ch 23: gilded age
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
CH 23: GILDED AGE
![Page 2: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
BLOODY SHIRT ELECTS GRANT
• Election of 1868, Republicans nominate Ulysses S Grant
• Great soldier, no political experience (which the people were tired of politics)
• Democrats at this time had only the anti Military Reconstruction platform and were unorganized
• Republicans would wave the ‘bloody shirt’ and also told veterans to “vote as you shot”. They wanted military reconstruction to continue.
• Westerners advocated for redemption of cheap currency to aid in debts
• Grant won with 214 electoral votes (Democrat Seymour got only 80) and won by 300,000 popular votes
• 500,000 former slaves voted for Grant
• The states of Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia were not even counted
![Page 3: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
THE ERA OF GOOD STEALINGS • Population was still exploding due to immigration (1869-1896) and politics
became very corrupt
• Railroad promoters and stock investors cheated gullible customers
• Politicians and judges were open for bribes
• “An honest politician is one who when bought stays bought”
• Notorious millionaires Jim Fisk and Jay Gould attempted to corner the gold market. Would only work if the US treasury did not sell gold
• They worked on Grant personally and even bribed his brother in law with $25,000
• Black Friday (Sept 24, 1869) Fisk and Gould bid on and drove the price of gold sky high
• Bubble burst when Grant finally released some of the gold in the treasury
• Congressional investigation concluded that Grant did nothing wrong but did act stupidly and indiscreetly
![Page 4: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
• The Tweed Ring in New York City controlled NYC politics through bribery and graft
• “Boss” Tweed also employed election fraud and threats to drain the city of close to $200 million
• If people wanted a job or kickback, you had to play Tweed’s game
• Protestors usually found themselves without a job and their taxes through the roof
• In 1871, the New York Times finally published evidence to get Tweed thrown in jail (even though they were offered $5 million to keep the story hush)
![Page 5: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
A CARNIVAL OF CORRUPTION • Grant was a great general but lousy politician
• He failed to see the corruption going on even in his own cabinet, his in-laws, his friends, his close family, etc
• The Credit Mobilier Scandal
• Railroad construction company that paid itself huge sums of money for railroad construction severely hurt Grant
• Insiders at Union Pacific Railroad created the company Credit Mobilier to construct the railroads and put themselves in charge
• To keep this quiet, they paid off members of Congress and even the VP
• The scandal was uncovered by a NY newspaper
• Grant also was tarred by the Whiskey Ring scandal of 1874-1875 which robbed the treasury of millions, and
• Grant’s Secretary of War William Belknap resigned after taking bribes from suppliers of Indian Reservations in 1876
![Page 6: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
![Page 7: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
DAY 1 WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED
• A: Why did political machines, such as Tweeds, gain so much power in the larger cities?
• B: With Grant having been a popular and successful General in the Civil War, why do you think he made such poor decisions as a President?
• C: Why did politicians wave a ‘bloody shirt’ for political purposes? How is this still done today in politics?
• D: Why is this era known as the ‘Era of Good Stealings’ and also the ‘Gilded Age’? What do these names have to do with one another?
![Page 8: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
LIBERAL REPUBLICAN REVOLT OF 1872 • By 1872 there was general disgust at Grant’s administration (even though
most scandals hadn’t arrived yet)
• Reformers organized the Liberal Republican Party and nominated Horace Greeley for President
• Democrats also liked Greeley and he had been supportive of ending Reconstruction
• The campaign was filled with mudslinging (Greeley was called an atheist, vegetarian, free-lover; Grant was called a drunkard, ignoramus, swindler)
• Grant ended up crushing Greeley in both EV and PV (286-66)
• Because the party was divided, Republicans passed in 1872 a general amnesty removing penalties to all but 500 former Confederate leaders
• They also reduced high tariffs left over from the Civil War and also attempted to institute civil service reform
![Page 9: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
DEPRESSION, DEFLATION, INFLATION • Panic of 1873
• Created because of too many railroads and factories being created than the existing market could keep afloat.
• Banks had over extended loans to create these new companies as well.
• Cheap money supporters wanted greenbacks that had been printed during the Civil War
• Supporters of hard money (gold/silver) got Grant to veto a bill that would have printed more money
• Resumption Act of 1875 began the recall of greenbacks again and also the redemption of paper money at face value starting in 1879
• Greenbacks began to have more value and few were actually turned back in for gold
• 1878 Bland-Allison Act had the government buy and coin between $2 million and $4 million in silver bullion each month
![Page 10: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
GILDED AGE & HAYES-TILDEN • Gilded Age is a term coined by Mark Twain
• Era was filled with corruption and close presidential elections
• In reality they agreed economics, but support was different
• South: Democrats
• West and North: Republicans
• In 1876, Grant almost ran for a third term until the House of Representatives passed a gentle reminder of the two term tradition (233-18)
• Republicans nominate Rutherford B Hayes and Democrats nominate Samuel Tilden
• Race was close, Tilden got 184 out of 185 EV needed
• 4 states were disputed: Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and part of Oregon
• Each of these 4 states had sent in two sets of returns, one Democrat and one Republican
• Should the votes be counted by President of the Senate (a Republican) or should they be counted by the Speaker of the House (a Democrat)?
