APUSH Unit 2

NOTES: Chapter 20

Chapter 20 focuses on the interaction of the political/economic/social forces within US society during the Gilded Age. This period is characterized by high public interest in local/state/national elections, political balance b/w Democrats/Republicans at the national level, and factional/personal feuds within the two parties. Democrats and Republicans in Congress were split on the major national issues: sectional controversies, civil service reform, railroad regulation, tariff policy, and monetary policy. Factionalism, interest-group politics, and political equilibrium resulted in the passage of vaguely worded, ineffective legislation (Pendleton/Interstate Commerce/Sherman Anti-Trust Acts. Combined with a conservative Supreme Court, weak presidential leadership, and political campaigns that focused on issues of personality rather than issues, these factors caused the postponement of decisions on major issues affecting the nation and its citizens.

The political impasses built up frustration within aggrieved groups in the nation. Southern blacks, who lived under the constant threat of violence and who remained economically dependent on whites, had to endure new forms of social oppression in the form of disenfranchisement and “Jim Crow” laws. This oppression wasupheld by the Supreme Court, which interpreted the 14th Amendment narrowly. Women were frustrated in their attempts to gain the right to vote by the sexist attitudes of the male-dominated power structures. Aggrieved workers turned to organized labor, strikes, and, at times, violence. Aggrieved farmers also began to organize; from the Grange, through the Farmers’ Alliances, to the formation of the Populist Party and the drafting of the Omaha platform in 1892. President Grover Cleveland failed to deal with the depression of the 1890s effectively, and an air of crisis settled over the nation. Workers’ protests multiplied; the Socialist Party of America, under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs, reorganized; Coxey’s Army, demanding a federal jobs program, marched on the nation’s capital; and fear of social revolution led business owners/government officials to use brute force to control what they saw as radical protest.

As the crisis persisted, the Populist Party gained ground but was hampered both by the reluctance of voters to abandon their loyalties to the two major parties and by issues of race. At the national level, Populists, convinced that the “money power” and he gold standard was the root cause of farm distress/nationwide depression, continued to call for a return of government to the people and crusaded for the “free and unlimited coinage of silver.”The frustrations that had built up in the Gilded Age, an age of transition from rural-urban and agrarian-industrial society, came to a head in the emotional 1896 presidential election. The transformation of the nation between 1877 and 1900 created corruption and greed that tugged at the fabric of democracy. Special interests, corruption, and control by the wealthy shaped politics. Rural discontent and a deep economic depression brought changes to the political system.

  1. The Nature of Party Politics
  1. Cultural/Political Alignments

Between 1875 and 1895, neither major party gained control for any sustained period. Presidential elections wereextremely close, and the outcome often hinged on the votes of a few states.

  1. Party Factions

The Republican Party divided into the “Stalwarts,”“Half Breeds,” and “Mugwumps.” The Democrats tended to split into white-supremacy southerners, immigrant-stock urban machine members, and business-oriented advocates of low tariffs.

  1. Politics in the Industrial Age
  2. Civil Service Reform

Many Americans expressed opposition to the spoils system of government appointments based on party affiliation. The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1882 helped reform the civil service.

  1. Railroad Regulation

Railroad practices prompted reformers to demand government regulation of the industry. The Supreme Court eventually overturned state efforts to control railroads, leading to passage of the Interstate Commerce Act.

  1. Tariff Policy

Republicans supported high tariffs, but Democrats argued that the rates artificially raised prices. Manufacturing interests maintained control of tariff policy.

  1. Monetary Policy

Farmers favored the coinage of silver to increase the amount of currency in circulation. Creditors favored a limited money supply, based on a gold standard. This issue shaped political fights throughout the era.

  1. Legislative Accomplishments

The amount of laws passed is surprising, included laws strengthening the govt’s influence in the national economy.

  1. The Presidency Re-strengthened
  2. Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur

The presidents from 1877 to 1890 proved to be less forceful than their predecessors.

