Chapter 23
Political
Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869–1896
Chapter
Themes
Theme: Even as
post–Civil War America
expanded and industrialized, political life in the Gilded Age was marked by
ineptitude, stalemate, and corruption. Despite their similarity at the national
level, the two parties competed fiercely for offices and spoils, while doling
out “pork-barrel” benefits to veterans and other special interest groups.
Theme: The serious
issues of monetary and agrarian reform, labor, race, and economic fairness were
largely swept under the rug by the political system, until revolting farmers
and a major economic depression beginning in 1893 created a growing sense of
crisis and demands for radical change.
Theme: The
Compromise of 1877 made reconstruction officially over and white Democrats
resumed political power in the South.
Blacks, as well as poor whites, found themselves forced into
sharecropping and tenant farming; what began as informal separation of blacks
and whites in the immediate postwar years evolved into systematic state-level
legal codes of segregation known as Jim Crow laws.
chapter summary
After the soaring ideals and tremendous sacrifices of the
Civil War, the post–Civil War era was generally one of disillusionment.
Politicians from the White House to the courthouse were often surrounded by
corruption and scandal, while the actual problems afflicting industrializing America
festered beneath the surface.
The popular war hero Grant was a poor politician and his
administration was rife with corruption. Despite occasional futile reform
efforts, politics in the Gilded Age was monopolized by the two
patronage-fattened parties, which competed vigorously for spoils while
essentially agreeing on most national policies. Cultural differences, different
constituencies, and deeply felt local issues fueled intense party competition
and unprecedented voter participation. Periodic complaints by “Mugwump” reformers and “soft-money” advocates failed to
make much of a dent on politics.
The deadlocked contested 1876 election led to the sectional
Compromise of 1877, which put an end to Reconstruction. An oppressive system of
tenant farming and racial supremacy and segregation was thereafter fastened on the
South, enforced by sometimes lethal violence. Racial prejudice against Chinese
immigrants was also linked with labor unrest in the 1870s and 1880s.
Garfield’s
assassination by a disappointed office seeker spurred the beginnings of
civil-service reform, which made politics more dependent on big business.
Cleveland, the first Democratic president since the Civil War, made a lower
tariff the first real issue in national politics for some time. But his mild
reform efforts were eclipsed by a major economic depression that began in 1893,
a crisis that deepened the growing outcry from suffering farmers and workers
against a government and economic system that seemed biased toward big business
and the wealthy.
Note Cards: Analyze the
following terms; include historical context, chronology, drawing conclusions,
and cause/effect where appropriate. Each note card you complete is worth one
extra credit point; pick the terms you need the most help with to understand.
Chapter 23 Study Guide
Thought Questions: While you are reading
the chapter for the first time, write down a couple questions or observations
that come to mind for class discussion. These
thoughts could be about ideas you do not understand or ideas you find curious or
interesting.
1.
2.
The "Bloody Shirt"
Elects Grant
3. Was General Grant good presidential material? Why did he win?
The Era of Good Stealings
4. "The
Man in the Moon...had to hold his nose when passing over America." Explain.
A Carnival of Corruption
5. Describe
two major scandals that directly involved the Grant administration.
The Liberal Republican Revolt of
1872
6. Why did
Liberal Republicans nominate Horace Greeley for the presidency in 1872? Why was he a less than ideal candidate?
Depression and Demands for
Inflation
7. Why did
some people want greenbacks and silver dollars?
Why did others oppose these kinds of currency?
Pallid Politics in the Gilded
Age
8. Why was there such
fierce competition between Democrats and Republicans in the Gilded Age if the
parties agreed on most economic issues?
The Hayes-Tilden Standoff, 1876
9. Why
were the results of the 1876 election in doubt?
The Compromise of 1877 and the
End of Reconstruction
10. How did the end of Reconstruction affect African-Americans?
The Birth of Jim Crow in the
Post-Reconstruction South
11. Analyze
the data in the lynching chart on page 513.
Class Conflicts and Ethnic
Clashes
12. What was
the significance of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?
Garfield and Arthur
13. What
new type of corruption resulted from the Pendleton Act?
Makers of America: The Chinese
14. Why
did most Chinese immigrants come to America?
The Blaine-Cleveland Mudslingers
of 1884
15. Explain
how character played a part in the presidential election of 1884.
“Old Grover" Takes Over
16. Assess
the following statement: "As
president, Grover Cleveland governed as his previous record as governor indicated
he would."
Cleveland Battles for a Lower Tariff
17. What
were the reasons behind Cleveland's stance in favor of lower
tariffs?
The Billion Dollar Congress
18. Explain
why the tariff was detrimental to American farmers.
The Drumbeat of Discontent
19. What
was the most revolutionary aspect of the Populist platform? Defend your answer with evidence.
Cleveland and Depression
20. What
could Cleveland have done to lessen the impact of the financial
turmoil?
Cleveland Breeds a Backlash
21. Is
the characterization of the Gilded Age presidents as the “forgettable
presidents” a fair one? Explain.
Varying Viewpoints: The
Populists: Radicals or Reactionaries?
22. Were
the Populists romanticized, or were they truly “authentic reformers with
genuine grievances?”
expanding the “varying
viewpoints”
·
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (1955).
