Politics in the Gilded Age in two minutes
- The parties were evenly matched: Republicans drew business, Union veterans, and Protestant farmers, Democrats held the Solid South and Northern city voters, and nearly four in five eligible voters turned out.
- Elections were close: in 1876 and 1888 the winner lost the popular vote, and the parties often split control of Washington, so major laws were rare.
- The tariff was the main economic issue dividing the parties, with Republicans favoring high protective rates and Democrats favoring lower ones.
- City machines such as New York's Tammany Hall offered jobs, coal, and help in exchange for votes, and the Tweed Ring stole millions before Thomas Nast's cartoons and prosecutors brought it down.
- The Crédit Mobilier scandal (1872) showed corruption in Washington, and in July 1881 a disappointed office seeker shot President Garfield, a crime that helped pass the Pendleton Act of January 1883.
- The Pendleton Act set up competitive exams for some federal jobs, so parties turned to corporations and wealthy donors for campaign money; in 1884 reform Republicans called Mugwumps helped elect Cleveland.
- On the exam: expect causation and continuity questions on corruption and reform; the topic connects to the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and to Progressive civil service and direct democracy reforms.
Topic 6.13 key terms
- Gold standard
A money system in which the government promises to swap every paper dollar for a fixed weight of gold. Supporters said it kept the dollar honest and steady. Critics said it kept money scarce, which held prices down and debts heavy.
- Free silver
The demand that the Mint coin all the silver anyone brought in, at 16 ounces of silver to 1 of gold. Farmers and silver miners backed it, expecting more money in circulation, higher prices and easier debts.
- Cross of Gold speech
William Jennings Bryan’s closing speech in the Democrats’ platform debate, July 9, 1896. It made him the party’s presidential nominee the next day, at 36, and turned the election into a fight over gold and silver.
- Patronage (spoils system)
Giving government jobs to a winning party's loyal workers as a reward, whether or not they were qualified. Named for the saying that 'to the victor belong the spoils.' Reformers wanted federal jobs filled by merit instead.
- Waving the bloody shirt
A Republican campaign tactic: reminding Northern voters, especially Union veterans, that Democrats had led the South into war and Republicans had saved the Union. Many Northern Democrats had fought for the Union too.
- Solid South
The former Confederate states, which voted Democratic in nearly every election from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the mid-1900s. White Democrats held power there, and Black voters were increasingly shut out.
- Protective tariff
A tax on imported goods, set high to shield American manufacturers from cheaper foreign competition. Factory owners and their workers liked it. Farmers, who bought manufactured goods, paid higher prices.
- Political machine
A party organization that ran a city by trading jobs, services and favors to immigrants and the poor for their votes. A boss ran it from the top.
- Tammany Hall
New York City's Democratic machine. It began as a social club and, under bosses like Tweed, controlled the city's jobs and contracts.
- Crédit Mobilier
A sham construction company that Union Pacific insiders paid, at inflated prices, to build the railroad. They gave cheap shares to congressmen to keep Congress friendly. Exposed in 1872–73.
- Spoils system
Giving government jobs to loyal party workers as a reward for votes and campaign work, not for skill. Also called patronage.
- Pendleton Civil Service Act
The 1883 law that filled some federal jobs by competitive exam instead of party loyalty. It began the end of the spoils system.
- Mugwumps
Reform-minded Republicans who refused to back Blaine in 1884 and voted for Cleveland. Party loyalists meant the name as an insult.
- Electoral College
The states' electors, not the popular vote, choose the president. New York's 36 electors decided 1884: Cleveland 219, Blaine 182.
- Prohibition Party
A third party that wanted to outlaw alcohol. Its 1884 candidate, John St. John, drew about 25,000 votes in New York.
- Gilded Age politics
Fierce party loyalty, huge turnout, razor-thin elections, and few real differences between the parties.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
Arms Out
July 9, 1896
Key terms: Gold standard, Free silver, Cross of Gold speech
Chicago, July 1896. About twenty thousand people, one hot hall, and a thirty-six-year-old from Nebraska.
William Jennings Bryan
…you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.
William Jennings Bryan
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
For a moment, nobody made a sound. He was talking about money. Whether a dollar should be backed by gold alone, or by silver too. It sounds like a question for a jeweler.