  1. Cleveland and Harrison

Grover Cleveland became the first Democratic president since James Buchanan. He used the veto extensively, promoted merit-based civil service, and urged tariff reform. Benjamin Harrison had a Republican majority in Congress, but he alienated many of his supporters. In Cleveland’s second term, the president proved unable to resolve the crises he faced.

  1. Limits of Gilded Age Politics
  2. Violence Against African Americans

Black southerners endured economic and political oppression. Often suffered the extreme violence characterized by lynching.

  1. Disfranchisement Begins

White politicians sought to limit African American access to the polls throughmeasures as the poll tax and literacy tests.

  1. Legal Segregation

With the decision in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the South began to institutionalize racism and segregation through the passage of Jim Crow laws.

  1. Woman Suffrage

The women’s suffrage movement split into two groups. The National Woman SuffrageAssociation fought for suffrage on a national level. The American Woman Suffrage Association worked on the state level

  1. Agrarian Unrest and Populism
  2. Sharecropping and Tenant Farming in the South

In the post-Civil War period, southern agriculture was dominated by landlords who employed sharecroppers and tenants. Under the crop-lien system sharecroppers and tenants pledged their crops as collateral to gain operating capital, but often they could not repay the loans.

  1. Hardship in the Midwest and West

Midwestern farmers experienced falling prices for staple crops while expenses remained high. Western farmers and miners suffered due to railroad monopolies.

  1. Grange Movement

As agricultural prices dropped, farmers organized. Oliver H. Kelley helped start the Grange movement, but in the late 1870s its influence declined significantly.

  1. The White Hats

In the Southwest, Hispanics organized a group known as the White Hats to counter the movement of English-speaking ranchers into communal pastureland.

  1. Farmers’ Alliances

The Farmers’ Alliances constituted a genuine mass movement by 1890. Alliances sponsored political rallies, educational meetings, and cooperative marketing agreements.

  1. Subtreasury Plan

The Alliance proposed the subtreasury plan, in effect a federally sponsored subsidy program, to relieve shortages of cash and credit. The different Alliance groups could not unite, so they failed to bring about any change.

  1. Rise of Populism

In 1890, the Kansas Alliance held a “convention of the People” that formed the People’s Party. In 1892, the People’s Party, or Populists, developed a comprehensive platform addressing the needs of farmers and laborers.

  1. The Depression of the 1890s
  2. Continuing Currency Problems

The Panic of 1893 made the currency issue critical. Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893. President Cleveland finally had to accept an offer of gold from J. P. Morgan to stem the run on the United States Treasury.

  1. Effects of a New Economic System

In the 1890s, new economic structures that emphasized consolidation emerged. Response to these new corporate institutions and the distress caused by the depression brought a call for reform.

  1. Depression-Era Protests
  2. Socialists

With the depression of the 1890s, many workers became socialists.

  1. Eugene V. Debs

The Pullman Strike elevated Eugene V. Debs to a position of leadership within the socialist movement.

  1. Coxey’s Army

Jacob Coxey urged the government to issue unbacked paper money to stimulate spending. His “army” of unemployed workers numbered 500 when it reached Washington (April 30, 1894). Congress refused to respond, and the police crushed the protest.

  1. Populists, the Silver Crusade, and the Election of 1896
  2. Stifling of Biracial Political Dissent

To stifle support for the Populists/Alliances, southern Democrats curtailed black voting with poll taxes/literacy tests.

  1. Free Silver

By 1896, the Populists made the free coinage of silver their primary issue. They believed that such a policy would end the privileged position of the rich.

  1. Republican Nomination of McKinley

William McKinley headed a Republican Party that supported the gold standard.

  1. William Jennings Bryan

The Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan to head their ticket for free silver. The Populists also nominated Bryan.

  1. Election Results

McKinley won the election in the most lopsided victory since 1872. Free silver did not provide the reform issue that would unite the masses.

  1. The McKinley Presidency

McKinley signed the Gold Standard Act in 1900. He oversaw an increase in the tariff. He encouraged imperialistic ventures in Latin America and the Pacific.