Chapter Study Outline

  • I. Paradoxical politics
    • A. Political life and local politics in the Gilded Age
      • 1. Importance of local/city politics
      • 2. Power of political machines and “bosses“
        • a. Tammany Hall and William “Boss“ Tweed in New York
    • B. National politics
      • 1. Party loyalty results in higher voter turnout
      • 2. Similarities between Republicans and Democrats
      • 3. Paradox of voter turnout and inertia at national level
    • C. Partisan politics
      • 1. Intense loyalty to one of the two major parties
      • 2. Patronage and favoritism
      • 3. Geography, religion, and ethnicity
        • a. Republicans: mainly Protestants of British descent
          • (1) Power based in Northeast and upper Midwest
          • (2) Support for nativist and prohibitionist policies
        • b. Democrats: heterogeneous coalition of southern whites, northern immigrants, Catholics living in the north, Jews, etc.
          • (1) Included those repelled by Republican “moral“ policies
    • D. Political stalemate at the national level
      • 1. Republican presidency and Senate, Democratic House
      • 2. Little difference between the parties on major issues
        • a. Currency, regulation, farm policies, civil service, immigration
    • E. State and local initiatives
      • 1. Significance of state and local governments
      • 2. Minimal federal role at the local level
  • II. Corruption and reform: Hayes to Harrison
    • A. Alliance between politicians and business
      • 1. Gifts and favors for politicians
      • 2. Squabbles over “spoils“ of office
    • B. Hayes and civil service reform
      • 1. Republican party split between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds
        • a. Stalwarts benefitted from the spoils system
        • b. Half-breeds were half-committed to reforming the spoils system
      • 2. Hayes shifts toward merit-based appointments
    • C. Hayes promotes conservative economic policies
      • 1. Ends up losing support of his party before end of his term
  • III. The administrations of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur
    • A. Garfield as president
      • 1. The election of 1880
        • a. Republican Garfield defeats Democrat Hancock
      • 2. Garfield’s assassination early in his term
    • B. Arthur as president
      • 1. Arthur’s surprising reforms
        • a. Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883)
      • 2. Attempts to lower tariff
  • IV. The first administration of Grover Cleveland
    • A. The scurrilous campaign of 1884
      • 1. Republicans
        • a. James G. Blaine and the “Mulligan letters“
        • b. Rise of the Mugwumps
      • 2. Democrats
        • a. Grover Cleveland and early career of reform
        • b. Cleveland and the potential scandal of an illegitimate child
      • 3. Last-minute blunders by Blaine
    • B. Cleveland as president
      • 1. Opposed any federal favors to big business
        • a. Limited view of government’s role in economic and social matters
      • 2. Supported federal regulation of interstate railroads
        • a. Signed 1887 law creating the Interstate Commerce Commission
      • 3. The tariff
        • a. Believed tariffs led to “trusts“
        • b. Cleveland’s annual message of 1887 devoted entirely to tariff
        • c. Tariff policy distinguishes Cleveland from Republicans
      • 4. The election of 1888
        • a. Tariff is main issue
        • b. Corruption and the phony Murchison letter
        • c. Cleveland wins popular vote but loses election in Electoral College
  • V. The administration of Benjamin Harrison
    • A. Significant legislation
      • 1. Dependent Pension Act
      • 2. Sherman Anti-Trust Act
      • 3. Sherman Silver Purchase Act
      • 4. McKinley Tariff
      • 5. Admission of new western states
    • B. Economic problems due to inflexible, Republican-supported, gold-based money supply
      • 1. Encouraged deflation
        • a. Created problems for debt-ridden farmers and laborers
      • 2. Republicans see 1888 election victory as mandate for their economic policies
      • 3. Republicans suffer big losses in 1890 midterm elections
        • a. Losses may have also been connected to state-level Republican efforts to legislate against alcoholic beverages
  • VI. The farm problem and agrarian protest movements
    • A. Unrest in farming communities of South and plains states, as well as in mining towns of Rocky Mountain region
      • 1. Decline in commodity prices
        • a. Domestic overproduction
        • b. International competition
      • 2. Railroads and middlemen compounded agrarian problems
        • a. High railroad rates
      • 3. High tariffs
      • 4. Little bargaining power for farmers who needed to ship and sell their goods
      • 5. Burden of debt further affected farmers
        • a. Crop liens and land mortgages
        • b. Forced to grow cash crops
    • B. The Granger movement
      • 1. Oliver H. Kelley founded the Grange in 1867
        • a. Promoted farmer-owned cooperatives for buying and selling crops
      • 2. “Granger laws“
        • a. Regulation of railroad and warehouse rates
        • b. Supreme Court upheld warehouse regulation in Munn v. Illinois (1877)
      • 3. Decline of the Grange
        • a. Failure of economic ventures
        • b. The Independent National (Greenback) party
    • C. Farmers’ Alliances
      • 1. The growth of the Farmers’ Alliances
        • a. Membership especially high in the South and Midwest
        • b. More of a grassroots organization than the Grange
        • c. Colored Farmers’ National Alliance
        • d. Welcomed women as members
        • e. Fought forces arrayed against farm section
          • (1) Bankers and creditors, financiers, railroads, corporate giants
        • f. Proposed elaborate economic reform program
          • (1) Based on creation of farm cooperatives
      • 2. The Texas Alliance
        • a. Charles W. Macune
        • b. Alliance Exchanges enabled pooling of resources to borrow money and make purchases
