IN THE WAKE OF WAR

• New Problems, New Solutions – industrialization and urbanization changed

the structure of the American economy and society

– American political history in the last quarter of the 19th century was singularly divorced from the meaningful issues of the day

– on the rare occasions that important issues did become the subject of debate, they occasioned far less argument than they merited

• The Triumph of Self-Interest– after Civil War Americans became

materialistic

– they professed a belief in laissez-faire, a

policy of government noninterference in

business

– people tolerated the grossest kind of waste and corruption in high places

– Mark Twain described this period as “the Gilded Age” dazzling on the surface but base metal below

– by the 1870s, Charles Darwin’s Origin

of the Species (1859) influenced

American public opinion

– William Graham Sumner drew an

analogy between survival of the

fittest in nature and in human society

– the application of Darwinist theory to

social relations became known as

social Darwinism

• Congress Ascendant– a succession of weak presidents occupied

White House, and Congress dominated government

– within Congress, the Senate generally overshadowed the House

– critics called the Senate a rich man’s club, but its real source of influence derived from the long tenure of many of its members and the small number of senators

– then, too, the House of Representatives was one of the most disorderly and inefficient legislative bodies in the world

– although the Democrats and Republicans competed fiercely, they seldom took clearly opposing positions on the issues of the day

– fundamental division between Democrats and Republicans was sectional, result of Civil War

– the South was heavily Democratic; New England remained solidly Republican; and the rest of the country was split, although Republicans tended to have the advantage

– wealthy northerners and blacks tended to be Republicans; immigrants and Catholics tended to be Democrats

– even though Democrats won

presidency only twice, most

presidential elections in late

nineteenth century were extremely

close, and congressional majorities

fluctuated continually

• The Political Aftermath of War

– Republicans attacked Democrats by

waving the “bloody shirt” (reminding

voters that the Democrats had been

party of secession and that

Democrats denied rights to blacks in

South)

– other major issues included the tariff,

currency, and civil service reform

• Blacks After Reconstruction– both Republicans and Democrats

subscribed to hypocritical statements about black equality and constitutional rights, but neither did anything to implement them

– for a time, southern blacks were not totally disfranchised

– rival white political factions tried to manipulate black voters

– in the 1890s, however, southern states began to use poll taxes and literacy tests to bar blacks from voting

– Supreme Court decisions curtailed black civil rights and power of government to defend them

– in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed civil rights against invasion by the state, but not by individuals

– Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld legality of separate public accommodations for blacks and whites, so long as they were of equal quality

– in practice, facilities provided for blacks were separate; they were rarely equal

• Booker T. Washington: A “Reasonable” Champion for Blacks– some blacks responded to racism and

discrimination by adopting militant black nationalism; others advocated a revival of the African colonization movement; neither of these approaches won many adherents

– the dominant black leader of the period, Booker T. Washington, believed that blacks needed to accommodate themselves to white prejudices, at least temporarily, and concentrate on self-improvement

– these ideas, expressed in his “Atlanta Compromise” speech, established his reputation as a moderate, “reasonable” black leader

– in public, he minimized the importance of civil and political rights; behind the scenes, however, he lobbied against discriminatory measures and financed test cases in the courts

• White Violence and Vengeance– for decades after the Civil War, some

southern whites had attempted to replace the legal subjugation of slavery with a new form of subjugation based on terror

– between 1890 and 1910, an average of nearly a hundred blacks were lynched each year

– even more striking was the utter savagery of many of the lynchings

– violence succeeded in disfranchising southern black men and driving them out of public spaces

– ironically, this created an opportunity

for black women to fill the void

created by the disfranchisement of

black men

– black women in religious and reform

associations became the points of

contact with the white community

• The West after the Civil War– there was neither a typical West nor

westerner– many parts of region had as large a

percentage of foreign-born residents as the eastern cities

– although often portrayed as an unpopulated region with large open spaces, the West contained several growing cities, including San Francisco and Denver

– if the western economy was predominantly agricultural and extractive, it also had both a commercial and developing industrial component

– the West epitomized the social Darwinist psychology of post-Civil War America

– beginning in the mid-1850s, a steady flow of Chinese immigrated to the United States

– many worked building the railroads– with the completion of the railroads,

Chinese began to look elsewhere for work– workers in San Francisco, who resented the

competition, rioted– by 1882, these problems led Congress to

prohibit Chinese immigration for ten years; later this ban was extended indefinitely

• The Plains Indians– in 1860, the Indians still occupied roughly

half the United States; by 1877, they had been shattered as independent peoples; the Plains Indians lived by hunting

– they eagerly adopted the products of white culture-clothing, weapons, horses

– westward expansion by whites put pressure on Indian lands

– in 1851, Thomas Fitzpatrick, an Indian agent, negotiated agreements with several tribes of Plains Indians at Horse Creek, Wyoming

