Chapter 19 Section A Part 2

Garfield's Assassination

1881. Only four months after his inauguration, a gunman claiming to be a Stalwart shot Garfield twice in a railroad station. He didn't die directly from the wounds, but died three months later from inept medical treatment.

Wabash Case

1886 a case that determined that one of the Granger Laws in Illinois unconstitutional. According to the Supreme Court, the law was an attempt to control interstate commerce and thus infringed on the exclusive power of Congress. After this case, the courts limited the powers of states to regulate commerce, even within their own borders.

Roscoe Conkling

A Republican senator from New York, he led the Stalwarts and sought out a traditional machine politics government.

Civil Service

A branch of government service in which the individuals being employed are judge on a base of merit or are chosen based on a competitive examination.

Chester A. Arthur

A congressman from New York and a Stalwart. He was nominated as vice president for the Republican Party in the 1880 election. He took office after Garfield was assassinated.

James A. Garfield

A congressman from Ohio and a Half-Breed, he was nominated by the Republicans to be president in the 1880 election and won. A couple months after his inauguration he was assassinated by a Stalwart.

Grover Cleveland

A democrat. The only president to serve two non- consecutive terms. A supporter of minimal government and tariff reductions. Very hostile to efforts to deal with social or economic problems.

Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock

A former Civil War commander with no actual political qualifications, he was the democratic candidate for president in the 1880 election.

Interstate Commerce Act

A law passed by congress in 1887 which banned discrimination in rates between long and short railroad hauls, required that railroads publish their rate schedules and then file them with the government, and declared that all interstate rail rates must be "reasonable and just".

James G. Blaine

A notorious American Republican senator from Maine, he was the leader of the Half-Breeds and pushed for a reformist government.

Election of 1880 (P)

A race between James A. Garfield for the Republicans and Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock for the Democrats, the popular vote between the two was very close but Garfield won by a majority in electoral votes. The Republican Party also took control of most of Congress in this election.

Civil War Pension System

A system run by the national government, it would reward Union Civil War veterans and their wives with annual pensions. Some reformers pressured to have the system apply to all old-age Americans, but when the Civil War generation died out so did the pension system.

"Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion."

A term coined by Dr. Samuel Burchard, he described the Democratic party as a party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." This religious controversy was what ultimately decided the election of 1884, favoring Grover Cleveland of the Democratic Party.

United States v. E. C. Knight Co.

Also known as the Sugar Trust Case, this was a US supreme court case that limited the government's power to control monopolies.

E.L Godkin-- The Nation

An Irish-born American journalist and newspaper editor, he founded The Nation and was an editor in chief of the New York Evening Post.

Dependent Pension Act

An act passed by Congress on June 27, 1890, to provide a pension for any Civil War veteran of the Union Army. It was created in response to political pressure from Union veterans, many of whom were members of the Grand Army of the Republic it also provided a pension to a soldier's widow under certain conditions.

Commerce Clause

An enumerated power in the Constitution, this clause states that Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and the individual states. Grover Cleveland questioned this clause in the perspective of protective tariffs because they would force Congress to pass unnecessary legislature with the surplus of income.

Election of 1892 (P)

Benjamin Harrison vs. Grover Cleveland had opposite views on protection. Benjamin Harrison supported it and Grover Cleveland rejected it. In the end, Grover Cleveland won by both electoral votes and popular margin. For the first time since 1878 the Democrats won a majority in both houses of Congress.

McKinley Tariff

Drafted by Rep. William McKinley and Sen. Nelso W. Aldrich, this law was passed in 1890 after Harrison won the election. In stark contrast to Cleveland's support of tariff reduction, this republican based law was the highest protective measure ever proposed to Congress for tariffs. Afterwards, the party suffered a stunning reversal in the 1890 congressional election because the public wasn't happy with this law.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Earning the nickname "His Fraudulency" due to his rise to presidency through the 1876 election, Rutherford had to deal with the split between the Half-Breeds and the Stalwarts during his term. He ended up pleasing neither group and decided not to run again.

