6.13 Politics in the Gilded Age

From 1876 to 1896 the Republicans and Democrats were almost tied nationally. Presidents often won narrowly, and in 1876 and 1888 the winner of the Electoral College lost the popular vote. Turnout in presidential elections was around 80 percent of eligible voters, far higher than today.

Loyalty often followed old Civil War lines and religion. Republicans 'waved the bloody shirt', reminding Northern voters that Democrats had led secession. Republicans were strongest in the North and Midwest. Democrats dominated the South and won many Catholic immigrant voters in Northern cities.

The big economic fights were over tariffs and money. Republicans backed high protective tariffs, like the McKinley Tariff of 1890, to protect industry. Democrats generally favored lower tariffs.

A political machine is an organization led by a 'boss' that wins elections by trading favors, jobs and services for votes. New York City's Democratic machine, Tammany Hall, was the most famous. Boss William M. Tweed and his ring stole tens of millions of dollars in the 1860s and early 1870s, exposed partly by Thomas Nast's cartoons in Harper's Weekly; Tweed was convicted in 1873. Machines were corrupt, but they also helped immigrants find jobs, housing and emergency aid, which explains their support.

At the national level, the spoils system gave government jobs to party loyalists. In 1881 President James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, and died weeks later. The shock helped pass the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883), which required some federal jobs to be filled by competitive exams. It covered only about a tenth of federal jobs at first, but presidents expanded it over time.

Debtors (especially farmers) wanted inflation, meaning more money in circulation, so crop prices would rise and debts would be easier to repay. Creditors and many business leaders wanted 'sound money' backed by gold.

The Coinage Act of 1873 stopped making silver dollars, which silver supporters called the 'Crime of '73'. Free silver meant unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold, which would have expanded the money supply. Compromise laws, the Bland–Allison Act (1878) and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890), had the government buy limited silver. During the Panic of 1893, President Cleveland got the Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed, angering silver Democrats.

The People's Party, or Populists, grew out of the Farmers' Alliances. Its Omaha Platform (1892) called for free silver, a graduated income tax, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, the direct election of senators, a secret ballot and an eight-hour workday. Its candidate James B. Weaver won over a million votes in 1892. Some Populists, like Georgia's Tom Watson at first, tried to unite poor Black and white farmers, though that effort faced violent opposition and faded.

In 1896 Democrat William Jennings Bryan electrified his party's convention with his 'Cross of Gold' speech for free silver, and the Populists endorsed him. Republican William McKinley, backed by business leaders and a record campaign fund raised by Mark Hanna, warned that free silver would wreck the economy. McKinley won 271 to 176 in the Electoral College, sweeping the industrial Northeast and Midwest, where urban workers feared higher food prices.

Afterward, the Populist Party faded and Republicans dominated national politics for most of the next 16 years. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 put the U.S. officially on gold. But many Populist goals, including the income tax, direct election of senators and the secret ballot, became law in the Progressive Era.