Welcome to lecture number 67, historical topic 6.13, politics in the Gilded Age. The theme is politics and power. The learning objective is, explain the similarities and differences between the political parties during the Gilded Age. The first learning objective says, the major political parties appealed to lingering divisions from the Civil War and contended over tariffs and currency issues, even as reformers argued that economic greed and self-interest had corrupted all levels of government.
The two major parties are still the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans continued to wave the bloody shirt. In other words, they used the conflict of the Civil War between the North and the South to solidify their base.
It reminded voters that they, the Republicans, had been on the right side of the fight and that they had sacrificed a lot. Since Democrats were on the side of the Confederacy, they feared that if they were to win control of government, that they would undo everything that the Republicans had done and go back to sectionalism that pervaded the antebellum period. Republicans had support from the Northern states, the Midwest, and African Americans and reformers. Really, anyone that favored a bigger government and the protections that it could provide. That can include protections of individual rights for African Americans, or economic protections in the form of tariffs for business owners.
Democrats continued to hold on to the solid South. These are the states that used to be part of the Confederacy. The map on the top right shows that these states will continue to be loyal to Democratic strongholds into the 1960s. Democratic political machines are organizing and mobilizing voters in large cities, even in the North.
They gain support from Catholics and Jews as well. Tariffs are a main wedge issue between the two parties. Republicans will favor a high protective tariff because Republican strongholds are in the North, there's a lot more industrial capacity in the North, and they benefit from a tariff that's going to make outside foreign goods less competitive in the American market. The biggest of these is the McKinley Tariff of 1890 and the Dingley Tariff of 1897. The line graph of tariff rates in the U.S. shows two spikes in the years that these were passed.
The dip in between is a result of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, passed when Democrats took control of Congress. Democrats with strong support in the South, which had fewer industrial centers, were hurt with the increase in prices that tariffs created. Currency is the second wedge issue between the parties.
The Panic of 1893 worsens economic conditions for workers and farmers. There was a fear that the U.S. was going to run out of gold inside of its treasury. This would make the dollar worthless if the U.S. government could not back the dollars that were out in the economy with the gold in its treasury.
If people lost trust in the U.S. economy due to its unstable currency, then international trade would suffer. The banker J.P. Morgan comes in to rescue with a group of investors and lends the U.S. $65 million in gold to try and reinstate confidence in the U.S. dollar. This helps, but it doesn't completely end the panic of 1893. There's a lot of discontent that manifests itself in protests like Coxsey's Army. Jacob Coxsey was an Ohio businessman who marched with 100 unemployed workers into Washington, D.C. He called for more government spending to generate work for the unemployed, in this case introducing bimetallism or coining both gold and silver.
could help increase inflation and get people to spend more money that would result in greater economic growth. As a result, some viewed the gold standard as the problem. The issue caused a split within the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was pretty strong on the side of keeping the gold standard, but the Democrats don't necessarily agree.
There's a gold bug faction of the Democratic Party that wants the gold standard, and they normally live in cities or were reliant on wage labor. The Silverite faction wants to have an equivalency of silver and gold at a ratio of 16 to 1. This was ridiculed at the time because the actual exchange rate of silver to gold at the time was 32 to 1. This proposal would drive up inflation massively and drive up the value of silver. Since there was a lot of silver available due to new discoveries of similar deposits in this period, this would have been good for farmers and debtors.
Corruption and politics in this period was prevalent throughout. It's rampant in political party machines since they operate on the patronage system. Patronage is the process of exchanging government jobs or contracts for votes or political support.
Party bosses would go out to neighborhoods and make sure that everyone in the neighborhood voted for their political party. In exchange for their votes, they would receive favors or jobs in the city government. This is one of the reasons why this period has some of the highest voter turnouts for all elections. In this period, immigrants in cities are mobilized by political party machines.
Machines provide help in adapting and settling the cities when they arrive. They find jobs and homes for them because they know that once they go through the naturalization process that only takes five years and become U.S. citizens, they could be reliable voters for the political machine that helped them get settled. Political party bosses wielded enormous power and influence.
It created a system in which graft or siphoning of public funds was common. Some party bosses even defended the system, saying that they only practiced honest graft, meaning that they didn't outright deposit public funds into their personal accounts. Instead, they acquired parcels of land that they knew the city would eventually need to buy and sold them at an inflated price. This is explained in a speech by George Plunkett, in which he defends the honest way in which he has profited from his political position. The use of patronage ends up in tragedy for President Garfield.