Partisianship

Everybody in the United States was affiliated with a party not because of their viewpoints on current issues, but rather because of geological location, religion, or family custom. These factors affected which party one would root for and enabled the two parties to have a steady balance for so long.

Grangers

Farmers of the organization, the Grange, which was a social and self-help association for farmers. The Granger Laws were a series of laws passed after the Civil War in the South that regulated grain, freight rail rates, and long and short-haul discrimination.

Wilson-Gorman Tariff

Grover Cleveland supported tariff reduction because he was a Democrat, thus he passed this tariff in 1894 that included a few modest reduction of taxes.

Benjamin Harrison

He was the republican nomination for president in the election of 1888, a former senator of Indiana who beat the Democrat's Grover Cleveland on electoral college votes, and had an unsubstantial record as president.

Half-Breeds

Led by James G. Blaine, the Half-Breeds were a section of the Republican Party that favored reform in the government.

Stalwarts

Led by Roscoe Conkling, the Stalwarts were the other section of the Republican Party and supported traditional and professional machine politics.

Electoral Stability

One of the most remarkable concepts of American politics was that the parties, Democrats and Republicans, would stay very stable for long periods of time. Some states would always vote republican, and some would always vote democratic. The election was thus decided by the few doubtful states. The republicans and democrats also evenly shared the Senate and House.

Panic of 1893

Precipitated the most severe depression the nation had yet experienced. The reading railroad and national cordage company failed first, causing the collapse of the stock market and wave of bank failures. Within six months more than 8,000 businesses, 136 railroads and 400 banks failed.

Mugwumps

Republican political activists who bolted from the party to join the Democrats and Grover Cleveland in the 1884 election because they were opposed to the financial corruption associated with James G. Blaine.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Responding to growing public demands that trusts were too powerful congress passed this law in 1890. It was largely symbolic, as it deflected public criticism but was indifferently enforced and steadily weakened by the courts.

Protective Tariffs

Taxes on imported goods designed to protect domestic producers. Although the idea in itself was genuine, it ended up giving the government surplus in revenue and thus led to the passing of unnecessary legislation.

Election of 1888 (P)

The Democratic candidate was again Grover Cleveland, but the Republicans decided to nominate Benjamin Harrison. This is known as the first presidential campaign since the Civil War to involve a clear question of economic standpoints between the two candidates. The election was close, and Harrison succeeded in the end.

Pendleton Act

The first national civil service reform measure, it was passed in 1883 by president Chester A. Arthur and required that some federal jobs be filled by competitive written examination in order to lessen patronage. At first the act didn't extend to many jobs, but gradually gained a grip on more positions through time.

Spoils/Patronage System

The opposite of the merit system, patronage is a practice where after winning an election, a political party grants government jobs to their voters and supporters. By doing this, they implement their party's viewpoints in all aspects of government as well as encourage those supporters to keep on voting for their party.

Nativism

The political viewpoint the native or original inhabitants of a nation should have a favored status compared to the immigrants. This belief arose from the thinking that immigrants who were different culturally and physically from the native inhabitants would be considered "uncivilized". Nativism can be seen as the opposition to immigration.

Factions

These are specific parts of a whole, such as political parties or unions, such as the Democratic and Republican Parties of America. These parties can also have factions within themselves, such as the Half-Breeds and Stalwarts of the Republican Party.

Interstate Commerce Comission

This was a five-person agency used to administer the Interstate Commerce Act, however it had to rely on the courts to enforce its rulings.

Urbanization

Urbanization refers to the movement of a population from rural areas into urban ones. Urbanization generally occurs in developing countries, and is directly correlated to industrialization. Urbanization has both its up sides and down sides, which would be economic prosperity versus physical comfort.

Election of 1884 (P)

With Republican candidate James G. Blaine and Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, the election was ultimately decided by a last minute religious controversy brought up by Dr. Samuel Burchard that swayed many Catholic votes from New York. In the end, Grover Cleveland took the presidency.