APUSH
Mr. White
1884 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
* (DEM)
James Blaine
(REP)
Republican: Blaine
• Former Sec. of State under
Garfield
• “Mulligan Letters”
– Exposed Blaine writing to a Boston
businessman about corrupt deals
and federal favors
• Many followers went to the
Democratic side = Mugwumps
– “holier-than-thou”
Democrat: Cleveland
• “Grover the Good”
• Noted Reformer
• Gov. of New York
• Gets support of
mugwumps
• The dirt:
– Illegitimate child
– “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?”
– Dems told him to lie, he
decided to “Tell the truth”
Cleveland wins!
•Blaine ruins his chances in a speech in New York
calling the Democrats the party of “Rum, Romanism
and Rebellion”
 Loses the support of New York’s Irish voters
A Dirty Campaign
Ma, Ma…where’s my pa?
He’s going to the White House, ha… ha… ha…!
1884 Presidential Election
Presidential Rankings: C-Span Survey, 2009
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Abraham Lincoln
Franklin Roosevelt
George Washington
Theodore Roosevelt
Harry Truman
John Kennedy
Thomas Jefferson
Dwight Eisenhower
Woodrow Wilson
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon Johnson
James Polk
Andrew Jackson
James Monroe
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Bill Clinton
William McKinley
John Adams
George H.W. Bush
John Quincy Adams
James Madison
Grover Cleveland
Gerald Ford
Ulysses Grant
William Taft
Jimmy Carter
Calvin Coolidge
Richard Nixon
James Garfield
29. Zachary Taylor
30. Benjamin Harrison
31. Martin Van Buren
32. Chester Arthur
33. Rutherford Hayes
34. Herbert Hoover
35. John Tyler
36. George W. Bush
37. Millard Fillmore
38. Warren Harding
39. William Harrison
40. Franklin Pierce
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan
“Old Grover” Takes Over
• First Democratic president since James Buchanan(28 years)
– Could the party of disunion bring back respect to the
presidency?
• Supporter of laissez-faire government = hands off
– Vetoed a bill to provide seeds for drought-ravaged Texas
farmers in 1887
• Appoints two former Confederates to his cabinet
• At first believed in merit system, but caved to Dems who
wanted offices
– Fired 2/3 of federal employees to make room
• Major headache = GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) –
pushed pension bills through Congress
– Benefits to deserters, bounty jumpers, those who never
served, disabled AFTER war
– Vetoed hundreds of these
Battle for a Lower Tariff
• Civil War tariffs were high to make money for the
military – benefited Northern Republican
manufacturers (protected)
• 1881 - the Treasury had a surplus of $145 million
(mostly from the tariff)
• Lower tariffs would allow lower prices for consumers
and less protection for monopolies
• Cleveland appealed to Congress for lower tariffs – a
bombshell that exploded!!
Election of 1888
• Republicans – Benjamin Harrison (grandson of
William Henry Harrison)
• Democrats - Cleveland (dejectedly)
• Main Issue – tariff, too much $
• Harrison won 233 – 168
– Cleveland won popular vote
• How did Harrison win? Republicans teamed
with big business and bought votes ($3 mil)
1888 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
(DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
* (REP)
1888 Presidential Election
Presidential Rankings: C-Span Survey, 2009
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2.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin Roosevelt
George Washington
Theodore Roosevelt
Harry Truman
John Kennedy
Thomas Jefferson
Dwight Eisenhower
Woodrow Wilson
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon Johnson
James Polk
Andrew Jackson
James Monroe
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
Bill Clinton
William McKinley
John Adams
George H.W. Bush
John Quincy Adams
James Madison
Grover Cleveland
Gerald Ford
Ulysses Grant
William Taft
Jimmy Carter
Calvin Coolidge
Richard Nixon
James Garfield
29. Zachary Taylor
30. Benjamin Harrison
31. Martin Van Buren
32. Chester Arthur
33. Rutherford Hayes
34. Herbert Hoover
35. John Tyler
36. George W. Bush
37. Millard Fillmore
38. Warren Harding
39. William Harrison
40. Franklin Pierce
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan
The Billion Dollar Congress
• Surplus now over a billion due to high tariffs
• Dems use delay tactics in the House to obstruct all business
– Refuse to answer roll call, denied being legally there to not have a
quorum
• Speaker of the House -Thomas B. Reed -very intelligent and pushy…
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Counted Dems as present
Showered pensions on veterans
Sherman Silver Purchase Act - Increased the purchase of silver
McKinley Tariff of 1890 – rate of 48.4%
• William McKinley of OH – protected Republican industrialists
Reaction –
• Upset farmers – already in debt – had to buy high-priced
manufactured goods
• Highest peacetime level ever!
