Chapter 23 Quiz

Tom Watson

Radical Populist leader whose early success turned sour, and who then became a vicious racist

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

Compromise of 1877

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

Horace Greeley

colorful, eccentric newspaper editor who carried the LIberal Republican and Democratic banners against Grant in 1872

credit mobilier

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

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

Jim Crow

term for the racial segregation laws imposed in the 1890s

(waving the) bloody shirt

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

Denis Kearney

Irish-born leader of the anti-Chinese movement in California

gilded age

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

populists (people's party)

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

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

Jay Cooke

Wealthy New York fancier whose bank collapse in 1873 set off an economic depression

Jim Fisk

bold and unprincipled financier whose plot to corner the U.S. gold market nearly succeeded in 1869

James G. Blaine

charming but corrupt "Half-Breed" Republican senator and presidential nominee in 1884

William Jennings Bryan

eloquent young congressman from Nebraska who became the most prominent advocate of "free silver" in the early 1890s

J. P. Morgan

enormously wealthy banker whose secret bailout of the federal government in 1895 aroused fierce public anger

Grover Cleveland

first Democratic president since the Civil War; defender of laissez-faire economics and low tariffs

Ulysses S. Grant

great military leader whose presidency foundered in corruption and political ineptitude

Boss Tweed

heavyweight New York political boss whose widespread fraud landed him in jail in 1871

Roscoe Conkling

imperious New York senator and leader of the "Stalwart" faction of Republicans

grandfather's 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"

James Garfield

president whose assassination after only a few months in office spurred the passage of a civil-service law

Rutherford B. Hayes

winner of the contested 1876 election who presided over the end of the Reconstruction and a sharp economic downturn