CHAPTER 11

SECTION 11-1 STALEMATE IN WASHINGTON, PP. 364-369  

Objectives: 1. Explain why the Republicans and

Democrats were so evenly matched during this period.

2. Cite the economic problems of the period and the basic viewpoints of each political party.

Did You Know? President James A. Garfield lived for 80 days after an assassin shot him in the arm and the back. Doctors could not find the bullet lodged in his back. Alexander Graham Bell tried to find the bullet using an electrical device, but he too failed. Garfield ended up dying from an infection. At that time, there were no X-ray machines, CAT scans, MRIs, or modern antiseptics that probably would have saved Garfield's life.

A CAMPAIGN TO CLEAN UP POLITICS (PAGES 364-365)

Under the spoils system, or patronage, government jobs went to supporters of the winning party in an election. By the late 1870s, many Americans believed that patronage corrupted those who worked for the government. They began a movement to reform the civil service.

President Rutherford B. Hayes attacked the practice of patronage. The "Stalwarts"—a group of Republican machine politicians who strongly opposed civil service reform—accused Hayes of backing civil service reform to create openings for his own supporters. Civil service reformers were called "Halfbreeds."

The Republican candidates for the election of 1880 were a Halfbreed, James Garfield for president, and the Stalwart, Chester Arthur for vice president. They won the election.

President Garfield was assassinated a few months into his presidency. He was killed by a Stalwart who wanted a civil service job through the spoils system.

In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act. This civil service reform act allowed the president to decide which federal jobs would be filled according to rules set up by a bipartisan Civil Service Commission. Candidates competed for federal jobs through examinations. Appointments could be made only from the list of those who took the exams. Once appointed to a job, a civil service official could not be removed for political reasons.

How did the Pendleton Act help reform the civil service?

(This civil service reform act allowed the president to decide which federal jobs would be filled according to rules set up by a bipartisan Civil Service Commission. Candidates competed for federal jobs through examinations. Appointments could be made only from the list of those who took the exams. Once appointed to a job, a civil service official could not be removed for political reasons.)

TWO PARTIES, NECK AND NECK (PAGES 365-366)

A major reason that few new policies were introduced in the 1870s and 1880s was because the Democrats had control of the House of Representatives and the Republicans had the control of the Senate.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats were well organized in the late 1800s. The presidential elections were won with narrow margins between 1876 and 1896. In 1876 and 1888, the presidential candidate lost the popular vote, but won the electoral vote and the election.

The Republicans won four of the six presidential elections between 1876 and 1896. The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, however, and the Senate was controlled by Republicans who did not necessarily agree with the president on issues.

Why were few new policies introduced in the 1870s and 1880s?

(Both the Republicans and the Democrats were well organized in the late 1800s. The presidential elections were won with narrow margins between 1876 and 1896. The Republicans won four of the six presidential elections between 1876 and 1896. The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, however, and the Senate was controlled by Republicans who did not necessarily agree with the president on issues. This created a nearly even division of power between Republicans and Democrats that produced political deadlock at the federal level.)

DEMOCRATS RECLAIM THE WHITE HOUSE (PAGES 366-367)

In the presidential election of 1884, Republicans remained divided over reform. Democrats nominated Governor Grover Cleveland of New York, a reformer who opposed Tammany Hall.

Republicans nominated James G. Blaine, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. Blaine was popular among Republican Party workers.

A major issue in the campaign was corruption in American government. Voters focused on the morals of each candidate.

Some Republican reformers, called "Mugwumps," disliked Blaine so much that they left the party to support the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. The Mugwumps did not like Blaine's connection with the Crédit Mobilier scandal.

Cleveland admitted to having fathered a child ten years earlier and retained the support of the Mugwumps for his honesty.

Blaine tried to persuade Roman Catholics to vote Republican because his mother was an Irish Catholic. His tactic failed, and Cleveland was elected president.

Why did Grover Cleveland win the presidential election of 1884?

(Some Republican reformers, called Mugwumps, disliked Blaine and supported Grover Cleveland instead. They disliked Blaine because they did not like his personal morals and his connection with the Crédit Mobilier scandal.)

A PRESIDENT BESIEGED BY PROBLEMS (PAGES 367-368)

Many supporters of President Grover Cleveland sought patronage jobs after his election to office.

Many strikes occurred during Cleveland's administration. Police and paid guards sometimes attacked the strikers. A bomb exploded at a labor demonstration in Haymarket Square in Chicago.

Small businesses and farmers became angry at railroads because they paid high rates for shipping goods, but large corporations were given rebates, or partial refunds, and lower rates for shipping goods.

Both Democrats and Republicans believed that government should not interfere with corporations' property rights. In 1886 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Wabash v. Illinois that the state of Illinois could not restrict the rates that the Wabash Railroad charged for traffic between states because only the federal government could regulate interstate commerce.

In 1887 a bill was signed creating the Interstate Commerce Commission. This was the first law to regulate interstate commerce.

