1. Topic: Evaluating the impact of Gilded Age corruption on national politics

2. The Presidency of U.S. Grant (1869-1877)
“Bloody Shirt” campaign
Role of African voters
Grant enforces military Reconstruction
Grant a poor President (naïve)
Numerous Grant scandals:
Fisk and Gould gold scandal
Whiskey Ring
Credit Mobiler (congress)
1872 election
Liberal Republicans and Horace Greeley
Grant wins 2nd term
Panic of 1873
Gold vs. Greenbacks and sliver

4. Another view of Grant

5. The End of Reconstruction: Compromise or Corruption?
Election of 1876
Rutherford B. Hayes gains Rep. nomination (“The Great Unknown”)
Dems nominate Samuel Tilden
Voting “irregularities” leads to no winner!
Compromise of 1877
Hayes chosen as President
Hayes must officially end Reconstruction
Posse Comitatus Act (Congress)
Northerners see Hayes as a traitor (“Ruther-fraud”)  weak President
South “let loose”
Redeemers, Jim Crow laws
Plessey v. Ferguson