Politics in the Gilded Age1869-1896

Election of 1868

Impeachment/trial of Andrew Johnson occurred in 1868

Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour

Republicans nominated war hero, Ulysses S. Grant (he had no political experience)

“waving the bloody shirt” Grant won 300,000 more

popular votes the vote of 500,000 blacks

gave the Republicans their victory

Election of 1868

15th Amendment

Republican majorities in Congress acted quickly in 1869 to secure the African-American vote

Reconstruction Amendments: 13th, 14th, 15th

15th Amendment: prohibited any state from denying or abridging a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Ratified in 1870

Southern Reaction

White Southerners used literacy tests and poll taxes to deny blacks the ballot

Grandfather clause: if a relative voted in 1860, you were exempted from the requirements

disenfranchisement

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Guaranteed equal accommodations in public places (hotels, railroads, and theatres)

Prohibited courts from excluding African Americans from juries

Law was poorly enforced, Republicans were starting to fear the loss of white votes

Frustration over trying to reform an unwilling South

Reconstruction in the South

Republicans came to dominate Reconstruction in the South

Democratic opponents gave nicknames to their hated Republican rivals

They called southern Republicans “scalawags” and northern newcomers “carpetbaggers”

Northerners who went south wee often investors, missionaries, and teachers

Greed and graft existed

A cartoon threatening that the KKK would lynch carpetbaggers, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, 1868.

Evaluating the Republican Record

Accomplishments

- universal male suffrage- property rights for women- debt relief- construction of roads,

bridges and railroads- state-supported schools- new tax systems

Failures

- Republican rule seen as corrupt/wasteful

- kickbacks and bribes- However, it was not just

Republicans

Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall

William “Boss” Tweed was the boss of the local Democratic party in NYC

Masterminded dozens of schemes of political corruption

The Tweed ring stole roughly $200 million from New York’s taxpayers

The New York Times and the cartoonist Thomas Nast exposed Tweed and brought about his arrest and imprisonment in 1871

Greed and CorruptionThomas Nast and Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed

Thomas Nast Political Cartoonist

born in Germany Anti-Catholic and nativist credited with creating donkey

(Democrats) and elephant (Republicans)

Election of 1872

Horace Greeley Scandals of the Grant administration drove reform-minded Republicans to break with the party and nominate Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune

Democrats join them and nominate Greeley

Grant was nominated by the Republicans for a second term

“Waving the bloody shirt” (again playing up his Civil War reputation)

Election of 1872

Grant’s Administration and Corruption

In 1869 two Wall Street financiers schemed Grant’s brother-in-law in a scheme to corner the gold market

Credit Mobilier affair, stock given to Congress members to avoid investigation of profits

Whiskey Ring federal revenue agents conspired with the liquor industry to defraud the govt. of millions of dollars

Grant never involved but his reputation is tarnished

The End of Reconstruction

During Grant’s second term, it was apparent that Reconstruction had entered a third and final phase

Southern conservatives (redeemers) took control of state governments in the south

Most of their political programs focused on: states’ rights, reduced taxes, reduced spending on social programs, and white supremacy

Amnesty Act of 1872

Seven years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, many northerners were ready to move on

In 1872, Congress passed a general amnesty act that removed the last of the restrictions on ex-Confederates, except for the top leaders

This Amnesty Act allowed Democrats to retake control of state governments

African-Americans Adjust to Freedom

Learning to read and write Migrating to cities Founding of black churches

(minister become leaders in black community)

Colleges: Howard, Morehouse, and Fisk are established ((to train ministers and teachers)

Sharecropping A new form of servitude?

South’s agricultural economy was in turmoil after the war

Whites lacked a compulsory labor force

Sharecropping: the landlord provides the seed and supplies, in return for a share (usually half) of the harvest

For the most part, sharecroppers remained dependent on the landowners

By 1880 roughly 5% of blacks were independent landowners

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

In 1890, Louisiana passed a law called the "Separate Car Act." This law said that railroad companies must provide separate but equal train cars for whites and blacks.

Homer Plessy was 1/8 black and therefore had to sit in the “colored” car, but he sat in the “white” car and was arrested

Plessy said this violated his 14th Amend. rights

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The case made its way to the Supreme Court and they upheld the Louisiana law requiring “separate but equal accomodations”

The Supreme Court said the law did NOT violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws”

Wave of segregation laws follow in the South, known as Jim Crow laws

Segregated washrooms, park benches, etc.

Election of 1876(The United States was 100 years old!!!!!!!!!) Republicans nominated

Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio Democrats nominated Samuel

J. Tilden of New York Tilden won the popular vote In three southern states the

votes were contested (SC, FL and LA)

A special commission was created to determine the electoral votes

All votes were given to Hayes

Compromise of 1877

Republicans and Democrats worked out a deal

Hayes would become President

He must: 1.) end federal support for Republicans in the South and 2.) support the building of a RR through the South

Shortly after his inauguration, Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South

Election of 1876

Chinese Immigration

Chinese grocery store - 1898 Many Chinese arrived in the mid-1800s with the discovery of gold in California

More than 2 million Chinese left China for South America, Hawaii, and Cuba with roughly 300,000 entering the U.S.

San Francisco Worked on transcontinental

railroad (western portion) “Chinatowns” Faced widespread

discrimination

Chinese Immigration

This 1852 photo by J. B. Starkweather shows a rare site: Chinese and European Americans working together in a gold mining operation.

Chinese Immigration

Secrettown TrestleChinese railroad workers transported dirt by the cartload to fill in this Secrettown Trestle in the Sierra Nevada Mountain.Courtesy of Union Pacific Historical Collection

Chinese Immigration

Violence in California against Chinese workers by European-Americans who resented the competition for jobs

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) barred nearly all Chinese from entering the United States for six decades

Many Chinese-Americans took menial jobs, but eventually opened their own businesses such as restaurants and laundries

The People’s Party

Also known as the Populists Originated from the Farmers’

Alliance Wanted: a graduated income

tax, government ownership of RRs and telegraphs, one-term limit on the presidency, immigration restriction

Adoption of initiative and referendum

Labor Unrest

Strikes by blue collar workers erupted in the late 1800s

Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead steel plant (near Pittsburgh)

Steelworkers strike over wages

Homestead Strike Federal troops were eventually

called in and broke the strike