Chapter 23: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age (1869-1896)

Question 1

Waving the Bloody Shirt

Answer 1

• This was a term used by post-Civil War Republicans to remind northern voters that the Confederates were Democrats who brought on the war. The device was used to divert attention away from the competence of candidates and from serious issues. It was also used to appeal to black voters in the South.

Question 2

Tweed Ring

Answer 2

• Corrupt New York City political machine led by “Boss” Tweed, that used tactics such as bribery, graft, and fraudulent elections; in 1871, the New York Times published evidence of Tweed’s corruption and illegal activities, leading to his arrest and conviction.

Question 3

Credit Mobilier Scandal

Answer 3

• Erupted in 1872, when Union Pacific Railroad insiders formed a construction company, then hired themselves at inflated prices to build the railroad lines; in order to avoid being exposed, the company distributed valuable shares of stock to key politicians, including the vice president; the scandal was eventually revealed in a newspaper expose.

Question 4

Panic of 1873

Answer 4

• The Economic crisis caused by unbridled capitalist expansion; overeager promoters had developed more railroads, mines, factories, and agricultural ventures than the market could bear, and bankers made too many imprudent loans to finances these enterprises; when they were unprofitable, the loans went unpaid, causing financial chaos.

Question 5

Gilded Age

Answer 5

• A name for the late 1800s, coined by Mark Twain to describe the tremendous increase in wealth caused by the industrial age and the ostentatious lifestyles it allowed the very rich. The great industrial success of the U.S. and the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy hid the many social problems of the time, including a high poverty rate, a high crime rate, and corruption in the government.

Question 6

Patronage

Answer 6

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Question 7

Compromise of 1877

Answer 7

• Compromise that resolved the disputed election of 1878, which had led to political paralysis and impending conflict as both parties argued over returns from four states; under the agreement, Republican Rutherford Hayes took office, in return for withdrawing federal troops from the contested states and support for railroad construction.

Question 8

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Answer 8

• Act guaranteeing equal accommodations in public places and prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection; much of the act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which decided that the fourteenth amendment only prohibited government violations of civil rights, not violations by individuals.

Question 9

Sharecropping

Answer 9

• A system used on southern farms after the Civil War in which farmers worked land owned by someone else in return for a small portion of the crops.

Question 10

Jim Crow Laws

Answer 10

• Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights; laws primarily enforced in the south, designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

Question 11

Plessy VS. Ferguson

Answer 11

• The Supreme Court case that upheld a Louisiana segregation law on the theory that as long as the accommodations between the racially segregated facilities were equal, the equal protection clause was not violated. The Court’s ruling effectively established the constitutionality of racial segregation and the notion of “separate but equal.”

Question 12

Chinese Exclusion Act

Answer 12

• United States federal law passed on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years.

Question 13

Pendleton Act

Answer 13

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