bloody violence. People telegraphed workers to stop working and the idea spread like wildfire. President Hayes called federal troops to ease the unrest. The battle between the troops and workers left 100 dead. Exposed the weakness of the labor movement.** 

**Chinese Exclusion Act**

**Congress slammed the door on Chinese laborers with this act. Prohibited all immigration from china.** 

**James A. Garfield**

new republican candidate after Rutherford B. Hayes. From Ohio. Dealt with a conflict as soon as he stepped into office, between James G. Blaine and Roscoe Conkling. Killed by Charles J. Guiteau because he wanted an office. Lingered for 11 weeks and died. 

**Chester A. Arthur**

**vice president of Garfield. Notorious stalwart henchman. President after the assassination of Garfield. People thought that would allow Stalwarts into office, but pleasantly surprised people by not doing so, and prosecuted several fraud cases. Made powerful republicans mad, and died 5 years after getting inaugurated into office.** 

**Pendelton Act**

**Congressional legislation that established the Civil Service Commission, which granted federal government jobs based on of examinations instead of political patronage, thus reining in the spoils system. Made compulsory campaign contributions from employees illegal.** 

**Grover Cleveland**

democrat candidate. Reformer. Governor of NY. Had an illegitimate son with a widow—Won the presidency.  President from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897; Cleveland’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 Reed**

**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.**

**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.**