CM10 Flashcards
The Native Americans predicament
• 1868: Treaty of Fort Laramie
• 1876: battle of Little Big Horn or Custer’s Last Stand after a conflict between Northern Plains Indians (Sioux & Cheyenne) and miners in search of gold; the 7th cavalry was sent to Montana (near the river Little Big Horn) and was defeated by the Native Americans led by Sitting Bull
• 1877 (20 million acres)
• 1887: General Allotment Act (12 million)
• 1889: U.S Congress slashed the annual Lakota rations budget
• 1890: Ghost Dance religious movement swept across the Plains (Wovoka revived the Ghost Dance movement in 1889)
• 1890, August: Daniel F. Royer became head of the Pine Ridge Agency
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs requested a list of Indian ‘troublemakers’
• November: the U.S. Army arrived on Lakota reservations
• December 28th: slaughter of about 150-300 Lakota Indians by U.S Army troops in Wounded Knee Creek (South Dakota)
Wounded Knee: casualties & legacy
• Between 250-300 Miniconjou were killed (almost half of whom were women and children), among them Big Foot
• A battle or a massacre?
• Feb 1973: occupation of the hamlet at Wounded Knee by American Indian Movement activists
• June 2019: the Remove the Stain Act
Stalwarts
Stalwarts Half Breeds
- Conservative faction
- In opposition to Hayes’ efforts to reconcile with the South
- Opposed all forms of civil service reform
- Preferred the patronage system = many Radical Republicans, Union war veterans and most of the Republican political bosses
- Backed the protective tariff and sought a third term for U. Grant in 1880
- Most prominent leader: Roscoe Conkling (N.Y)
Half Breeds
- Moderately liberal faction
- Backed Hayes’ lenient treatment of the South
- Supported civil service reform
- James G. Blaine of Maine = leader of this group but failed to win the party nomination in 1876 & 1880.
Protective Tariff:
- A tariff that aims at protecting a domestic industry (imported goods cost more than equivalent goods
produced domestically, thereby causing sales of domestically produced goods to rise and supporting local industry).
The Administrations of James A. Garfield
- Garfield = named Half-Breed Blaine as secretary of state / not closely associated with them but supported reforms that they advocated
- Appointed as collector of customs in New York a man who was unacceptable to the two senators from that state
- 1881, July 2: Garfield was shot in Washington D.C by a Stalwart supporter; he died on Sept 19 and was succeeded by Vice pdt Arthur (Stalwart)
The Administrations of Chester A. Arthur
• 1881, July 2: Garfield was shot in Washington D.C by a Stalwart supporter; he died on Sept 19 and was succeeded by Vice pdt Arthur (Stalwart)
• Dec 1881: first annual message to Congress, Arthur announced his approval of legislation that would remove appointments to the federal civil service from partisan control
Pendleton Civil Service Act
- 1883 Jan
- established the Civil Service Commission
Grover Cleveland’s presidency: first term
• = first Democratic Pdt since James Buchanan (1857-1861)
• More than 2 thirds of electoral votes came from Southern or border states
• Divided Congress: Republican Senate & Democratic House
• Believer in a civil service based on merit but great pressure to replace Republicans with Democrats in appointive offices
• Compromise
• Conservative in finances (investigation in private bills to compensate private individuals, usually Federal veterans)
The surplus & the tariff
• Surplus of public funds since the Civil War; probably due to the tariff
• As a Democrat, he disliked the high protective tariff
• 1887: appeal in his annual message to lower the tariff
• Senate rejected it
• The tariff = a leading issue in the presidential campaign of 1888
The public domain
• After 1877: conflict between agricultural settlers and cattlemen
• Land aquired by questionable means
• Revelation of fraudulent claims
• Agents of the Land Office investigated for a year
• By executive order and court action Cleveland succeeded in restoring more than 81 million acres to the public domain
The Interstate Commerce Act
• 1887: law pushed by an alliance between Western farm organizations & influential Eastern businessmen = victims of discrimination by the railroads
• The law:
- Prohibited the pooling of traffic & profits
- Made it illegal for a railroad to charge more for a short haul than for a longer one
- Required that the railroads publicize their rates
- Established the Interstate Commerce Commission to supervise the enforcement of the law
- Rulings of the commission subject to review by the federal courts
The Election of 1888
• Cleveland was renominated by the Democrats
• The Republicans struggled to select a candidate: Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, a Federal general in the Civil War & the grandson of Pres. William
• Henry Harrison (defeated Indians at the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 and fought in the Battle of the Thames against the British and the Indians & killed Indian Chief Tecumseh during the 1812 War; national hero for the Whig Party; died of pneumonia a month after election)
• Not much enthusiasm in the voters; election marked by the extensive use of money to influence the outcome
• The apparent alliance between business and political bosses was obvious
• Close result: Harrison won
The Benjamin Harrison administration
• The Republicans gained control of both houses of the 51st Congress
• Small margin in the House of Representatives
• Thanks to the tight control of Thomas B.Reed as speaker of the House, 3 controversial bills were passed by the Republicans
the Sherman Antitrust Act
- declared illegal all combinations that restrained trade between states or with foreign nations
- = response to growing public dissatisfaction with industrial monopolies
- First judgement 10 years later (against a railroad union)
- More disappointing results for checking the growth of monopoly
the silver issue
- The Sherman Silver Purchase Act = required the secretary of treasury to purchase each month 130 tons of silver at the market price
- Replaced the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 & increased the government’s monthly purchase of silver by more than 50%
- In response to pressure from mineowners & Western farmers