        • c. “Subtreasury plan“ sought to allow farmer to store crops in hopes of getting a better price later, as well as promote inflation
  • VII. Farm politics and the Populist Party
    • A. Effort to fight eastern financial and industrial interests through political parties
    • B. Regional differences
      • 1. In West, third-party successes
      • 2. In South, influenced Democratic party
    • C. Leaders of farm protest movement
      • 1. Mary Elizabeth Lease
      • 2. Sockless Jerry Simpson
      • 3. Thomas Watson
    • D. The Populist party
      • 1. Omaha platform adopted in 1892
        • a. Finance
          • (1) Support of subtreasury plan
          • (2) Unlimited coinage of silver
          • (3) Progressive income tax
        • b. Federal control of railroads
        • c. Reclaim excess lands from railroads and other corporations
        • d. Eight-hour workday and immigration restrictions
    • E. The election of 1892
      • 1. Grover Cleveland, Democratic presidential candidate
      • 2. Benjamin Harrison, Republican presidential candidate
      • 3. James B. Weaver, Populist presidential candidate
      • 4. Cleveland wins
        • a. Weaver polled 1 million votes and carried four states
  • VIII. The economy and the silver solution
    • A. The depression of 1893
      • 1. Overextended railroads collapse, banks and businesses follow
      • 2. Western and southern farms devastated
      • 3. Worker unrest
        • a. 20 percent unemployment
        • b. Cleveland’s policies worsen the situation
        • c. “Coxey’s Army“ marches on Washington
      • 4. Democrats lose big in the midterm elections of 1894
        • a. Republican victories
        • b. Populists elect thirteen to Congress
    • B. Depression focuses attention on currency issue
      • 1. Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act divides Democrats
      • 2. Populists prepare for 1896 election with eye on currency issue and support for “free silver“
    • C. The election of 1896
      • 1. Candidates and their positions
        • a. Republicans nominate William McKinley on gold-standard platform
        • b. Democrats nominate pro-silver William Jennings Bryan after his “cross of gold“ speech
        • c. Rather than split silver vote, Populists also nominate Bryan
        • d. Election was dramatic and notable due to striking contrasts of positions between candidates
      • 2. Victory for McKinley
        • a. McKinley casts Bryan as a dangerous “communistic“ radical who would incite class war and ruin the capitalist system
        • b. McKinley casts himself as the “advance agent of prosperity“
        • c. Bryan carries most of the West and the South
        • d. Bryan unable to attract votes of northeastern farmers and urban factory workers
  • IX. Race relations during the 1890s
    • A. Rise of violent “negrophobia“
      • 1. Spread of ideologies of Anglo-Saxon superiority
      • 2. Concerns over signs of black economic and political success
        • a. Especially during economic downturn
    • B. Passage of “Jim Crow“ segregation laws in 1890s
    • C. Black disenfranchisement
      • 1. Populism divides white southern vote so that black vote became balance of power, could determine elections
      • 2. Race-baiting white politicians want to eliminate black vote
        • a. Fifteenth Amendment makes it impossible to simply deny blacks the right to vote
        • b. Leads to poll taxes and literacy tests
        • c. Example of South Carolina governor Benjamin Tillman
      • 3. The “Mississippi Plan“ for black disenfranchisement
        • a. Residence requirement
        • b. Disqualification for conviction of certain crimes (ones that disproportionately affected blacks)
        • c. Poll tax and other taxes
        • d. Literacy test (with understanding clause)
      • 4. Variations of the Mississippi plan (including the “grandfather clause“)
      • 5. Democratic primaries adopted throughout South exclude African American voters
      • 6. Dramatic decline of black registered voters
    • D. The courts and the spread of segregation in the South
      • 1. Popular support for segregation in South builds, even in North
      • 2. Civil rights cases of 1883
        • a. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional
        • b. Private individuals and organizations could discriminate
        • c. Did not rule on the validity of state laws requiring segregated facilities
      • 3. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ruled that states did have a right to pass laws segregating public facilities
        • a. Facilities had to be “separate but equal“
    • E. Rising violence against blacks accompanies the creation of Jim Crow laws
      • 1. Increase in lynchings throughout South
      • 2. Mob rule in Wilmington, North Carolina
        • a. White elites lead insurrection against lawfully elected city government
          • (1) Government was a coalition of Republicans and Populists elected by black majority of voters in the city
        • b. Insurrection entails indiscriminate killing of blacks and destruction of property
        • c. White supremacists cement their control of the political process
    • F. Black response to racism and statutory segregation
      • 1. Accommodation
      • 2. Create independent culture and institutions
      • 3. Irony of segregation
        • a. Created new economic opportunities for blacks
        • b. Fostered rise of black activism
      • 4. African American leaders
        • a. Ida B. Wells and the founding of the NAACP (1909)
        • b. Booker T. Washington, accommodation, and the “Atlanta Compromise“
        • c. W.E.B. Du Bois and protest of Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise“
  • X. A new era
    • A. The triumph of forces representing urban-industrial America over rural-agrarian America
    • B. New gold discoveries end the depression
    • C. Rising global concerns and the coming of the War of 1898 end much controversy over tariffs and the currency