– each tribe agreed to accept definite limits on its hunting grounds

– in return, the Indians were promised gifts and annual payments

– this policy, known as “concentration,” was designed to reduce intertribal warfare and, more important, to enable the government to negotiate separately with each tribe

– the United States maintained that each tribe was a sovereign nation, to be dealt with as an equal in treaties, although both sides knew that such was not the case

• Indian Wars– white encroachments led to the outbreak

of guerrilla warfare, in the course of which both sides committed atrocities

– in 1867, the government tried a new strategy to replace the “concentration” policy

– all Indians would be confined to reservations and forced to become farmers

– some Indians refused to yield to the new policy and waged war against both the U.S. Army and settlers

– Indians made superb cavalry soldiers and often held off or defeated American troops

– granting the inevitability of white expansion, some version of the “small reservation” policy was probably best for the Indians

– however, maladministration hampered the government’s policy

– treaties did not provide adequate land for the Indians, and Indian agents often cheated Indians

– the discovery of gold on the Black Hills Indian Reservation led to further fighting, including Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn

• The Destruction of Tribal Life– the bison formed the mainstay of the

Indian’s food and provided materials for clothing, tools, and shelter

– its destruction led to disintegration of tribal life

– many whites, including those sympathetic to the Indians’ plight, believed that the only way to solve the “Indian problem” was to persuade them to abandon their tribal culture and to live on family farms

– the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) allotted tribal lands to individual Indians, provided funds for education, and granted United States citizenship to those who accepted allotments and “adopted the habits of civilized life”

– although the bill’s sponsors perceived it as a humanitarian reform, it had disastrous results

– it shattered what remained of Indian culture without enabling Indians to adapt to white ways

• The Lure of Gold and Silver in the West– Americans had long regarded the West as a

limitless resource to be exploited– miners chased “strikes,” which gave rise to

boom towns, many of which soon died– major strikes were made at Fraser River,

Pikes Peak, and Nevada (the Comstock Lode)– the boom towns of the West reflected the

get-rich-quick attitude prevalent in the East– few gave any thought of conserving the

resources

– gold towns attracted a variety of characters, and law enforcement was a constant problem

– prospectors may have made key discoveries, but larger mining interests developed the resources and made most of the profits

– gold rushes increased interest in the West and generated a valuable literature

– moreover, each new strike and rush, no matter how ephemeral, brought permanent settlers: farmers, cattlemen, storekeepers, lawyers, and ministers

– gold bolstered the financial position of the United States and helped pay for the import of European goods

– gold towns also consumed American agricultural and manufactured goods

• Big Business and the Land Bonanza– the Homestead Act (1862) intended to

create 160-acre family farms, but things did not work out as planned

– even if land was free, most landless Americans could not afford the cost of moving and purchasing the necessary farm equipment

– factory workers had neither the skills nor the interest to become farmers

– moreover, 160 acres was not sufficient for farms in the far West; the Timber Culture Act (1873) increased the figure to 320 acres and required the planting of trees on the land

– large speculators grabbed much of the land, and private interests destroyed much of the western forests

– some corporate “bonanza” farmers made profits, but even commercialized agriculture could not withstand the droughts of the 1880s

• Western Railroad Building– the government subsidized the

construction of western railroads through a combination of land grants and loans

– government lands adjacent to the railroads were not open to homesteading because such free land would prevent the railroads from disposing of their granted lands at good prices

– land grant railroads encouraged the growth of the West by advertising and selling their lands

– they also provided inexpensive transportation and shipping for settlers

– corruption and waste often marred the construction of railroads

• The Cattle Kingdom– the cattle industry developed as a result

of increasing demands for food in eastern cities and the expansion of the railroad network

– cattle were driven from Texas to Sedalia, Abilene, and points westward on the railroads, where the cattlemen sold them for substantial profits the long drive produced the American cowboy, about a third of whom were black or Mexican

– cattle towns such as Abilene, Wichita, and Dodge City thrived

– life in these towns was neither so violent nor disorderly as legend has it

• Open-Range Ranching– cattlemen began raising stock closer to

the railheads, eliminating the long drive– open-range ranching on the northern

plains required little more than the possession of cattle and access to water

– the open range made actual ownership of much land unnecessary

– ranchers often banded together to obtain legal title to watercourses and grazed their cattle in common on adjacent lands

– their herds became intermixed and could be distinguished only by brands

– Easterners and Europeans invested in the ranches, and a few large ranches eventually came to dominate the industry

• Barbed Wire Warfare– by the mid-1880s, crowding on the range

and lack of clear land titles gave rise to conflict and violence

– compounding matters, Congress refused to change the land laws and thereby encouraged those who could not get title to enough land legally to resort to fraud

– individuals and groups began to fence off large areas of land they considered their own, a step made possible by the invention of barbed wire

– fencing often led to conflicts

– overproduction drove down beef prices, and many sections were overgrazed

– the severe winter of 1886 to 1887 killed between 80-90 percent of cattle on the range and ended open-range cattle ranching

– the industry revived on a smaller, more efficient scale