Many Americans wanted to do away with high tariffs because they felt that large American companies could compete internationally. They wanted Congress to cut tariffs because these taxes caused an increase in the price of manufactured goods.

President Cleveland proposed lowering tariffs, but Congress was deadlocked over the issue. Tariff reduction became a major issue in the election of 1888.

What was the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Commission?

(The commission was created to regulate interstate commerce. The commission limited railroad rates to what was "reasonable and just," forbade rebates to high-volume users, and made it illegal to charge higher rates for shorter hauls.)

REPUBLICANS REGAIN POWER (PAGES 368-369)

The Republican candidate in the 1888 election was Benjamin Harrison. His campaign was given large contributions by industrialists who wanted tariff protection. The Democratic candidate was Cleveland. He was against high tariff rates. Harrison won the election by winning the electoral vote, but not the popular vote.

As a result of the election of 1888, Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress and the White House. The Republicans were able to pass legislation on issues of national concern.

The McKinley Tariff cut tariff rates on some goods, but increased the rates of others. It lowered federal revenue and left the nation with a budget deficit.

A new pension law passed in 1890 for veterans furthered worsened the federal deficit.

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 made trusts illegal, although the courts did little to enforce the law.

What were the results of the Sherman Antitrust Act?

(The courts did little to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. The legislative act was important for establishing a precedent in the regulation of big business.)

SECTION 11-2 POPULISM, PP. 372-379  

Objectives: 1. Explain why farmers wanted a

greenback currency and why the adoption of the gold standard led to the Farmers' Alliance.

2. Describe who joined the Populist Party and what the party's goals were.

Did You Know? During the hard times for farmers in the 1880s, many farmers left their homesteads in the West and headed back to the East. "In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted," was a sign that one wagon carried as it headed East. Another sign read, "Going home to Mother."

UNREST IN RURAL AMERICA (PAGES 372-374)

In the 1890s, a political movement called Populism emerged to increase the political power of farmers and to work for legislation for farmers' interests.

The nation's money supply concerned farmers. To help finance the Union in the Civil War, the government issued millions of dollars in greenbacks, or paper currency that could not be exchanged for gold or silver coins. This rapid increase in the money supply without a rapid increase in goods for sale caused inflation—a decline in the value of money. The prices of goods greatly increased.

To get inflation under control, the federal government stopped printing greenbacks and started paying off bonds. Congress also stopped making silver into coins. As a result, the country did not have a large enough money supply to meet the needs of the growing economy. This led to deflation—or an increase in the value of money and a decrease in the general level of prices.

Deflation forced most farmers to borrow money to plant their crops. The short supply of money caused an increase in interest rates that the farmers owed.

Some farmers wanted more greenbacks printed to expand the money supply. Others wanted the government to mint silver coins.

The Grange was a national farm organization founded for social and educational purposes. When the country experienced a recession, large numbers of farmers joined the Grange for help. The Grange changed its focus to respond to the plight of farmers.

Grangers put their money together and created cooperatives—marketing organizations that worked to help its members. The cooperatives pooled members' crops and held them off the market to force the prices to rise. Cooperatives could negotiate better shipping rates from railroads.

The Grange was unable to improve the economic conditions of farmers. By the late 1870s, many farmers left the Grange and joined other organizations that offered to help them solve their problems.

THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE (PAGES 374-375)

The Farmers' Alliance was formed in 1877. By 1890 it had between 1.5 and 3 million members with strength in the South and on the Great Plains.

The Alliance organized large cooperatives called exchanges for the purpose of forcing farm prices up and making loans to farmers at low interest rates. These exchanges mostly failed. Many exchanges overextended themselves by loaning too much money at low interest rates that were not repaid. Wholesalers, manufacturers, railroads, and bankers discriminated against the exchanges. The exchanges were too small to dramatically affect world prices for farm products.

Members of the Kansas Alliance formed the People's Party, or Populists, to push for political reforms that would help farmers solve their problems.

Most Southern leaders of the Alliance opposed the People's Party because they wanted the Democrats to retain control of the South. One Southern leader, Charles Macune, came up with a subtreasury plan to set up warehouses where farmers could store their crops to force prices up.

THE RISE OF POPULISM (PAGES 375-378)

In 1890 the Farmers' Alliance issued the Ocala Demands to help farmers choose candidates in the 1890 elections. The demands included the adoption of the subtreasury plan, the free coinage of silver, an end to protective tariffs and national banks, tighter regulation of the railroads, and direct election of senators by voters.

Many pro-Alliance Democrats were elected to office in the South.

By early 1892, Southern members of the Alliance began to realize that Democrats were not going to keep their promises to the Alliance and they were ready to leave the Democratic Party and join the People's Party.

In July 1892, the People's Party held its first national convention where it nominated James B. Weaver to run for president. The People's Party platform called for unlimited coinage of silver, federal ownership of railroads, and a graduated income tax, one that taxes higher earnings more heavily. It also called for an eight-hour workday, restriction of immigration, and denounced the use of strikebreakers.

