Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

Historians' Perspective

• Historians analyze events by:
  • Studying subjects on their own terms.
  • Analyzing events for origins, course, and consequences.
  • Placing events in their context to understand people's thinking.
  • Describing "how it really was" (Leopold von Ranke: "wie es eigentlich gewesen.")
• Historians compare current events to past events to identify persistent patterns.

Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

• Gilded Age: An era marked by political paralysis, dominated by issues of tariffs and monopolies, and the influence of powerful figures.

Rise in Population

• Post-Civil War population increased significantly.
  • 1870 Census: Over 39 million people, a 26.6% gain in a decade.
  • Immigration surge contributed to growth.
  • U.S. was the third-largest nation in the Western World, behind Russia and France.

Racial Fear as a Political Tactic

• Democrats used racial fear as a tactic against Republicans.
  • Horatio Seymour's campaign aroused fears of black suffrage threatening white Americans.
  • Republicans were portrayed as spreading black political empowerment into the North.
  • Democrats faced an uphill battle against the popular General Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant

• Most popular northern hero from the Civil War.
• Inexperienced in politics.
  • One presidential vote cast for the Democratic ticket in 1856.
  • Better at judging horses than people.
  • Culturally narrow background.

The "Bloody Shirt" Campaign

• Republicans nominated Grant for president in 1868.
• Party platform: Continued Reconstruction of the South under federal bayonets.
• Grant's slogan: "Let us have peace."
• "Waving the bloody shirt": Republican attempt to link the Democratic party with secession and the Confederate cause.

War Debt and Monetary Policy

• Democrats were divided on monetary policy after the war.
  • Wealthy eastern delegates wanted war bonds redeemed in gold.
  • Poorer midwesterners supported the “Ohio Idea” (redemption in greenbacks) to keep more money in circulation and lower interest rates.
  • This dispute led to bitter debates over monetary policy.
• Horatio Seymour repudiated the Ohio Idea, hurting the Democrats' chances.

Election of 1868

• Grant won with 214 electoral votes to Seymour's 80.
• Popular vote majority of only 300,000 (3,012,421 to 2,706,829).
• Most white voters supported Seymour.
• Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia votes were not counted.
• Estimated 500,000 former slaves gave Grant his margin of victory.
• Republicans had to control the South and maintain black voters' support to stay in power.

Cornering the Gold Market

• 1869: Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempted to corner the gold market.
  • They involved Grant's brother-in-law with a bribe of $25,000$.
  • Fisk and Gould bid the price of gold upward to profit from its heightened value.
  • The Treasury released gold on September 24, 1869, causing gold prices to plunge.
  • Innocent investors were ruined and workers lost jobs.
  • Gould and Fisk emerged unscathed, but the Grant administration was discredited.

The Tweed Ring

• The Tweed Ring in New York City symbolized the corruption of the era.
  • Boss Tweed employed bribery, graft, and fraudulent elections.
  • He stole as much as $200$ million from the metropolis.
  • Honest citizens were intimidated into silence.
  • Tax assessments were raised for protesters.
• The New York Times published damning evidence in 1871.
• Cartoonist Thomas Nast attacked Tweed in Harper's Weekly.
• Samuel J. Tilden gained fame prosecuting Tweed, paving his path to presidential nomination.

Cheap Money vs. Hard Money

• Debtors favored inflationary policies during hard times.
• Greenbacks:
  • $450$ million issued during the war.
  • Depreciated due to mistrust.
  • Treasury withdrew $100$ million by 1868.
• “Cheap money” supporters wanted reissuance of greenbacks.
  • Believed more money meant cheaper money, rising prices, and easier debt repayment.
• Creditors wanted the opposite policy.
• Resumption Act of 1875:
  • Government pledged to withdraw greenbacks.
  • Redemption of paper currency in gold at face value beginning in 1879.

Silver

• Debtors sought relief in silver.
• Hard-money Republicans resisted silver coinage.
• Contraction:
  • Treasury accumulated gold stocks.
  • Reduced greenbacks in circulation.
  • Deflationary effect.
• The new policy restored the government’s credit rating.
• Led to the Greenback Labor party.

Greenback Party

• Agrarian reform party favoring monetary inflation.
• Aimed to reverse the Specie Resumption Act.
• Platform:
  • Federal government should issue greenbacks
  • Income tax
  • Australian ballot
  • Direct election of U. S. senators
  • Railroad regulation
  • Improved schools
  • Elimination of convict leasing
  • Reduced salaries for government employees
  • Elimination of government employees

The Panic of 1873

• Began in the fall of 1873 due to over-expansion and investor risks.
• Financial houses and banks went bankrupt.
• Credit became scarce, leading to business failures.
• Hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs.
• Led to a deep depression lasting until 1877.

Impact of the Panic of 1873 on Reconstruction

• Northerners became less concerned with freedmen's rights.
• Economic issues took precedence.
• Public discontent led to a Democratic majority in the 1874 congressional elections.

Politics in the Gilded Age

• Republicans and Democrats were fiercely competitive, but had few significant economic differences.
• Sharp ethnic and cultural differences distinguished the parties.
  • Republicans: Puritan-rooted, strict morality, government regulation of economic and moral affairs.
  • Democrats: Immigrant Lutherans and Roman Catholics, tolerant of differences, opposed government imposition of moral standards.
• Democrats had a solid base in the South and northern industrial cities.
• Republican strength lay in the Midwest, rural areas, and the Northeast.
• Freedmen in the South continued to vote Republican.
• Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) supported Republicans.