• Results in the “Billion dollar Congress”
• Republicans lost their majority in the Congressional election of
1890
– 9 members of Farmers Alliance – militant org of S & W farmers
Populist Party = People’s Party
• Populist Party (“People’s Party”) - emerged in 1892
from the Farmers’ Alliance – frustrated farmers of
West and South
• Met in Omaha, NE to create platform against
governmental injustice
• Their main call was for inflation via free coinage of
silver
• Platform included:
– a graduated income tax
– government regulation of railroads and
telegraphs/telephones
– direct elections of U.S. senators
– a one term limit for the president
– initiative and referendum – citizen directly involved
– a shorter workday
– immigration restriction
Strikes
• Create hope that the Populists can join with
urban workers to attack the wealthy
businessmen
Strikes
• 1892 – epidemic of nationwide strikes –
Populists welded a coalition of workers and
farmers
• Homestead Strike of 1892 - Carnegie’s
Homestead Steel Plant (Pittsburgh)
– Workers angry over pay cuts
– 300 Pinkerton detectives called in by Henry Clay
Frick (business partner) to crush strike
– Strikers armed with rifles and dynamite
– Eventually the troops are called in
– 10 killed and 60+ wounded
1892 Election
• Republicans - Harrison
• Democrats – Cleveland – WON AGAIN!
• Populist Party – Gen. James B. Weaver
– Took a chunk of electoral votes
• 1,029,846 pop & 22 electoral votes
– Race was an issue – many blacks support the populist
party – common economic goals as poor white farmers
• Southern blacks created the Colored Farmers National Alliance
– Response: white southerners used literacy tests and poll
taxes more aggressively
• More severe Jim Crow Laws
• Populist party became racist later and wanted to take away vote
from blacks
1892 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland
again!
* (DEM)
Benjamin Harrison
(REP)
1892 Presidential Election
Panic of 1893
• Panics occurred during 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893
• Different country than Cleveland knew: debtors armed,
workers restless, approaching a deficit
• Causes: OVERSPECULATION, labor disorders, agricultural
depression, European banks calling in loans
• 4 year depression that was the most punishing of the century
• Government response: let nature take its course
• Gold reserve dropping – had to back paper currency still
around
– Needed to halt this by repealing Sherman Silver Purchase Act –
debated by Congress
• Dem Congressman William Jennings Bryan – championed free silver
• Repeal of Sherman Silver Purchase Act - Cleveland granted
jobs in Congress to get repeal – alienated party
•
Repeal only partially stopped hemorrhaging of gold from Treasury
Panic of 1893
• Health issues: Cancerous growth removed from Cleveland’s
mouth secretly
– If died, VP Adlai E. Stevenson would be President – proSilver and soft money = massive chaos with inflation
– Going off gold standard would lead to unreliable currency,
cripple international trade
• J.P. Morgan - Cleveland turned to him for help – loaned $65
million, with a commission of $7 million
– Temporarily restored confidence in U.S. finances
Cleveland Breeds a Backlash
• Cleveland was embarrassed at having to resort
to J.P. Morgan
– Looked like a sell-out
• Wilson-Gorman Tariff in 1894 – didn’t really
make much of a dent
– Contained a 2% income tax – Sup Ct struck it
down
– Helps Republicans win Congress in 1894