Politics in the Gilded Politics in the Gilded Age Part IAge Part I

By Neil Hammond

Millbrook High School

IntroductionIntroduction

• Alexis DeTocqueville – Democracy in America 1832…for him the US was an ideal democracy

• James Bryce, The American Commonwealth– Robust democracy had descended into barren

politics– But there was a “reserve of force and

patriotism”

Barren Politics:Barren Politics:The Politics of the Status-The Politics of the Status-

QuoQuo• 1860-1877 Civil War and

Reconstruction

• A great leader, Lincoln, had emerged…the government had become more powerful and rigorous

• After 1877 and lasting until 1900, there were no great issues…no great leaders…a more modest vision of national power

The “Hard to The “Hard to Remember” PresidentsRemember” Presidents

• Hayes 1877-1881• Garfield 1881-• Arthur 1881-1885• Cleveland 1885-1889• Harrison 1889-1893

Lack of Big Issues?Lack of Big Issues?

• Hayes’ election ended Reconstruction– Stalwarts (opposed Hayes’ leniency

to the South and Civil Service Reform)

– Half Breeds (supported Hayes’ leniency to the South & Civil Service Reform)

• 1877 Great Railroad Strike…labor / owners now a big issue

• The government sided with big business– Force used to put down strike– Armories in cities

The Politics of the The Politics of the Status-QuoStatus-Quo

• Government still modest. 100,000 federal workers in 1880…56% worked for the post office. Government money came in from tariffs. The president during this time took a back seat to Congress

• One of the most pressing problems of the times was how to spend the federal surplus. Tariffs were raking in the $$$.

• Congress had more control over national policy than the president, but it functioned poorly, often becoming bogged down in procedural log jams

• Sources

The Politics of the The Politics of the Status-QuoStatus-Quo

• Neither party had a strong agenda– Republicans traditionally more like the Whigs– Democrats states’ rights

• The politics of the time were tight. Big issues divided people from the same PARTY, not opposing parties. Big issues (like temperance, women’s rights) were fought over at a local level

• Every presidential election from 1876 to 1892 was close, and neither party consistently gained control of Congress

The Politics of the The Politics of the Status-QuoStatus-Quo• The anatomy of political

stalemate is evident in this trio of electoral maps of the 1880s. First, note the equal division of the popular vote between Republicans and Democrats. Second, note the remarkable persistence in the pattern of electoral votes, in which overwhelmingly states went to the same party in all three elections. Finally, we can identify who determined the outcomes—the two “swing” states, New York and Indiana, whose vote shifted every four years and always in favor of the winning candidate.

Politics and the People Politics and the People • Politics may have been corrupt and hardly

representative of the people, but proportionally more people voted in presidential elections from 1876 to 1896 than any other time in US history

• Politics was a huge part of American culture and before movies etc. ranked as one of the great forms of entertainment

• Sectional differences were still hugely important– Northern Republicans waved the bloody shirt– Southern Democrats saw voting Republican as

treasonous

Politics and the People Politics and the People • Other important

determinants of party loyalty were religion and ethnicity

• Issues:– Republicans more likely to

use the govt. to uphold morals and regulate behavior

– Language of instruction in schools

– Temperance movement (protestants tended to be in favor of restricting liquor sales)

• It became dangerous to make these issues national ones– E.g. a Republican’s loose talk

that the Democrats were the party of “Rum, Romanism and Ruin” might have let Cleveland win in 1884

Organizational PoliticsOrganizational Politics• Both parties were

made up of political machines, which reinforced the seeming unimportance of national issues

• Political machines controlled politics at a local level…they are often seen as corrupt. Best example…Boss Tweed in NYC

The Ideology of the AgeThe Ideology of the Age• Individualism

– Horatio Alger

• Social Darwinism– Human history a history of the survival of

the fittest– Herbert Spencer

• Sources

GarfieldGarfield

• Gunned down by a crazy guy (Charles Guiteau) who wanted a government job– This ended the stalwart / half breed labels

• So the issue became patronage / the spoils system. Since Jackson’s times, the victorious president had doled out government jobs. By the 1880s, this had become exhausting…and fatal for Garfield.

