gilded age politics and agrarian revolt - brown's … age politics and agrarian revolt chapter...

Gilded Age

Politics and

Agrarian Revolt

Chapter 21 Lecture Outline

© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

19th Century Political Life

Paradoxical Politics

• Politics during the Gilded Age

– Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined the term

“Gilded Age” to depict the corruption and greed

– New York City’s William “Boss” Tweed of Tammany Hall

– Politics during this time period were deeply personal


• National Politics

– At the national level, politics still concentrated on post–Civil

War battle lines, with many viewing battles for supremacy

between the two parties a stalemate.


• Partisan Politics

– The power of patronage to appoint supporters to

governmental positions often resulted in incompetent and

corrupt individuals being named to important offices

• Political Stalemate

– Republicans: mainly Protestants of British descent (North)

– Democrats: often Southern whites, recent immigrants, and

Catholics.

– For sixty years from the start of the Civil War, Republicans

dominated the presidency, Dems winning only twice: Grover

Cleveland.

– Chief Executives were rarely considered strong, with one

exception: Theodore Roosevelt.


• State and Local

Initiatives – the federal government

was not considered the

agency to look to for direct

support.

– State and local

governments were

considered more important

to daily life (taxing and

spending).

– These were first to curb

abuses of corporate

interests

Corruption and Reform: Hayes to Harrison

• Hayes and Civil Service Reform

– courts overturned most regulations that states tried to enact

on corporations

– When Rutherford B. Hayes became president, he tried to

reform Civil Service programs (government jobs) to abolish

the “spoils system” of patronage.

Corruption and Reform:

Hayes to Harrison


Hayes to Harrison

• The 1880 election

– James Garfield was Rep candidate and won the presidency.

– Garfield was assassinated only four months into office

– Chester A. Arthur, a Stalwart, now became president

– Pendleton Act - promoted merit over partisanship in

awarding government jobs.


Hayes to Harrison

• The Campaign of 1884

– James Blaine (R) vs Grover Cleveland (D)

• Cleveland and the Special Interests

– Believed the relationship between the federal government

and its people was one-way:

• the people supported the government, and the government did

not support the people


Hayes to Harrison

• Tensions over the Tariff

– Before 16th amendment,

chief revenue source was

the tariff

– Many began to fear the tariff

had led to the creation of

trusts by taxing imports to

allow more profits

– Cleveland believed that

tariffs were too high and

argued that they must be

lowered.


Hayes to Harrison

• The Election of 1888

– Democrats re-nominated Cleveland, and the Republicans

nominated Benjamin Harrison.

– Cleveland and the Democrats favored lowering the tariff.

– The Republicans and Harrison, favoring industry, raised an

enormous war chest


Hayes to Harrison

• Republican Reform Under

Harrison

– Harrison was president in

name only. His Secretary of

State was James Blaine, the

1884 Republican candidate.

– Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which

forbade contracts,

combinations, or conspiracies

in restraint of trade to create

monopolies.

“King of the World” Reformers targeted the growing power of monopolies, such as that of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.


Hayes to Harrison

• What Form of Currency Should Be Accepted?

– Specie, or money made out of a precious metal, was rare in

the West and the South.

– Many of the new states that had recently joined the nation

had silver mines, and many of the silver interests bankrolled

an attempt to allow more coining of silver as legal tender.

The Farm Problem

and Agrarian Protest Movements

• Economic Conditions

– After Civil War, farmers faced a downward spiral in the

prices of their crops as domestic overproduction and

increasing international competition cut into their market.

– The farmers first blamed the railroads, which charged

whatever the market would bear to haul produce to market,

with little room to bargain.

– The tariff, always a source of frustration for farmers,

continued to pay double taxes on domestic produce shipped

overseas.

The Farm Problem


• Formation of Protest Movements

– When Congress would not take action to help them, farmers

began to organize, similar to the labor unions, to make their

voices heard.

“I Feed You All!” This 1875 poster shows the farmer at the center of

society.

The Farm Problem


• The Granger Movement

– The National Grange of

the Patrons of Husbandry

(The Grange), an early

farm union, was first

established in 1866.