Democrats nominated New Yorker Grover Cleveland for the 1892 presidential election. Cleveland won the election.

The Panic of 1893 was caused by the bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroads. It resulted in the stock market crash and the closing of many banks. By 1894 the country was in a deep depression.

President Cleveland wanted to stop the flow of gold and make it the sole basis for the country's currency, so he had Congress repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. This caused the Democratic Party to split into the goldbugs and the silverites. Goldbugs believed the American currency should be based only on gold. Silverites believed coining silver in unlimited amounts was the answer to the nation's economic crisis.

THE ELECTION OF 1896 (PAGES 378-379) The Democrats nominated William Jennings

Bryan for the presidential election of 1896. He strongly supported the unlimited silver coinage. Populists also supported Bryan for president.

The Republicans nominated William McKinley of Ohio for president. He promised workers a "full dinner pail." Most business leaders liked McKinley because they thought the unlimited silver coinage would ruin the country's economy.

McKinley won the election of 1896. New gold strikes in Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory and in other parts of the world increased the money supply without needing to use silver. As the silver issue died out, so did the Populist Party.

SECTION 11-3 THE RISE OF SEGREGATION, PP. 380-384  

Objectives: 1. Discuss how African Americans in

the South were disenfranchised and how segregation was legalized.

2. Describe three major African American leaders' responses to discrimination.

Did You Know? Ida Wells was born in Mississippi in 1862, the daughter of enslaved African Americans. She was educated in a Freedmen's Bureau school. At the young age of fourteen, Wells began to teach in a rural school. In 1884 she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued teaching as well as attended Fisk University. In 1891 she lost her teaching position because she had refused to give up a seat in a "whites only" railroad car. This led to a profession in journalism in which she began a campaign against lynching.

RESISTANCE AND REPRESSION (PAGES 380-381)

After Reconstruction, most African Americans were sharecroppers, or landless farmers who had to give the landlord a large share of their crops to cover their costs for rent and farming supplies.

In 1879 Benjamin "Pap" Singleton organized a mass migration of African Americans, called Exodusters, from the rural South to Kansas.

Some African Americans that stayed in the South formed the Colored Farmers' National Alliance. The organization worked to help its members set up cooperatives. Many African Americans joined the Populist Party.

Threatened by the power of the Populist Party, Democratic leaders began using racism to try to win back the poor white vote in the South. By 1890 election officials in the South began using methods to make it difficult for African Americans to vote.

II. DISFRANCHISING AFRICAN AMERICANS (PAGE 382)

Southern states used loopholes in the Fifteenth Amendment and began to impose restrictions that barred almost all African Americans from voting.

In 1890 Mississippi required all citizens registering to vote to pay a poll tax, which most African Americans could not afford to pay. The state also required all prospective voters to take a literacy test. Most African Americans had no education and failed the test. Other Southern states adopted similar restrictions. The number of African Americans and poor whites registered to vote fell dramatically in the South.

To allow poor whites to vote, some Southern states had a grandfather clause in their voting restrictions. This clause allowed any man to vote if he had an ancestor on the voting rolls in 1867.

LEGALIZING SEGREGATION (PAGES 382-383)

In the late 1800s, both the North and the South discriminated against African Americans. In the South, segregation, or separation of the races, was enforced by laws known as Jim Crow laws.

In 1883 the Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The ruling meant that private organizations or businesses were free to practice segregation.

Southern states passed a series of laws that enforced segregation in almost all public places.

The Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson endorsed "separate but equal" facilities for African Americans. This ruling established the legal basis for discrimination in the South for over 50 years.

In the late 1800s, mob violence increased in the United States, particularly in the South. Between 1890 and 1899, hundreds of lynching’s—executions without proper court proceedings—took place. Most lynchings were in the South, and the victims were mostly African Americans.

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN RESPONSE (PAGES 383-384)

In 1892 Ida B. Wells, an African American from Tennessee, began a crusade against lynching. She wrote newspaper articles and a book denouncing lynchings and mob violence against African Americans.

Booker T. Washington, an African American educator, urged fellow African Americans to concentrate on achieving economic goals rather than legal or political ones. He explained his views in a speech known as the Atlanta Compromise.

The Atlanta Compromise was challenged by W.E.B. Du Bois, the leader of African American activists born after the Civil War. Du Bois said that white Southerners continued to take away the civil rights of African Americans, even though they were making progress in education and vocational training. He believed that African Americans had to demand their rights, especially voting rights, to gain full equality.

How did the viewpoints on solving discrimination differ between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois?

(Booker T. Washington urged fellow African Americans to concentrate on achieving economic goals rather than legal or political ones. Washington said African Americans should prepare themselves educationally and vocationally for full equality. Du Bois said that white Southerners continued to take away the civil rights of African Americans, even though they were making progress in education and vocational training. He believed that African Americans had to demand their rights, especially voting rights, to gain full equality.)