Charles Guiteau was a discontented job seeker. He felt entitled to a federal government job for the support that he generated in the 1880 presidential election. His request for a job is denied and he takes his revenge on President Garfield. In the political cartoon at the bottom left, he's holding a sign that says, An Office or Your Life.
Vice President Chester Arthur, who takes over after Garfield, didn't want to be shot by someone who was denied a government job, so Arthur signs the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. It introduced a level of meritocracy to the bureaucracy and eliminated some of the jobs that were given out as patronage. The second key concept introduces a major third party. It says, Economic instability inspired agrarian activists to create the People's or Populist Party, which called for a stronger government role in regulating the American economic system. So the new Populist Party consolidated the views of the previous Farmer Alliance, and also took the interests of industrial workers into consideration.
All of their beliefs were listed on the Omaha Platform, which was written in 1892, and their nominating convention when they nominated James Weaver for president. They wanted the unlimited coinage of silver, the graduated income tax, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, action by the government to stabilize crop prices, an eight-hour workday, the direct election of senators, and the use of initiatives and referendums to name a few stances. All of these policies were wildly popular with the farmers of America.
They would have been pretty popular with industrial workers, and eventually, some of the beliefs are adopted by the U.S. government, but not until the 20th century. The populace sought to build biracial voting coalitions. They asked white Americans and black Americans for their votes.
Thomas E. Watson, who will be the Populist Party nominee in 1904 for president, was running in Georgia in the 1890s and he tried to appeal to both blacks and whites voters. The Populists lost the election of 1892. They were a brand new party and weren't really expecting to win, but they do pretty well for themselves. They get almost 9% of the popular vote. They get 22 electoral votes, which is not an easy task for a third party.
So by 1896, the Democratic Party sees the Populist appeal as losing them votes. so they adopt some of the policies of the Omaha platform, like the unlimited coinage of silver and the end of the gold standard. William Jennings Bryan, who was only 36 at the time, makes a memorable speech at the Democratic Party Convention, now dubbed the Cross of Gold speech.
It was such a powerful speech that it earns him the Democratic nomination. The speech rallied Democratic support, but his mic drop moment at the end of the speech is the most memorable part. He says, having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interest, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. Brian likens the workers to Jesus as they are bearing the largest burden for the nation's gold standard. It's for that reason that he believes that he has the support of the working classes of America. The reception of his speech outside the nominating convention was not as kind. Brian was wildly ridiculed for his speech and for evoking this biblical imagery.
The Populist Party, given that their view had been adopted by a major party, also nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. The coalition going into the election gave them greater odds than in 1892. But the gold standard interest and the industrialists had too much influence. The Republican candidate William McKinley wins the election of 1896. The loss is going to lead to the decline of the Populists, though some of their policies are adopted by the progressives in the 20th century.
The final key concept covers political machines in greater detail. In an urban atmosphere where the access to power was unequally distributed, political machines thrived, in part by providing immigrants and the poor with social services. Machines relied on patronage. They helped immigrants settle, hoping that in the future they would return that favor with votes.
The party bosses would gain personal gain through graft. Graft is the stealing of public funds by the people in power. The most famous party bosses were William Marcy Tweed and George Washington Plunkett. Tweed was the head of the political party machine Tammany Hall.
So he was arrested and convicted for graft in 1872. He'd been called that by the political cartoonist Thomas Nast. George Washington Plunkett also had a part in Tammany Hall, and he developed the concept of honest graft. He would use insider information on government policies and put himself in a position where the government would pay him inflated prices for goods or services it needed to purchase.
So if the government was planning on building a new park, he would buy up some empty land and then direct the government to use that land that he bought. He defends his actions saying that there's nothing morally wrong with what he's doing. He's just smart for using his position in governments to make money. Suffice to say that honest graft is not legal today.
Plunkett also launches attacks on civil service reform because it weakens loyalty to the political machines. He specifically targets the civil service exam that would make some eligible for government jobs. He criticizes the test and says its questions can't predict that someone could be a reliable employee.
Alright, finally here's the recap. The parties in the late 19th century were still structured and supported similar stances as the mid-19th century parties. New issues of currency and corruption were addressed, and the issue of tariffs continued. The Populist Party gained popularity in the 1890s, they proposed progressive economic and political platforms, and political party machines worked on patronage, though they lose prominence with the Civil Service Reform Act. Thank you for watching.
If you would like to watch the next lecture, you can click on the video link on the screen, and if you're looking for more practice to help you on the AP exam, you can visit apushlights.com. I wish you the very best in all of your studying and look forward to seeing you back on the next lecture.