A view of the Populists as backward-looking and irrational
reactionaries:
“In the attempts of the Populists . . . to hold on
to some of the values of agrarian life, to save personal entrepreneurship and
individual opportunity and the character type they engendered, and to maintain
a homogeneous Yankee civilization, I have found much that was retrograde and
delusive, a little that was vicious, and a good deal that was
comic. . . . Such tendencies in American life as isolationism
and the extreme nationalism that often goes with it, hatred of Europe and
Europeans, racial, religious, and nationalist phobias, resentment of big
business, trade-unionism, intellectuals, the Eastern seaboard and its
culture—all these have been found not only in opposition to reform but also at
times oddly combined with it.”
·
Lawrence
Goodwyn, Democratic
Promise: The Populist Moment in America (1976).
A view of the Populists as forward-looking and rational:
“For the triumph of Populism—its only enduring triumph—was
the belief in possibility it injected into American political
consciousness.…Tactical errors aside, it was the élan of the agrarian crusade,
too earnest ever to be decisively ridiculed, too creative to be permanently
ignored, that lingers as the Populist residue.…The creed centered on concepts
of political organization and uses of democratic government that—even though in
a formative stage—were already too advanced to be accepted by the centralizing,
complacent nation of the Gilded Age.…The issues of Populism were large. They
dominate our world.”
questions about the “varying
viewpoints”
23. What
does each of these historians see as the essential character of populism?
24. How
does the holder of each of these viewpoints see the relationship between
populism and the new corporate industrial order of the late nineteenth century?
25. How
would each of these historians likely interpret the fact that populism
disappeared as a political force but has remained a strong undercurrent in
American political thinking?
Analysis Questions
(When asked how his ring had managed to keep the scandals hidden for so
long): “Well, we used money wherever we
could.” William Marcy Tweed (1823–1878) (1869)
“We are henceforth to be one American people. Let us forget that we
fought. Let us remember only that we have made peace.” Horace Greeley (1811–1872) (1872)
“This letter requires no
answer. After reading it file it away in your most secret drawer or give it to
the flames.…Do not say a word…no matter who may ask you.” James G. Blaine (1830–1893) (Letter to
Sherman, 1884)
1. Why
did politics in the Gilded Age seemingly sink to such a low level? Did the
Gilded Age party system have any strengths to
compensate for its weaknesses?
2. Was
the Compromise of 1877 another cynical political deal of the era or a wise
adjustment to avoid a renewal of serious sectional conflict?
3. What
were the short-term and long-term results of the “Jim Crow” system in the
South? Why was the sharecropping system so hard to overcome? Were blacks worse off or better off after the
Civil War?
4. Why
was the political system so slow to respond to the economic grievances of
farmers and workers, especially during the hard economic times of the 1890s?
Were the Populists and others more effectively addressing the real problems
that America
faced, or was their approach fatally crippled by their nostalgia for a simpler,
rural America?
HISTORIC NOTES
·
The post-Civil War era is rife with corruption,
graft, and influence peddling.
Corruption is rampant at the local and state level as well. The infamous New York
City political machine known as the Tweed Ring, for
example, bilks the city and state out of millions of dollars.
·
In an attempt to clean their own house, the
Republicans take steps to lower the protective tariff, which many consider
unreasonably high and beneficial to specific industries. In addition, to address the problem of
nepotism and favoritism in attaining government employment, the Republicans
pass modest civil service reform legislation such as the Pendleton Act.
·
A devastating Depression hits the nation in
1873, adding to the already significant political woes of President Grant and
his Republican Party.
·
An effect of the Civil War, the weakening of the
Democratic Party during this period, would have a long term effect. Indeed, only two Democrats were elected
president between 1860 and 1912.
·
While he himself was honest to a fault,
President Grant’s administration was riddled with political figures who viewed
their position in government as a means to acquire ill-gotten wealth. Some people who were not government officials
found ways to penetrate the federal government to benefit them selves. For example, financial speculators Jay Gould
and Jim Fisk cornered the gold market. Their
unscrupulous acts were uncovered, but not before ruining many unsuspecting
investors and businessmen and further tarnishing the already tainted Grant
administration.
·
With the end of Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws
brought a new form of subordination and degredation
for southern blacks. Relegated again to
a position of dependence, many former slaves turned to sharecropping, one of
the few options open to them. Millions
of blacks scratched out a meager existence while locked into a system that made
them indebted to the owners of the land on which they worked. In many cases those landowners were their
former masters.
Advanced
Placement United States History Topic Outline
15. Industrial America in the
Late Nineteenth Century
A. Corporate consolidation of industry
B. Effects of technological
development on the worker and workplace
C. Labor and unions
D. National politics and influence of
corporate power
E. Migration and immigration: the
changing face of the nation
F. Proponents and opponents of the new
order, e.g., Social Darwinism and Social Gospel
16. Urban Society
in the Late Nineteenth Century
A. Urbanization and the lure of the
city
B. City problems and machine politics
C. Intellectual and cultural movements
and popular entertainment
17. Populism and
Progressivism
A. Agrarian discontent and political
issues of the late nineteenth century
B. Origins of Progressive reform:
municipal, state, and national
C. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson as
Progressive presidents
D. Women's roles: family, workplace,
education, politics, and reform
E. Black America: urban
migration and civil rights initiatives