1. Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age
6.1

2. The “Gilded Age” ( )
Termed first used by the author Mark Twain
Describes the era in American History of big business and political corruption following the Civil War and Reconstruction.

3. General Grant becomes President
1868
The Republicans nominated General Grant for the presidency in 1868.
The Republican Party supported the continuation of the military reconstruction of the South.
Grant’s popularity had soared after the end of the Civil War, and he was elected very easily.

4. The Era of Good Stealings
Grants presidency was rife with scandals, though he was never directly involved in any of them.
Gould and Fisk Scandal
The “Whiskey Ring”
The Credit Mobilier Scandal

5. Black Friday Jay Gould and James Fisk
Devised a plan to corner the gold market by buying a large amount of gold over a long time, and holding it until the price rose to the highest level in U.S. History (up until that point)
Once the price got to an extremely high level, they sold off the large quantity of gold that they had been hoarding, causing the gold price to crash back down.
The day the gold market crashed is referred to as “Black Friday”
The Federal government was forced to release $4 million in gold to stabilize the gold market.

6. Federal Government Corruption
Union Pacific Railroad Company was contracted by the U.S. Government to plan and complete a transcontinental railroad.
The Union Pacific railroad was buying the supplies to build the railroad, from a company called the Credit Mobilier, a subsidiary that was owned by the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

7. Credit Mobilier Scandal
Credit Mobilier Construction Company issued company stock to U.S. congressmen at extremely discounted rates with the hopes that the congressmen would approve additional government spending for the railroad to be completed.
The company double charged the government (tax-payer money) for everything needed to build the railroad.
The extra spending was approved by Congress.

8. The excess government spending = more profits for the Credit Mobilier Company = higher stock price.
In essence, the congressmen that had been bribed with company stock, had approved a ridiculous amount of spending with taxpayer money, knowing that they would profit from the increase in company stock value.

9. Political Corruption Tammany Hall (New York) A political machine
Run by “Boss” Tweed
Used bribery and manipulation to fraudulently change the out come of elections in New York
Tweed stole more than $200 million from the city of New York
“Boss” Tweed and his cronies were brought to justice in part because of the political cartoons of Thomas Nast.

10. Liberal Republican Revolt
The Amnesty Act of 1872
Removed the voting and office holding restrictions from most former Confederates.

11. The Hayes-Tilden Standoff
Election of 1876
Democrats run Samuel Tilden
Republicans run Rutherford B. Hayes
Tilden clearly won the popular vote and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes’ 165
but 20 electoral votes from four states were still disputed.

12. The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction
To solve the electoral controversy in the four disputed states, a compromise is struck.
The Compromise of 1877
The Republicans get to claim all 20 disputed electoral votes and Hayes get the presidency ( )
In return, the Republicans promise the Democrats that Southern Reconstruction will be ended.

13. Blacks in the South
At the end of Reconstruction, white Democrats resumed their political power in the South
Racism in the South was at an all-time high
Blacks were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming
AKA the "crop-lien" system
small farmers would rent out land from a plantation owner and were only allowed to keep a small portion of the profits

14. Jim Crow Laws in the South
state-level legal codes of segregation
The Southern states enacted:
literacy tests
voter-registration laws
poll taxes
All designed to ensure the denial of voting for the South's black population.

15. Plessy V. Ferguson (1896)
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the South's segregation in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)
declared that separate but equal facilities for blacks were legal under the 14th Amendment.
This case legally segregated blacks and whites in the south

16. Class Conflict and Ethnic Clashes
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Passed to keep Chinese immigrants from coming to the U.S. because they drove wage labor down.
This was the first limitation on immigration in American history.

17. Garfield’s Assassination
1881
President James A. Garfield became the 2nd U.S. president to be assassinated.
The assassin was Charles Guiteau
An aspiring politician who was upset that he was not awarded a position in the government (the spoils system) by President Garfield.

18. The Pendleton Civil Service Act
Passed in response to Garfield’s assassination
Stated that government jobs had to be award based on merit (not the spoils system)
Government employees would have to take an aptitude test to prove they were fit for whatever job they were appointed to.
Government employees could not be fired or demoted for political reasons.
Federal employees cannot contribute money to political campaigns.

19. Depression, Deflation, and Inflation
The Panic of 1873
An economic depression caused by the over-speculation of land.
Jay Cook, owned the biggest banking house on Wall Street and had lent hundreds of millions of dollars to people that were buying land.
When it was realized that the land was overvalued, land prices crashed, and the money that had been lent by Jay Cook’s bank, was lost.
Cook & Company was forced to go bankrupt, which caused a panic on Wall Street (The Panic of 1873)

20. Early Farmers’ Alliances
The Greenback Labor Party
Founded and supported by western and southern farmers
Supported soft money economic policies in an attempt to help farmers pay off their large amounts of debt.
The Grange

21. Hard Money vs. Soft Money
Hard money – money system backed by gold
Soft money – money system backed by gold and silver
With the crashing land values, many debt-ridden farmers supported soft money policies
If silver were accepted as a currency, the paper money could be inflated, therefore allowing them to pay their existing debt easier.
When they pay their debts, the money they pay back is worth less than the money they borrowed.
Bankers favored a hard money policy
Gold cannot be inflated, and the price is pretty stable, therefore the amount paid back was generally worth the same as the amount borrowed

22. The People’s Party The Populist Party (aka the People’s Party)
Drew most of its support from farmers in the south and west, and factory workers from the Northeast
Had its roots in the old Greenback Labor Party
They supported:
Graduated income tax (the more money you make, the higher % of taxes you pay)
Election reform (direct election of Senators and term limits)
Government control of the railroads and telegraphs
The unlimited coinage of silver.