![Page 11: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
COMPROMISE OF 1877 • Electoral Count Act of 1877 set up a commission of 15 men from the Senate, House,
and Supreme Court which would count votes
• Hayes became President if he would pull troops out of the remaining two states still under Reconstruction
• This abandoned blacks in the South by withdrawing the troops
• A civil rights act that had been passed in 1875 was to be declared mostly unconstitutional
• As the troops pulled out, whites again began to discriminate against blacks, low wage labor and restrictions on rights
• Share cropping and tenant farming (for poor whites and blacks)
• Crop-lien system for store keepers kept most in debt through generations
• Court declared that 14th Amendment protected only with government discrimination but not by individuals
• Legal segregation, Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, Plessy v Ferguson
• Lynching became commonplace as well through 1880s on
![Page 12: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
CLASS CONFLICTS AND ETHNIC CLASHES • Reconstruction and regional conflict was put away in 1877
• What opened up was class warfare
• 1877, presidents of nation’s four largest railroads cut wages by 10%
• Workers strike back, stopping work, and Hayes sends in troops to stop it
• Violence, more than 100 die in several weeks of chaos
• This exposes weaknesses in the labor movement, specifically racial between Irish and Chinese who worked primarily on rail
• By 1880, Chinese immigrants accounted for 9% of California population
• Irish-born Denis Kearney tried to incite violence in San Francisco against the Chinese immigrants, arguing cheap labor
• Kearney-ites took to the streets, some cutting off the pigtails and others murdering
• Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 prohibiting immigration from China (until 1943)
• SC Case: US v Wong Kim Ark, 1898, said that those born in US were citizens due to 14th Amendment
![Page 13: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
DAY 2 WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED
• A: With an 80% voter turnout rate, why do you think that politics in the Gilded Age was so often corrupt?
• B: What caused the Compromise of 1877?
• C: What were the results of the Compromise of 1877 in terms of race relations?
• D: What is the plight of the Chinese immigrant during this period? What job prospects and aspects of racism are they facing?
![Page 14: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
GARFIELD & ARTHUR
• Hayes is seen as a fraud, and had proclaimed he would only seek one term.
• In 1880, Republicans nominate James A Garfield, Ohio. His running mate is Chester A Arthur
• Democrats choose Winfield S Hancock
• Garfield wins 214-55. He is seen as a good person but one who hates to say ‘no’.
• Garfield was assassinated on Sept 19, 1881. Shot in the back by Charles J Guiteau, it took him 11 weeks to die.
• Guiteau was a supporter of Arthur’s faction of the Republican party and believed if he was president he could get a job
• Guiteau tried to use the insanity defense, but was hung anyway
![Page 15: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
ARTHUR
• Arthur didn’t seem fit to lead, but surprised many by his shunning his earlier supporters
• He called for reform, and in 1883 got the Pendleton Act passed
• Established a ‘merit’ system for the civil service and began to put an end to the ‘spoils’ system
• Because Arthur did not play the patronage game, he did not get the nomination in 1886
![Page 16: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
BLAINE-CLEVELAND MUDSLINGERS OF 1884 • James G Blaine is nominated as Republican candidate, but some
Republicans couldn’t stand it and switched to be Democrats (Mugwumps)
• Blaine’s dirt was a corrupt deal involving a railroad
• Tried to cover it up by writing on the letters to “burn this letter”
• Dem’s choose Grover Cleveland as candidate
• Bachelor who loved chewing tobacco, was known as “Grover the Good”
• Soon came out that he may have fathered an illegitimate child, and Cleveland had been sending money to the woman and son.
• He insisted on telling the truth even after Democrats told him to lie
• “Burn, Burn this Letter” & “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” were heard on both sides
• Cleveland won 219-182 (4,879,507 to 4,850,930)
![Page 17: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
![Page 18: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
CLEVELAND BATTLES OF LOWER TARIFF • During Civil War, tariffs were jacked up to raise revenues for military
• Main beneficiaries are the American businesses
• High taxes continued after war though, with an annual surplus of $145 million
• Congress can reduce surplus in two ways
• 1-spend it on pork barrel projects and veterans pensions
• 2-lower the tariff
• Cleveland sees lower tariffs would lower prices, better for consumers and would get rid of some monopolies
• Sent a bill to Congress and it divided the two parties, plus election of 1888
• Democrats nominate Cleveland, Republicans Benjamin Harrison, the tariff is the main issue
• Harrison barely beats Cleveland 233-168 (Cleveland won PV)
![Page 19: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
BILLION DOLLAR CONGRESS • Republicans in Congress under Harrison were excited, but the Democrats
planned on refusing to do daily business
• They intended to delay all of Harrison’s and Republicans’ bills
• The budget for the first time reaches $1 billion
![Page 20: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
CLEVELAND AND DEPRESSION • Republicans are discredited during Harrison’s term
• Cleveland took office again in 1893, only president reelected after defeat
• Cleveland had just taken office when Depression of 1893 hit, worst of 1800s
• Lasted four years
• Causes were huge increase in overbuilding and speculation, labor disputes, and ongoing agricultural depression
• European banks finally started to call in US loans and made it worse
• In 6 months, 8,000 businesses collapsed
• Soup kitchens were opened up to feed unemployed
• Hobos wandered the nation
• Cleveland and government were bound to laissez-faire economics
• Cleveland tried to allow the government to keep all the gold and silver it could
• Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed
• In 1895, with the gold reserve down to only $41 million, Cleveland turned to JP Morgan for a loan in gold. The US government was loaned $65 million in gold
![Page 21: CH 23: Gilded age](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022061102/629d472731856f47797abca3/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
DAY 3 WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED
• A: What led to Garfield’s assassination?
• B: Describe the mudslinging that took place during the election of 1884.
• C: Explain Cleveland’s ideology behind tariffs and laissez-faire.
• D: What caused the Depression of 1893?