– Their first attempts at

legislation were not

entirely successful, but

established the

foundation for future

work.

– Granger movement

eventually declined, but

did not disappear entirely.

The Farm Problem


• Farmers’ Alliances

– As the power of the Grange waned, farmers’ alliances grew.

– By forming collectives, they worked to overcome hardships

such as indebtedness, falling prices, and droughts.

– formed cooperatives, with shared ownership of community

stores and warehouses, thus bypassing middlemen.

The Farm Problem


• Farm Politics

– Never fully organized at a

national level, farmers

worked within the

established parties in their

states or created small

third parties to reflect their

views.

– More successful in the

South, where farmers

refused to leave the

Democratic party, they won

several political positions at

the state and federal level.

Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890 A charismatic leader in the farm protest movement.

The Farm Problem


• The Populist Party and the Election of 1892

– In 1892, an association of farmers, labor, and reform groups

organized the People’s Party, also known as the Populist

Party.

– In the election of 1892, President Harrison vs Grover

Cleveland vs the Populist candidate James B. Weaver.

The Economy and the Silver Solution

• The Depression of 1893

– Just before Cleveland

was sworn in for his

second term, the

Philadelphia and Reading

Railroad declared

bankruptcy, and took with

it several banks and other

overextended railroad

companies.

– This sparked an

economic panic that

lasted four years, with an

unemployment rate of 20

percent.

National panic The New York Stock Exchange

on the morning of Friday, May 5, 1893.


• Silverites versus Goldbugs

– Great Britain remained the financial center of the world.

– The failure of a large British bank forced many British

investors to sell their holdings in America for gold.

– This in turn drained the United States of much of its gold

supply, making the already inadequate monetary supply

even thinner.

– This promoted the silver interests and their desire to

increase the coinage of silver to end the panic.


• The Remarkable Election of

1896

– Once again the stage was set

for a presidential election.

– pro-gold William McKinley (R)

vs the fiery young orator

William Jennings Bryan(D),

who delivered his famous

“Cross of Gold” acceptance

speech.

– In this campaign, the

Populists chose to side with

Bryan and not divide their

votes, but McKinley won.

William Jennings Bryan His “cross of

gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic

Convention roused the delegates and

secured him the party’s presidential

nomination.

Race Relations during the 1890s

• Disenfranchising African Americans

– A wave of violent anti–African American sentiment ran

rampant in the 1890s South. Many viewed the education of

African Americans as a danger to the social order, and felt it

must be stopped to keep them “in their place.”


• The Spread of Racial Segregation

– “Jim Crow” laws, the separation of races in public places

– 1883, the SC ruled the 14th Amendment applied only when

the state infringed on the rights of African Americans

– 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that

segregation was legal if “separate but equal”

“Separate but equal” Students

exercising during the school day

at an all-black elementary

school in Washington, D.C.


• Mob Rule in North Carolina

– Wilmington, NC: 20k African Americans residents.

– 1894 &1896, they joined with Republicans & Populists to

choose own slate of elected officials, minority white

Democrats found unacceptable

– On November 10, 1898, more than 2,000 white men and

boys rampaged through the town destroying African

American–owned businesses and killing as many as one

hundred African Americans.

– They then forced the elected officials out of office and

appointed their own slate of officers.

• The Black Response


• The Black Response

– African Americans responded in different ways; some left the

South, but others remained and adopted a solitary lifestyle to

keep from being noticed

The Wilmington

Insurrection

A mob of armed white

supremacists destroyed

the printing press of The

Daily Record, a black-

owned newspaper in

Wilmington, North

Carolina.

Booker T. Washington

was the foremost black educator in

the 1890s. Believed his race should

first achieve economic stability that

would ultimately provide for the

advancement of their social status.

W. E. B. Du Bois

• who worked for immediate

acceptance of an equal

status of Africans with their

Anglo neighbors

W.E.B. Du Bois A fierce advocate for

black education.

Booker T. Washington Founder of

the Tuskegee Institute.


• A New Era

– The 1896 election was a high point for American voter

participation, with 79 percent of the eligible voters

participating.

– By 1897, economic prosperity was returning, and

discoveries of gold across the globe crushed the silver

movement.

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