Reconstruction

• Violent acts by whites against blacks were provoked by:
  • Political events.
  • Disagreements over labor relations.
  • Violation of social codes by blacks.
  • A sense of defeatism within the white population.
  • Mindless hatred or sadism.
• One historian estimated that close to $1$ percent of black men in Texas between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine met a violent death at the hands of whites in the three years following the end of the war.

Conflicting Plans for Reconstruction

• Radical Republicans wanted:
  1. Southerners to take an oath of allegiance before voting or holding office.
  2. Southern states to be considered "conquered provinces."
  3. Equal civil rights for blacks.
• Andrew Johnson's Restoration Plan:
  1. Ex-Confederates controlled the southern governments.
  2. Black codes limited the rights of freedmen.
  3. White terrorism.

Congressional Reconstruction

• Reconstruction Acts of 1867:
  1. Divided the South into five military districts.
  2. Abolished the Restoration governments.
  3. Required new constitutions with equality for blacks.
  4. Restricted political participation of former Confederate leaders.
• Resulted in the establishment of the Republican Party.
• New constitutions had to grant suffrage to black males and permit them to hold public office.

Violent Reaction to Congressional Reconstruction

• Democrats undermined the power of black voters through violence and intimidation.
  • Arsonists attacked Freedman’s Bureau offices and schools.
  • Ku Klux Klan engaged in vicious activity against African Americans.

Targets of White Terrorism

1. Blacks
2. Freedmen's Bureau agents
3. U. S. Army

Psychological Need to Maintain Status

• Whites sought social status through the psychic reward of considering themselves superior to African-Americans.
• Poor white southerners found comfort in racial solidarity.

Fire-Eaters

• Pro-slavery Democrats in the Antebellum South who demanded immediate secession.

Violence During Reconstruction

• Southern white supremacists used violence against blacks and northerners.
• Some viewed it as justified, others as terrorism.

George Webster Smith

• Former Union soldier in Texas.
• Involved in Reconstruction efforts.
• Assassinated in 1868, symbolizing racial divide.

The End of Reconstruction

• Resulted from the presidential election of 1876.
• Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden.
• Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes.
• Issues: political corruption, economy, Reconstruction.

The Disputed Election of 1876

• Tilden received more popular votes than Hayes.
• Electoral vote was unclear due to irregularities in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.
• Tilden needed to win only one disputed state to win the presidency.
• Hayes needed to win all three.

The Compromise of 1877

• Bipartisan commission decided the election.
• Hayes was awarded all 20 disputed electoral votes.
• Hayes oversaw the dismantling of Reconstruction policy.
• Federal troops were removed from the South.
• Reconstruction governments fell to Democratic redeemers.

The Crop-Lien System

• Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction.
• White Democrats regained political power in the South.
• Blacks were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming.
• Storekeepers extended credit to small farmers via the “crop-lien” system.
• Farmers remained perpetually in debt.

Jim Crow Laws

• Literacy tests and poll taxes
• Crop-Lien System/Share Cropping
• Jim Crow Laws
• Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessy vs. Ferguson

• Supreme Court upheld segregation.
• Supported "Separate but Equal."

Politics as Festive Public Entertainment

• Political events provided spectacles.
• Officeholders were celebrities.

Political Patronage and a Divided Republican Party

• Patronage: jobs for votes, kickbacks, party service.
• Republicans: two factions
  • Stalwarts (Conklingites): Roscoe Conkling supported exchanging jobs for votes.
  • Half-breeds: James Blaine wanted patronage for his members.

The Assassination of President Garfield

• Shot by Charles J. Guiteau in 1881.
• Garfield's death led to civil service reform.
• Chester Arthur surprised critics by prosecuting fraud cases.

Pendleton Act of 1883

• Made compulsory campaign contributions from federal employees illegal.
• Established the Civil Service Commission.
• Appointments based on competitive exams.
• Politicians turned to corporations for money.

Blaine-Cleveland Mudslingers of 1884

• Republicans nominated James Blaine.
• Tainted with scandals.
• “Mulligan letters” linked Blaine to corrupt deals.
• Mugwumps: Reformers who bolted to the Democrats.

Grover Cleveland

• Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland.
• He won a close victory over James G. Blaine in 1884.

Laissez-Faire

• Cleveland was a supporter of laissez-faire.
• He believed the government should not support the people.

Harrison Wins the Presidency against Cleveland

• Democrats renominate Cleveland.
• Republicans nominate Benjamin Harrison.
• Tariffs were the prime issue.
  • Republicans: high protective tariffs.
  • Democrats: lower tariffs.
• Republicans raised a large war chest.
• Harrison won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote.

The Panic of 1893

• Began shortly after Cleveland's re-election.
• Caused by overbuilding, speculation, labor disorders, and agricultural depression.
• Business collapsed and railroad lines went into receivership.
• The federal government did not relieve the suffering masses.

The Populist Party

• Advocated:
  • Government ownership of railroads.
  • Abolition of the national banking system.
  • Subtreasury system.
• Destroyed by violence on the local level and “fusion” with the Democrats.

Populist Goals

1. Government ownership of railroads
2. Abolition of the national banking system
3. Subtreasury system
4. Income tax
5. Eight-hour workday
6. Direct election of U. S. senators
7. Free coinage of silver
8. Australian ballot, referendum, and recall