Politics from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era

1876 Election – after the eight years of the Grant administration (personified by periods of spectacular corruption), both parties ran candidates with impeccable personal integrity; the Democrats former New York governor Samuel Tilden, and the Republicans former Ohio Governor (from nearby Fremont) Rutherford B. Hayes.

A)    Disputed election – in an election that was extremely close, Tilden apparently edged Hayes in the popular vote, but neither man had enough electoral votes to claim victory.

1)     Returns from South – the election returns from three Southern states were disputed by the Republican Party—South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.  In those three states, allegations of voter intimidation and outright fraud plagued the returns.

2)     Oregon results – were in turn disputed by the Democratic Party (which limited its dispute to only three of the state’s electoral votes

B)     Southern Democrats cut a deal – in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana(?), Southern Democrats pull their support from Tilden, which allows the House of Representatives to declare Hayes the winner of the election.

C)    Reign of “His Fraudulency” – the method which put Hayes in office undermined his best attribute, his personal integrity.

1)     One-term presidency – Hayes quickly decided to limit his political career to one term; whether he could have been elected to another term is in some dispute by historians.

II)               1880 – Republican Stalwarts and Half-Breeds

A)    Stalwarts – faction led by Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, advocated  returning U.S. Grant to the Presidency, a Radical Southern policy, and the spoils system

1)     “Waving the Bloody Shirt” – appeal to the support of all patriotic northerners to continue punishing the Southern traitors

B)     Half-Breeds – faction of the Republican Party led by James G. Blaine, senator from Maine; advocated Blaine for presidency, a more moderate Southern policy, and tepid support for civil service reforms

C)    1880 Republican Convention – chooses James A. Garfield as a compromise candidate over Grant and John Sherman.

1)     Garfield wins election – Garfield won the fall election over fellow veteran Winfield Scott Hancock by only 39,000 votes, although his electoral college vote total was a much more comfortable 214 to 155 margin.

D)    Garfield assassinated – Garfield was assassinated only four months after taking office, in July of 1881, by a disgruntled Stalwart faction office seeker; succeeded in office by Stalwart Chester A. Arthur

1)     Civil Service reforms – as a result of the public outcry over the assassination of Garfield, civil service reforms were a popular issue with much of the voting public; surprisingly, Arthur supported these efforts.  He also led the fight to lower the protective tariff.  These two stands on issues made him popular with the general public, but unpopular within his own party.

III)            1884 Blaine v. Cleveland

A)    The Continental Liar from Maine – Blaine, like many of his collegues in the Senate during this period, had used his political position to help line his own pockets (it was called the “Rich Man’s Club” for nothing); when this reputation was coupled with two blunders of his courting rich supporters, and Protestant minister supporter who characterized Democrats as the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” raised the ire of ethnic voters.

B)     “Ma, Ma, Where’s Pa?” – referred to the illegitimate child Cleveland fathered by a Buffalo widow; despite this peccadillo, Cleveland projected an image of personal integrity which resonated with enough voters to get elected.

1)     Cleveland’s view of limited government – refused to extend pensions for Union veterans, but did sign into law the Interstate Commerce Commission, which began regulating the railroad industry.

IV)             The Tariff Issue and the 1888 Election

A)    The Tariff as the “mother of all trusts” – the various tariffs protected various American industries, but also raised prices of goods for consumers; Cleveland decides to make this a campaign issue.

B)     Republican candidate – Benjamin Harrison from Indiana, grandson of the former President; Union veteran and lawyer.

C)    The campaign

1)     Murchison Letter – dirty trick, letter getting a prominent British politician to “endorse” Cleveland

2)     Cleveland wins popular voted, but with Harrison winning crucial electoral votes in Indiana and New York

3)     Harrison as president – owed his election to the votes of Union veterans, which he repaid by signing the Dependent Pension Act that Congress passed in 1890 (allowed any veteran incapable of performing manual labor to collect a pension); this doubled the pension rolls by 1893.

(a)  Sherman Anti-Trust Act – forbade contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in restraint of trade or in the effort to establish monopolies in interstate or foreign commerce.  This law for the next decade was little enforced by successive administrations, however, except to use the law against trade unions.

(b)  Sherman Silver Purchase Act – required the US Treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces (over 280,000 pounds) of silver each month, and to issue treasury notes that were redeemable in either gold or silver.  This inflationary money policy was not inflationary enough to please either representatives from the western silver mining states, are the farmers who were increasingly feeling the effects of falling prices and tighter credit.

(c)   McKinley Tariff (1890) – increased the tariff on goods imported into the country an average of nearly 50%.  The tariff issue proved not to be nearly as popular with the public as the Republican Party had assumed that it would be, with the result that the Congressional elections in 1890 returned a resounding number of Democrats to the House, and greatly decreased the margin of the Republicans in the Senate (one of the losers in the Senate included William McKinley himself).

V)                Rise of “Third” Parties – because there was little difference between the two major parties on matters of substance, smaller, issue-driven parties began to proliferate.

A)    Prohibition Party – concerned with the temperance issue; the bulk of the membership of this party was made up of disaffected Republicans, and the incorporation of Prohibition Party platforms in local Republican Party campaigns probably contributed to the large ethnic voter turnout that the Democratic Party enjoyed.

B.) People’s Party – the voice of disaffected western and southern farmers.