Apush Chapter Outline

APUSH Chapter 19 Outline

Politics in the Age of Enterprise 1877–1896

I. The Politics of the Status Quo, 1877–1893

A. The Washington Scene

1. There were five presidents from 1877 to 1893: Rutherford B. Hayes (Repub), James A. Garfield (R), Chester A. Arthur (R), Grover Cleveland (Democrat), and Benjamin Harrison (R).

--The Gov’t governed less compare to the Civil War era

1. Spoils System rampant and reform became necessary after assassination of Garfield in 1881
2. The Pendleton Act of 1883 created a list of jobs to be filled on the basis of examinations administered by the new Civil Service Commission, but patronage still accounted for the bulk of government posts.

1. Congress had more power than President
2. Divisions between Republicans and Democratic party became blurred over most issues; there were greater divisions within the parties

1. “Stalwarts” and “Half-breeds”
2. Tariff issues (Republicans for, Democrats against Repub’s protectionism)

            McKinley Tariff

B. The Ideology of Individualism

1. In the 1880s the economic doctrine of laissez-faire reigned; the less government did, the better.
2. Ideology of Individualism: Every person could achieve success and individual success contributed to the progress of the whole.

• Trumpeted by a flood of popular writing; ex: rags-to-riches tales of Horatio Alger, success manuals, Carnegie’s “Triumphant Democracy”

1. Social Darwinism:

1. Darwin wrote “On the Origin of Species” in 1859 and advanced idea of natural selection.
2. Herbert Spencer- “survival of the fittest”

~Human society advances through competition

~Claimed millionaires were the “fittest”

1. Social Darwinists regarded any governmental interference as destructive to “natural” social processes.

C. The Supremacy of the Courts

1. Suspicion of government led power to be more vested in the court system
2. Main target of the courts were the states, especially state activism

• 14th Amendment became the major constraint on the power of the states to regulate private business

1. Courts also targeted Federal gov’t:

• 1895 Supreme Court ruled that federal power to regulate interstate commerce did not cover manufacturing and struck down federal income tax law.

II. Politics and the People

A. Cultural Politics: Party, Religion, and Ethnicity

1. More people voted between 1876 ad 1892 than any other time in U.S. history
2. Politics was a major part of American culture
3. Blue Laws- restricted activity on Sunday
4. Sectional differences, religion, and ethnicity often determined party loyalty;

• Northern Democrats: foreign-born and Catholic
• Republicans: native-born and Protestant.

B. Organizational Politics

1. The parties were run by “political machines”—that consisted of insiders willing to do party work in exchange for gov’t jobs.
2. The Republican Party divided into the Stalwarts and the Halfbreeds, who were really fighting over the spoils of party politics.
3. Mugwumps--derisive term referring to pompous or self-important persons

• Reform Republicans who left their party and supported Democrat Grover Cleveland.

1. After 1884 election “good government” campaigns sprung up, eliminating political machines.
2. Mugwumps injected elitist bias in country

• Literacy tests, secret ballots, intimidating voter registration procedures

C. Women’s Political Culture

1. Politics was identified with manliness and not a place for women
2. Women’s Suffrage movement reunited after bitterness during Reconstruction

• Woman Suffrage Association

1. Abandoned idea of Constitutional Amendment, focused instead of state campaigns
2.  “Separate Spheres”—that men and women had different natures, and that women’s nature fitted them for “a higher and more spiritual realm”

   —Did open a channel for women to enter public life.