mcgraw hill, chapter 19 summery

CHAPTER 19
From Stalemate to Crisis

CHAPTER SUMMARY
For much of the late nineteenth century, American politics seemed to be less a case of “what you
did” and more a case of “who you were.” Both Democrats and Republicans adhered to a practice
of small, limited federal activity and authority. The parties had few significant policy distinctions
between them. Thus, for many voters, party preferences were considered important but were not
usually determined by political platforms. Instead, party identification was often a matter of
geography (the solidly Democratic South), religion (a solidly Irish Catholic Democratic vote),
and/or ethnocultural factors (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Republicans and immigrant
Democrats.) The result of this division was strong party loyalty, high voter participation, and a
series of close national elections in which neither party dominated, and the outcome was often
determined by the personality considerations of the candidates. Into the 1880s, however, several
events led to a disruption of this rather mundane political equilibrium. Hard-pressed farmers,
already dismayed by the national shift of people and money to the cities and away from rural
living, and rightly believing themselves ignored by both parties, rose up in an agrarian revolt of
self-help and grassroots political activism. Although these movements were not united or always
well-organized, they did find initial success in many state elections.
In 1893, an economic panic threw the nation into a severe and prolonged depression. One
of every five industrial workers lost their jobs as hundreds of interconnected businesses
collapsed on each other. Farmers seized the moment by forming the People’s Party, more
commonly known as Populism. With the desire for lower tariffs, currency inflation, and a return
of the silver standard, the election of 1896 shaped up to be critically important in the future
direction of national policy. When the Democrats chose as their candidate the dynamic orator and
supporter of silver William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, the Populists fused with the Democrats
to avoid splitting their vote. The election, in part, came down to a contest between Bryan’s
energy and charisma and the prodigious fundraising and spending of the Republicans in support
of their candidate, William McKinley. McKinley’s victory revealed some important points: (1)
Populism held only regional appeal, and by joining with the Democrats, the People’s Party ended
any chance it might have had of becoming a major force in American politics; (2) the political
power of rural southern and Midwest states had been clearly eclipsed by industrial business
interests and values; and (3) the Republican Party had finally established itself as the majority
party in the country.

OBJECTIVES
A thorough study of Chapter 19 should enable the student to understand:

1. The changing nature of American politics in the last third of the nineteenth century

2. The problems of political patronage that led to the passage of the Pendleton Act

3. The circumstances that permitted the Democrats to win the presidency in 1884 and 1892

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4. The origins, purposes, and effectiveness of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman
Antitrust Act

5. The position of the two major parties on the tariff question, and the actual trend of tariff
legislation in the 1880s and 1890s

6. The rise of agrarian discontent as manifested in the Granger movement, the Farmers’
Alliances, and the People’s Party

7. The rise of the silver question from the “Crime of ’73” through the Gold Standard Act of
1900

8. The significance of the presidential election of 1896

9. The reasons for the decline of agrarian discontent after 1896

MAIN THEMES
1. The balance between the two major parties and how that balance could be traced to regional,
religious, cultural, and socioeconomic factors

2. The inability of the political system to respond effectively to the nation’s rapid social and
economic changes

3. How the troubled agrarian sector mounted a powerful, but unsuccessful, challenge to
industrial capitalism and the two-party system, and how this challenge came to a head in the
election of 1896

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Were there really no great differences between the two major parties during the last quarter of
the nineteenth century?

2. Why was the United States locked in a political stalemate for nearly two decades after the
end of Reconstruction? What were the consequences of this stalemate for political leadership
and public policy?

3. Compare and contrast the major farm groups: the Grange, the Farmers’ Alliances, and the
People’s Party. Why were farmers never a united force? Why did farm groups fail to build
effective alliances with labor unions? Did the People’s Party ultimately offer a realistic
reform agenda? Why or why not?

4. What factors determined a voter’s loyalty during the latter part of the nineteenth century?
Why was this era one of intense enthusiasm and high voter turnout? Were issues of great
importance or were other factors more prominent? What were those other factors, and why
were they so important?

5. Why did the Supreme Court severely restrict efforts to regulate business? What logic did the
Court use in these cases? What effect did these decisions have on business specifically and
on American society generally?

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6. In what ways did the election of 1884 typify national political contests of the late nineteenth
century? If you had been hired to orchestrate the advertising for either major presidential
contestant, how would you have devised your campaign?

7. Which president of the late nineteenth century would you characterize as the most effective
leader? Explain. If your decision is that no one was an effective leader, was there something
wrong with the political system that did not bring such leaders to the fore?

8. Discuss the response of the major parties and national leaders to public agitation over the
tariff, the trusts, and the railroads.

9. Discuss the reasons for the emergence of an agrarian revolt in the late nineteenth century.
Analyze the successes and failures of the Grange, Farmers’ Alliances, and Populist
movement. Why did the Populists decide to fuse with the Democrats in 1896? Was this a
mistake? What might have happened if they had not taken this action?

10. What changes had occurred in the national economy since 1865 that made the Depression of
1893–1897 so severe? Could the federal government have done anything to lessen the crisis?
Did the government do anything that it should not have done?

11. Analyze the election of 1896 in terms of the candidates, the campaign, and the issues. What
strengths and weaknesses did each candidate have? What accounts for the election results?

MAP EXERCISES
1. Using maps in previous chapters, identify the Great Plains, the silver-mining regions, and the
cotton-tobacco belt.

2. Identify the territories that were not yet states.
3. Identify the states and regions carried by McKinley and Bryan.

INTERPRETATIVE QUESTIONS BASED ON MAPS AND TEXT
1. Where was the Grange strongest? In what parts of the country did the Populist movement
have the most impact? Why?

2. Why were the states carried by Bryan mainly those of the Great Plains, the silver-mining
regions, and the cotton-tobacco belt? Why did Bryan fail to make inroads in the Midwest and
the Northeast?

LIBRARY EXERCISE
The following exercise will require students to consult a historical atlas and other sources found
in most college libraries. Using these library resources and the text, they should be able to
answer the following:

1. Identify the states carried by the Democrats and Republicans, respectively, in 1876, 1880,
1884, 1888, 1892, and 1896. Explain the recurring regional patterns of presidential politics in
the late nineteenth century. Why were the two parties so closely balanced in their control of
Congress and the White House? How did the slight advantage of the Republicans turn into
Republican dominance by the end of the century?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Peter Argersinger, The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: Western Populism and American Politics
(1995)
Robert F. Durden, The Climax of Populism: The Election of 1896 (1965)
Paul Glad, McKinley, Bryan, and the People (1964)
Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley (1981)
Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (1995)
Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America (1977)
Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics (1986)
Samuel McSeveney, The Politics of Depression (1972)
Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (1987)
Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the
United States (1992)
Alan Trachtenberg, The Intercorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age
(1982)
R. Hal Williams, Years of Decision: American Politics in the 1890s (1978)

For Internet resources, practice questions, references to additional books and films, and more,
see this book’s Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/unfinishednation4.