By 1896 it had become a bigger question: whom is the government for? Go back twenty years, to a country that loved politics and decided almost nothing.
Which Was Which?
1868–1892
Key terms: Patronage (spoils system), Waving the bloody shirt, Solid South, Protective tariff
Election day meant a brass band and a beer wagon. Nearly four in five eligible voters turned out.
No secret ballot. Each party printed its own colored ticket. Everyone saw how you voted. And winners handed out government jobs.
Republicans knew exactly what to tell Union veterans.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a Democrat.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat.
Plenty of Democrats had fought for the Union, too.
Democrats held the Solid South, where Black men were increasingly kept from voting.
Northern Democrats had the big cities: immigrants, Catholics, and everyone tired of sermons about beer. Republicans had business, veterans, Protestant farmers, and Black voters.
Elections were coin flips. In 1876 and 1888, the man with fewer votes became president. In 1880, fewer than ten thousand votes separated them.
Most years, the parties split control of Washington, so big laws were rare.
Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison. In a 1934 story, Thomas Wolfe asked:
Which had the whiskers, which the burnsides: which was which?
The one real fight was the tariff. Republicans wanted it high, to protect American factories. Democrats said it made everything farmers bought cost more.
In 1880, Democratic nominee Winfield Scott Hancock told a newspaper:
The tariff question is a local question.
He lost.
Honest Graft
1868–1883
Key terms: Political machine, Tammany Hall, Crédit Mobilier, Spoils system, Pendleton Civil Service Act
Tammany Hall's George Washington Plunkitt called his politics honest graft.
In the cities, the party wasn't an idea. It was a man on your block. He found you coal and work. Then he wanted your vote.
George Washington Plunkitt
If a family is burned out I don't ask whether they are Republicans or Democrats…
George Washington Plunkitt
It's philanthropy, but it's politics, too—mighty good politics.
Plunkitt's Tammany had once belonged to William M. Tweed. Estimates of what his Ring stole run from thirty million dollars to two hundred million.
The county courthouse was budgeted at $250,000. It cost about twelve million.
The county paid $7,500 for thermometers. The Times valued them at about $158. Plunkitt's bootblack stand was in that building.
Thomas Nast drew the Ring for Harper's Weekly. You didn't have to read to get the joke.
Tweed escaped to Spain, where officials at Vigo recognized him from a Nast cartoon.
Washington had its own version. Railroad insiders sold congressmen cheap shares in Crédit Mobilier. Oakes Ames handed them out. One buyer was James Garfield.
Charles Guiteau wrote a speech called "Grant against Hancock." Garfield won the nomination, so Guiteau retitled it, decided it had won the election, and demanded the Paris consulship.
On July 2, 1881, Guiteau shot the president in a Washington train station. Garfield died eleven weeks later.
His successor, Chester Arthur, had run the patronage machine at New York's Custom House until President Hayes fired him.
In January 1883, Arthur signed the Pendleton Act. Some federal jobs now went by exam. Workers couldn't be squeezed for campaign money.
George Washington Plunkitt
This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age.
So the parties found new money: corporations and the very rich. Remember that in 1896.
Burn This Letter
1884
Key terms: Mugwumps, Electoral College, Prohibition Party, Gilded Age politics
Republicans nominated James G. Blaine, whom Robert Ingersoll had called a "plumed knight." Letters suggested that as Speaker of the House he'd done favors for a railroad.
In one, he asked a Boston businessman to sign a statement clearing him. It ended, "Kind regards to Mrs. Fisher. Burn this letter." Fisher kept it.
Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland, New York's reform governor, famous for vetoes and honesty.
In July, a Buffalo paper reported that he had fathered a child with Maria Halpin. Cleveland told his friends to tell the truth.
Republican reformers who couldn't stomach Blaine backed Cleveland. Their critics called them Mugwumps, after an Algonquian word for a big chief.
By late October, New York City was marching every night.
Cleveland carried New York by 1,047 votes, out of more than a million. New York decided the election.
Maybe it was the minister's insult, or the millionaires' dinner that night. Maybe the Prohibition vote, or rain upstate. With a margin that small, any of them could have done it.
Cleveland became the first Democrat elected president since before the Civil War.