Gilded Age

Gilded Age

• Grant’s problems

• Whiskey Ring

• Thomas Nast

•

Slaughterhouse

Cases

•

Civil Rights Case, 1883

• Republican Factions

• 1880 Election



Business bosses



1884 Election



Mugwumps



Cleveland’s actions



Pensions



Tariffs

Gilded Age

• #1: ID

• 1877-1900

• Time of the forgotten

Presidents

• None served more than two

consecutive terms and they

ignored the problems of

urbanization and

industrialization

•The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873)

A novel by Mark Twain and Charles

Dudley Warner, which explores political and economic corruption in the United States. The central characters, Colonel Beriah Sellers and Senator Abner

Dilworthy, are tied together in a

Grant’s Problems

•

Grant’s Problems

• wasn’t a politician

• His friends hurt him

• His friends got involved in

scandals and Grant got

the blame

• 1869: Jay Gould and Jim

Fist attempted to corner

the gold market with the

help of Grant’s brother in

law

Credit Mobilier

Credit Mobilier

1867-68

1867-68

#2 Id

Grant was blamed;

Most of the work was

done before Grant

took office

Railroad construction company that was paying themselves

$50,000 per mile for construction; the govt. provided grants for

railroad construction………Some key Congressmen paid off

Exposed in 1872…..showed VP was involved

Hell on Wheels

Whiskey Ring

Whiskey Ring

• Group of revenue officers

and distillers who were

convicted during President

Grant's Administration of

having defrauded the U.S.

government of excise taxes

amounting to nearly

$2,000,000 in 1875 alone

• His own Sec. Of War,

William Belknap, was

impeached and resigned

Grantism referred to

Boss Tweed

Boss Tweed

• Immigrants aided by

city bosses and political

machines

• Tammany Hall was the

Democratic HQ in NY

• Courthouse of NY built

by Tweed Ring: cost

11 million dollars;

Gangs of New York

• The Tweed Ring was broken up in 1871 when the NY Times published info about what Tweed was doing • He offered 5 million dollars not to

print it

• Tweed managed to escape from jail and fled the country. In Spain, two border guards who didn't read

English recognized Tweed from this image, and supposed he was wanted for kidnapping. Tweed was

Breaking away from Grant

Breaking away from Grant

#4 Liberal Republicans

#4 Liberal Republicans

• Liberal Republicans broke away from Grant

• End reconstruction and purify Washington

• Blacks should care for themselves

1873 Slaughterhouse Cases

• Had nothing to do with the freedmen at first

• A question of monopoly in

which a company sued that the state had violated the 14th

Amendment (due process of law)

• Supreme Court issued the dual citizenship doctrine

• 14th Amendment protected only the rights of national citizenship; not state

• Came close to nullifying the 14th Amendment

• Basic civil rights were protected by states-not the 14th

Money

• #5 Specie Resumption Act, 1875 • #6 1878: Bland-Allison Act

• Treasury was to buy and issue silver bullion each month to ease inflation and the depression

• Passed over the veto of President Hayes (next)

• Ratio of silver to gold was 16 to 1 • Some wanted unlimited coinage • Republicans wanted hard currency

and this led to a loss of seats in

Greenback Labor Party-1874

Greenback Labor Party-1874

#7

#7

• Favored issuance of soft

money; greenbacks

• Congress removed them

from circulation after the

Civil War (1875 Specie

Redemption Act)

• Want increased

circulation of money

#8: Who wanted unlimited

coinage of silver?

1876 Election

T

ild

e

n

• Republicans quietly abandoned the civil

rights movement

•

Civil Rights Cases, 1883

– Civil Rights Act, 1875 unconstitutional

– The 14th Amendment prevented only

government violations of civil rights, not

individual denials

Party Conflicts

• Little political conflict

during the Gilded Age

• Elections were so close

neither wanted to

alienate anyone

• Democrats won only

two elections during

this time (same person)

• Voter turnout was 80%

without a major issue

being debated

• Traced themselves back to Puritanism; morality

• Government regulation

• Business and middle class support

• Freedmen

• Grand Army of the Republic veterans (GAR)

• Also called Generally All Republicans

• Waved the “bloody shirt” of the war to the Democrats; #10

• Lincoln was murdered by a Democrat

• Immigrants

• Less stern views

• Religious toleration

• Little government

influence

• Strength from big

political machines

• Both parties lived

through patronage and

infighting began to hurt

the Republicans

 Cartoonist Thomas Nast used the

Democratic donkey in newspaper cartoons and made the symbol famous.



