APUSH Chapter 23 Identification

Half-breeds

Republican party faction led by Senator James G. Blaine that paid lip service to government reform while still battling for patronage and spoils.

Stalwarts

Republican party faction led by Senator Roscoe Conkling that opposed all attempts at civil-service reform.

Liberal Republican party

Short-lived third party of 1872 that attempted to curb Grant administration corruption.

McKinley tariff

Sky-high Republican tariff of 1890 that caused widespread anger among farmers in the Midwest and the South.

Civil Service

System of choosing federal employees on the basis of merit rather than patronage introduced by the Pendleton Act of 1883.

Compromise of 1877

The complex political agreement between Republicans and Democrats that resolved the bitterly disputed election of 1876.

populists

Insurgent political party that gained widespread support among farmers in the 1890s.

Gilded Age

Mark Twain's sarcastic name for the post-Civil War era, which emphasized its atmosphere of greed and corruption.

grandfather clause

Notorious clause in southern voting laws that exempted from literacy tests and poll taxes anyone whose ancestors had voted in 1860, thereby excluding blacks.

silver

Precious metal that "soft-money" advocates demanded be coined again to compensate for the crime of '73.

Greenback Labor party

"Soft-money" third party that polled over a million votes and elected fourteen congressmen in 1878 by advocating inflation.

Chinese

Asian immigrant group that experienced discrimination on the West Coast.

Grand Army of the Republic

Civil War Union veterans' organization that became a potent political bulwark of the Republican party in the late nineteenth century.

Credit Mobilier

Corrupt construction company whose bribes and payoffs to congressmen and others created a major Grant administration scandal.

bloody shirt

The symbol of Republican political tactic of attacking Democrats with reminders of the Civil War.