• 1883 Pendleton Act– Went someway to fixing this by making a certain

% of government jobs based on merit

ClevelandCleveland

• 1884 – Reps nominated James Blaine from Maine. Image as a spoilsman

• Republican Reformers known as Mugwumps jumped ship to the Democratic Party, which had nominated Grover Cleveland

• The 1884 election became a nasty one that did NOT focus on any issues

ClevelandCleveland• “Ma, Ma, I want

my PA”

• Blaine – accusations of corruption

• Blaine may have lost with “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” quip

ClevelandCleveland• Cleveland’s goal was to reduce government

activity, balance the budget and free capital for private investment– Civil War pensions 1887…C vetoed bill

– Ordered return of 81 m acres of w land from RR companies

– 1887 Texas seed bill…vetoed (People should support the govt…not the other way around)

– Signed ICC with powers to oversee RR rates

– Tariffs

Cleveland and the TariffCleveland and the Tariff

• Cleveland’s goal to balance the budget– SURPLUS of money in 1880s…led to lots of

pork barrel spending

• House passed a bill reducing tariffs across the board from 47% to 40%

• Republican Senate blocked this…outrage– Benjamin Harrison won the election of 1888.

HarrisonHarrison• From the mid 1880s to the early 1890s,

Harrison and the Reps played on rising anti-immigrant sentiment– APA– Rising prohibition movement

• Sources

• Harrison…weak president– Everyone seemed to get their wish– “Billion dollar Congress”

The Conservative The Conservative Supreme CourtSupreme Court

• The court became an important part of the post-war era

• Laissez-faire, individualism and social darwinism were the dominant middle and upper class ideologies, and this was reflected in Supreme Court decisions

• From 1870 on the courts increasingly became guardians of private property against the grasping tentacles of government

The Conservative The Conservative Supreme CourtSupreme Court

• 1883 Civil Rights Cases

• Declared the 1875 Civil Rights Act (which forbade discrimination in public places) unconstitutional because of the 14th amendment’s language:

The Conservative The Conservative Supreme CourtSupreme Court

• 1883 Wabash v Illinois…The Supreme Court struck down the Granger laws of the 1870s. States cannot regulate railroads if that regulation involves interstate commerce

• In 1886 the Interstate Commerce Commission was set up by Congress to regulate railroads– Initially it was a pretty toothless agency– Rather than regulate railroads, it often was

used by the railroads against customers

• The Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 as a response to the public concern in the growth of giant combinations (monopolies / trusts) controlling transportation, industry, and commerce.

The Conservative The Conservative Supreme CourtSupreme Court• During the 1890s the Supreme Court became even more

conservative…In 1894 Federal courts issued sweeping injunctions against Eugene V Debs and other union leaders of the Pullman Strike. Debs appealed to the Supreme Court for a writ of Habeus Corpus…the court denied his plea!

• In 1895 it ruled that the Sugar Trust (98% control of the sugar industry) did NOT fall under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act because the act did not cover manufacturing

• In a third case, the Court heard argument on a new federal income tax law, which took 2 percent of all incomes over $4,000. Famous lawyers prophesied communism, anarchy, and despotism if the law survived. The court struck down the law.

• The court seemed to be taking the side of the rich.

The Conservative The Conservative Supreme CourtSupreme Court• Cartoon activity

WomenWomen• Politics seen as no place for women.

“Separate Spheres”. NAWSA (National American Women’s Suffrage Association)– Unified the National Women’s Suffrage Association

and American Women’s Suffrage Association

• Remember that women had played an important role in reform movements (e.g. prison reform). This required state intervention; therefore, some women’s groups became politically active at a state level.

• Women’s Christian Temperance Union founded by Frances Willard in 1874. Later this group also called for women’s suffrage, arguing that women needed the vote in order to fulfill their social and spiritual responsibilities as women. This laid the foundation for the fresh attack on male politics of the early 1900s