Gilded Age Politics & Reform

U.S. History II

Barriers to the Right to Vote

• Extralegal means:– Violence– Fraud

• Legal means:– 8 Ballot Box Law– Literacy Test– Poll Taxes– Grandfather Clause– White Primaries

Effects of Disfranchisement

The Supreme Court Guts the Reconstruction Laws

• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873): Supreme Court declared that 14th Amendment distinguishes between state and federal citizenship

• U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876): 1st & 2nd Amendment rights predated U.S. Constitution, so protected by states. – 14th Amendment didn’t add any rights - just another

guarantee of protection– Federal gov’t could intervene ONLY if state failed to protect

rights

• U.S. v. Harris (1882): Ku Klux Klan Act unconstitutional because 14th Amendment restricts states’ actions, not individuals’ actions.

Supreme Court (cont.)

• Civil Rights Cases (1883): 1875 Civil Rights Act struck down for same reason (7 cases, 2 from South)

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Supreme Court declared "separate but equal" facilities constitutional– 14th Amendment only meant political & legal equality -

COULDN’T have meant social equality, because that was impossible

– John Marshall Harlan wrote blistering dissent, arguing separate was inherently unequal

SEGREGATION

• De Jure Segregation– By Law

– Mandated separate facilities

– Never equal, despite Plessy ruling

• De Facto Segregation– In Fact

– Restrictive housing covenants

– Different rents, fees, etc.

Lynching• Mostly men:

– 2,472 men

– 50 women

• Mostly in the South:– 2,409 in South

– 101 in North

– 12 in West

• Mostly for alleged murder or rape:– 36% for murder

– 28.5% for rape or assault of a woman

Different Types of Lynch Mobs

• Terrorist mobs – KKK, Whitecappers

• Private mobs – family & friends exacting revenge

• Posses – paralegal hunting parties

• Mass mobs – stereotypical, community-wide mob, acting in ritualized ways (30 – 40% of all lynchings).

• White planters often protected black tenants against terrorist mobs.

• Blacks occasionally joined mass mobs or formed their own private mobs.

Political Stalemate & Corruption• 1876-92 = period of divided

government– Presidential candidates separated by less

than 1% of popular vote

– House usually Democratic; Senate Republican

• Urban political machines like Tammany Hall relied on immigrant voters

• Assassination of Pres. Garfield by Charles Guiteau in 1881 led to Pendleton Act (1883)– Created Civil Service Commission &

competitive exam system

– Only applied to low-level jobs at first

Voter Turnout Comparison

The Social Gospel– Washington Gladden argued golden

rule & law of love were the heart of Christianity

– Walter Rauschenbusch said Kingdom of God would be embodied in the Christian transformation of the social order

– Salvation Army combined evangelism & work with urban poor

– Young Men’s Christian Association provided wholesome alternatives to cities’ temptations Rev. Gladden

Social Darwinism– Herbert Spencer called for new science of sociology to

study how Darwinian principles applied to human societies

• Believed societies evolved like species

• Government aid to the poor only impeded natural selection & progress

– William Graham Sumner agreed with Spencer that laissez-faire was best policy

• Believed laws couldn’t change folkways

– Lester Frank Ward argued humans could control evolution & make the unfit fit

• wrote Dynamic Sociology (1883)

• Believed government should ameliorate poverty & educate citizens to hasten progress

Popularizing Reform Ideas• Muckrakers: journalists who exposed problems

& aroused attention– Lincoln Steffens exposed corruption of political

machines in The Shame of the Cities (1904)– Jacob Riis showed horrible living conditions of

immigrants in How the Other Half Lives (1890) – Ida Wells Barnett detailed lynchings in

Southern Horrors (1892)

• Chautauqua movement combined entertainment & education– Chautauqua Literary & Scientific Circles (1878)– University Extension Program (1890)– Traveling tent Chautauquas (1904-24)