all right this is openstax us history chapter 20 politics in the gilded age 1870 to 1900 we'll be looking at the first section political corruption in post-bellum america so this term postbellum refers to after the civil war that's what that term means you've probably come across this term antebellum that means before the civil war so post bellum antebellum we're looking here at postbellum that is the time period after the civil war so we've already come across this term uh gilded age but in chapter 20 it is formally introduced the gilded age was a term used to describe this particular period in american history uh 1870 to 1900 it was actually the title of a book which um made fun of the political corruption that characterized the era it was created by mark twain so mark twain coined the term gilded age and for something to be gilded means that it's you know it's kind of like gold plated that might be a a good description of it and during this period of course from the outside america was booming it was becoming a world industrial and military power you have some of the richest people who had ever lived rockefeller carnegie so there was certain certainly this golden shell to it but if you scratch beneath the surface you realize that there's a lot of problems in american society the violence going on in the south the uh the movements and migrations out west the situation in the cities etc etc so that's where that term comes from politically speaking that's what we're going to be focusing on this chapter the gilded age was characterized by weak presidents and the kind of converse to that or the opposite to that means that there was a strong congress and also strong political parties right it was really the political parties and uh the legislatures in congress who are really making the decisions the presidents were more like symbols they really didn't have a lot of strength and during this time period you also had a very close electorate you know pretty much every single election that took place was 50 50. there was a two-party system and that was the democrats and republicans and for the most part the republicans were the party of the north and the democrats were the party of the south for the most part generally speaking and uh you know these two political parties were split 50 50 across the country every single presidential election was incredibly close in this particular era it's also true that there was high voter turnout so something somewhere along 80 percent voter turnout so people were incredibly involved in the political system at this particular time uh because the congress uh congress was strong and because the political parties were also strong and for other reasons as well uh business interests were highly influential in this particular period but so too was gaffed which is you know kickbacks we might also call these uh political kind of rewards bribery and corruption we're also very much high you know the gilded age is especially known for political corruption you can think of the way that a guy like john rockefeller could influence bribe and really bully politicians uh so much so that the legislation and the laws that got passed really favored business interests more so than the people who democratically elected these uh these politicians and uh the uh the election or the presidential election that kind of sets it all off really and this is a kind of like a movement from the period of reconstruction to the gilded age at least politically speaking was the election of 1876 that was because the president prior to hayes who becomes the president in 1876 was ulysses s grants and grant was a or had been the union general during the civil war he was an american war hero and a lot of his presidency was defined by reconstruction it's during the presidency of rutherford hayes or right before it actually that reconstruction comes to an end and so this election of 1876 saw hayes versus tilden now while reconstruction was a big and central issue to this election there were also other things at play of course one thing that ulysses grant or one thing that made grant especially unpopular was that he was incredibly corrupt the credit mobiler of america scandal was one of the most infamous scandals of that time and that happened on grant's watch you know this had members of congress inflating costs on the transcontinental continental railroad right so for example the reason why they would inflate cost they would say well the transcontinental railroad is gonna cost five million dollars when in reality maybe it only costs one million and then of course these congressmen can just pocket the difference or hand it off to their friends as a gaffe as a kickback whatever it whatever it requires and so grant was incredibly unpopular for that reason so the election of 1876 witnessed hayes running against tilden who were both kind of reform-minded hayes promoted civil service that was federal i mean it doesn't really have to be federal but federal government jobs based on merit right so the idea that you get your job because you're qualified with something that hay supported now that sounds like a pretty logical position but in fact usually the people who got jobs in the federal government and even on the state government level got those jobs because of connections they got them because they were friends of somebody or because they had given them a bribe and so by you know appointing positions and jobs to the most qualified this was a reform position samuel tilden who ran as the democrat should be worth mentioning rutherford hayes is a republican uh was also known as reformer he had taken down the tammany hall machine politics ring in new york this was led by william tweed who was probably the most infamous corrupt politician of the gilded age certainly the richest corrupt politician of the gilded age and tilden played a role in taking him down you see the two i think that's hayes right there uh tilden i think that's tilden right there i'm not quite sure but here's hayes with the beard and uh you know when this election took place one of the things that the republicans were really good at doing uh the way that hayes attacked tilden was through this bloody shirt campaign and this was something that the republicans had done before and that is essentially to blame the democrats for the civil war the civil war is very much fresh in the memory of everybody in the united states at this time and most of those who seceded from the union were part of the democratic party so to blame them was a good way of gathering votes however there was political violence this was especially true of the south especially in response to the 15th amendment which was universal male and what we really mean by this is african-americans or blacks suffrage and we had talked about the battle of reconstruction previously and so one of the ways that some of the southern states were redeemed that they flipped from republican the party of the north during the civil war to the democratic party was through political violence and the election of 1876 was no no different now when all the votes were cast in this presidential election between hayes and tilden it became too close to call there were three states with disputed returns and depending on how those three states played out it would either give the election to hayes or give the election to tilden in fact there was some worry and concern that this political divide would lead to a type of civil war part two you can see from this political cartoon here supporters of tam samuel tilden stating you know we want tilden or there will be blood and so both the republicans and the democrats set up a commission in order to find a compromise what they created was the compromise of 1877 which of course ended reconstruction right ended reconstruction but was also known by northerners and african americans as the great betrayal and that was really to give up the cause of reconstruction so this was what northerners and african americans called we are called the compromise of 1877 oops which of course was the ending of reconstruction