In a cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey clothed in lion's skin, scaring away all the animals at the zoo. One of those animals, the elephant, was labeled “The Republican Vote.” That's all it took for the elephant to become

Stalwarts and Half-Breeds

• The main issue that divided the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds was political

patronage. The Stalwarts were in favor of political

machines and spoils system-style patronage, while the Half-Breeds, led by Maine senator James G. Blaine, were in favor of civil service reform and a merit system. • The epithet "Half-Breed" was

Election of 1880

• Republicans eventually chose James A. Garfield

• Selected a Stalwart VP Chester A. Arthur

• Democrats ran Winfield S. Hancock (war hero)

• Appeal to veterans and popular in the south

Link

Sumter

Cannon Ball

Brooks’ Cane Booth’s pistol

Garfield steps up to the job (1881)

• After winning the election, office seekers came seeking over 100,000 federal jobs • Patronage: spoils system • Some pushed for a merit

system in the civil service • President Hayes began the

Charles Guiteau was a Stalwart upset that he didn’t get a job from Charles Guiteau was a Stalwart upset that he didn’t get a job from

Garfield who

Garfield who assassinated Garfield at a DC train depot

•Garfield lived for several weeks as the doctors searched for the bullet •Guiteau hanged

The next eighty days, sixteen doctors were consulted regarding the President's condition.

The first doctor, Willard Bliss, stuck a non-sterile finger into the wound (sterilization had been

preached, but not widely practiced at the time). He followed this by inserting a non sterile probing instrument to find the bullet.

Bliss never found the bullet, but the false passage that he dug out confused later physicians as to the bullet's actual path. As a result, they concluded that the bullet had penetrated the liver and therefore surgery would be of no help. The President would surely die quickly as a result.

Of course, they were wrong.

Then the army surgeon general stuck his unwashed finger into the wound and dug as deep as he could. This was followed by the navy surgeon general who searched with his finger so deeply that this time he really did puncture the liver (damage the bullet never did). His conclusion: the President would die within twenty-four hours.

But, Garfield didn't die the next day.

His fever rose and he was put on a diet of milk spiked with brandy.

To nobody's surprise they continued to probe for the bullet with their unwashed fingers.

In an effort to find the bullet, that phone guy Alexander Graham Bell rigged up a crude metal detector to help find the bullet. After several passes, Bell said he had located the bullet. It was much deeper than was originally thought.

With Garfield's condition growing steadily worse, doctors decided to cut him open to remove the slug. It was not found.

What Bell had actually located so deep in the body was the metal spring under the mattress! No wonder they couldn't find the bullet.

In the end, they managed to take a 3 inch wound and turn it into a twenty inch canal that was heavily infected and oozed more and more pus with each passing day. The deep wound with its massive infection, coupled with possible blood poisoning from the bullet, caused the President's heart to weaken.

Garfield had a massive heart attack several days later, but these well trained physicians botched this diagnosis also.

They attributed it to the rupturing of a blood vessel in his stomach!

Minutes later, on September 19th, 1881, Garfield finally passed away.

At the autopsy, examiners determined that the bullet had lodged itself some four inches from the spine in a

protective cyst.

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)

• Arthur, the Stalwart,

turned on his faction

• Pendleton Act, 1883

– #12

• It helped, but didn’t

end patronage

Help out a brother….

• The spoilsmen had to look elsewhere for

support and a new boss entered

•

Business bosses

emerged

– less skilled at getting voters

– good at getting money

– pushed some politicians to big business

Election of

1884

• Rep: James Blaine

• Dem: Grover Cleveland (reformer)

• A key state was NY

• Blaine supporters damned the Dem. As a party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellions” • Upset Northern Democrats

and large numbers of Irish immigrants went to

Cleveland’s side

Mugwumps

• During the 1884 election,

Cleveland ran against

Republican James Blaine

• Republicans who didn’t

support Blaine and were

called Mugwumps or traitors

for supporting Cleveland

• The term later came to

mean a politician that

wouldn’t make up his mind

on important issues or

Grover Cleveland (1885-89) (1893-97)

• Served two non consecutive terms

• One of two Democratic Presidents since the Civil War………next one wouldn’t be until 1912

• Wanted to lower tariffs • Favored laissez faire

• Lost the next election and won the following • #13: Key issues of his Presidency

• He installed the civil service system

• Ran into problems with pensions

– The Union tried to take care of their

veterans, but the legislation contained

loopholes and there was easy access to the

Treasury

– Unproved claims, claims for injuries after the

war was over, etc.

• #14

• The biggest issue of the time was

whether to expand or not to expand

the supply of money

• Debtors and farmers wanted more

circulation:

some blamed the gold

standard for the depression

• Free silver coinage; greenbacks

• Bankers and businessmen wanted

Tariff Issue

• The US had large amounts of

revenue due to high tariffs

• Cleveland wanted to lower the

tariffs: lower prices, less

protection for monopolies

• Other nations imposed tariffs

that hurt our farmers

• Surpluses in the US=lower

farm prices

Election of 1888

• Republicans chose Benjamin Harrison (Young Tippecanoe) • Republicans had been raising

money for grafts that would used to corrupt the “voting cattle”

• In Indiana, votes were bought for $20 each

• Republicans attacked Cleveland’s pension reform

• Cleveland polled more popular votes, but lost

• Republicans controlled executive and legislative branches and

passed the first billion dollar budget in US History

• Democrats made gains in 1890 Congressional elections

Benjamin Harrison (1889-93)

• Republican • Favored high tariffs

• Lost the next election to Grover Cleveland • First President with electricity in the White House •He and his wife were so scared of it they had servants turn

on the lights

Where are all the good men?

Many call these the forgettable Presidents

Where were the good men in America and