all right this is open stacks us history chapter 20 section 2 the key political issues patronage tariffs and gold so during the gilded age like the title says patronage tariffs and gold were kind of the major political discussions to be had on the issue of patronage essentially the two positions were spoil system versus civil service and this has a lot to do with government positions the spoil systems or patronage was to appoint people to government positions based off of things like loyalty friendship and even some cases corruption the idea is that you reward those people who are loyal to you by giving them a very comfortable job uh the civil service section favored more of something like a test ability merit uh you know they were more for reforming the corruption that was being had there so you know the idea of who should staff the government and how they should be staffed whether it should be through spoils systems or patronage or should it be done through civil service was of course a major issue so much so then it split the republican party these stalwarts were a term used to describe those who favored the spoils slash patronage and the half breeds were of course those who were reform-minded and favored civil service and so this played out in the election of 18 i won't say 1888 was it uh maybe 18 1876 1880 is what i'm looking for the election of 1880 which saw the um the election of james garfield who was a republican but was also a half breed so he was somebody who favored more of the civil service reform cited issue of this his uh vice president was charles uh uh chester arthur excuse me who was also a republican but was a stalwart right so this guy was vice president and the idea by choosing a stalwart in a half breed one president one being vice president of course was to unite the party and it was successful in getting garfield elected to the presidency in 1880 however charles gutow or guteau however you pronounce it assassinated james garfield so he was garfield's assassin and the reason was because he wanted to see chester arthur uh become president because he was a stalwart supporter right he supported more of this side the spoils patronage side so when james garfield was assassinated he was shot in the back and he died in fact some time other uh afterwards chester arthur became president but to the kind of surprise of many he actually embraced this reform slash civil service side they called him a man without a man without a party because he had kind of flipped his position so to speak and when he became president he was responsible for the pendleton civil service act which said at least 10 oops that's not 10 at least 10 percent of government positions would be staffed via a test rather than being appointed by your friend so this was one of the first major laws that laws that promoted civil servants all right civil service uh the second main issue of the gilded age was the issue of tariffs if you're not familiar a tariff is a tax on imported goods and really the way that tariffs played out especially during the gilded age was that high tariffs were favored by business right so if you're an america if you're andrew carnegie for example you want high tariffs because for you know it you don't want to have to compete with foreign steel companies so if foreign steel companies want to import that steel to the united states well they have to pay a tax or a tariff which means that carnegie or american businesses can charge more it leads to higher profits whereas those who favored low tariffs mostly were the consumers right if you're buying stuff you want it to be as cheap as possible now granted american businesses because american businesses don't have to pay this tax but if you buy any foreign goods you're essentially paying more money for uh for goods so high tariffs were the choice of business low tariffs were the choice of consumers now over these issues of civil service and tariffs you had a faction of the republican party break away the mug ups were a faction of the republicans who broke away and eventually supported the presidency of grover cleveland who became the first democratic president since the civil war and especially in the gilded age where we talked about the vote was pretty much 50 50. just the fact that you had a very small group break away their vote became incredibly important in fact grover cleveland even courted the mug whoops these kind of uh dissenting republicans in order to get elected and grover cleveland was more of a reform-minded individual as well you know he challenged some of the businesses a great example was the interstate commerce act of 1877 which which really targeted railroads we'll say railroad companies for price gouging you know railroads were one of the first big mega businesses in the united states they were some of the richest people who had ever lived and the interstate commerce act of 1887 was the fir was also not just a law that targeted railroads for price gouging which they could change the price of of you know what it cost to transport things on the railroads it was the first federal regulatory board uh really in the united united states history so that was a big setup the next election was one by benjamin harrison who was a republican a lot of these presidents garfield arthur cleveland harrison we sometimes refer to them as the forgettable president because again this is a time period where there's very weak leadership and there's not really a lot done uh you know in terms of kind of the grand scheme of u.s history uh but you do see various laws passed under their under their various presidencies so we'll just kind of name a few here so for benjamin harrison you see two laws regarding tariffs the mckinley tariff was the highest tariff in the u.s up until that point i think maybe even the highest tariff well not the highest tariff in all of american history but it had been the highest tariff up until that point and of course that would have been a position very much supported by businesses right business interests the sherman anti-trust act was another trust being the legal entity in which monopolies so this was effectively an anti-monopoly law it was one of the first federal laws to take on trusts right these uh uh i'll scroll down a little bit so you can see that you know trusts were these legal entities in which you had multiple owners of different companies who held enormous market power and of course one of the problems during the gilded age was that you know you had these just huge centers of economic power and they could you know abuse their powers this law this german antitrust act was largely not effective you know it's usually said that it didn't really have any teeth so the last issue uh during the guild age politically speaking was this issue of gold versus silver so again the three big political issues of the day were the first one is spoils versus civil service the second major issue you might say is tariffs right so right two high tariffs versus low tariffs the third major issue is gold versus silver so what do we mean by gold versus silver well we essentially mean what is the base of the monetary system right monetary equals money so of course there was you know paper currency that was being used at the time greenbacks from the civil war but the question was what should be the backing of that currency what should be the basis of that currency should it just be gold or should it be gold and silver and more or less the positions that were held on on this particular topic was that those who advocated only for gold those were business banks right finance those who supported gold and silver were typically farmers farmers especially but also consumers right consumers and so that was the big debate gold versus silver do you want silver to count towards the monetary system because if you do count silver well then there'll be more money to go around and of course who wants more money to go around well it's the people who don't have it right the people who have all the money they don't want more money to be around because the more money that there is out there the less that their money is actually worth so that was the big debate in the gilded age the sherman silver purchase act allowed for a certain amount of silver so an amount of silver juice i can't write an amount of silver to count towards this is just ugly the monetary system all right that's bad so the sherman silver purchase act an amount of silver would count towards the monetary system so this would have been something that would have been supported by the pro silver uh crossover category or constituency