Download The Grant Administration (1868-1876)

The Grant Administration
(1868-1876)
The 1868 Republican Ticket
President Candidate: Ulysses S. Grant
VP Candidate: Schuyler Colfax
1868 Democratic Ticket
President Candidate: Horatio Seymour
VP Candidate: Frank P. Blair
Waving the Bloody Shirt! And Republican “Southern Strategy”
1868 Presidential Election
Electoral Votes:
Grant 214
Seymour 80
President Ulysses S. Grant
Grant Administration Scandals
 Grant presided over an era of unprecedented growth and corruption.
 Grant’s Vice President was in a scheme to steal profits from the railroads.
 Members of Grant’s administration were suspected of corruption.
 Many city officials sold contracts to their friends across the country.
 Credit Mobilier Scandal
 Whiskey Ring
 The Indian Ring
 The Tweed Ring in NYC
William Marcy Tweed
(notorious head of Tammany Hall’s political machine)
[Thomas Nast  crusading cartoonist/reporter]
By 1872, matters other than Reconstruction drew the nation’s attention.
• Immigration increased in the North and West.
• Corruption and intrigue had become part of local and national
governments.
•
In 1873, national banks failed.
The Election of 1872
 Rumors of corruption during Grant’s first term discredit Republicans.
 Horace Greeley runs as a Democrat / Liberal Republican candidate.
 Greeley attacked as a fool and a crank.
 Greeley died on November 29, 1872!
1872 Presidential Election Results
Electoral Votes
Grant:
286
Hendricks: 42
Brown:
18
Greeley:
3
Jenkins:
2
Davis:
1
The Panic of 1873
In 1873 one of the nation’s most influential banks failed.
* The bank had overextended loans to the railroad industry.
* A nationwide loss of jobs, more bank failures, and economic depression in
the North followed.
Legal Challenges
Slaughterhouse Cases
The Court restricted the scope of the 14th Amendment.
1873: A citizen has national rights but it was up to the state to choose how to
define the rights for those who lived there.
1876: Due process and equal protection clauses only protected citizens from
the actions of the state, not other citizens.
Black "Adjustment" in the South
• African Americans played an important role in Reconstruction politics both
as voters and elected officials. As a result, this contributed to the
Republican control not only on the federal level, but the state level as well.
• There was much resistance to some radicals in the south, and most white
southerners opposed efforts to expand the rights of African Americans.
Freed African Americans sought to build new communities.
Cities - moved to look for jobs as cooks, blacksmiths, or carpenters
Rural areas - worked at farming, lumbering, and re-building railroads
Black Churches - established black churches that became centers of their
communities
Reconstruction state constitutions mandated the creation of the public school
system.
The system was expensive as there needed to be two schools in every district
due to segregation.
Black Senate & House Delegates
First Black Senators: Hiram Revels & Blanche Bruce
Blacks in Southern Politics
 Core voters were black veterans.
 Blacks were politically unprepared.
 Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867.
 The 15th Amendment guaranteed federal voting.
15th Amendment
 Ratified in 1870.
 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
 Women’s rights groups were furious that they were not granted the vote!
The Ku Klux Klan
• Violence against African Americans became commonplace during
Reconstruction and would continue for many decades.
• Groups like the Ku Klux Klan were formed and launched violent raids upon
African Americans.
The Failure of Federal Enforcement
 Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871 [also known as the KKK Act].
 The acts made it federal crime to interfere with a citizen’s right to vote.
 Congress used the Enforcement Acts to indict Klansmen throughout the
South.
 Although violence declined, racial hatred persisted.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
 Crime for any individual to deny full & equal use of public conveyances and
public places.
 Prohibited discrimination in jury selection.
 Shortcoming  lacked a strong enforcement mechanism.
 No new civil rights act was attempted for 90 years!
The Abandonment of Reconstruction
Northern Support Wanes
 “Grantism” & corruption.
 Panic of 1873 [6-year depression].
 Concern over westward expansion and Indian wars.
 Key monetary issues:
* should the government retire $432m worth of “greenbacks” issued
during the Civil War.
* should war bonds be paid back in specie or greenbacks.
1876 Presidential Ticket
Republican President
– Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican VP
- William A. Wheeler
Democratic President
- Samuel J. Tilden
Democratic VP
- Thomas A. Hendricks
1876 Presidential results
Electoral Votes:
Hayes:
185
Tilden:
184
The Political Crisis of 1877
 “Corrupt Bargain” Part II?
 Informal unwritten deal that settled the disputed 1876 Presidential Election
and ended Congressional Reconstruction.
Hayes Prevails
• Through it, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House
over Democrat Samuel j. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would
remove the federal troops that were propping up Republican state
governments in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
A Political Crisis: The “Compromise” of 1877
• Congress resolved the disputed election of 1876 with the Compromise of
1877.
• Rutherford B. Hayes became President.
• Remaining federal troops were withdrawn from the South.
• A southerner was appointed to a powerful cabinet position.
• Southern states were guaranteed federal subsidies to build railroads and
improve their ports.
The End of Reconstruction
• Reconstruction was both a success and a failure. On the one hand, it helped
the south recover from the war, and on the other hand, yet economic
recovery was far from complete.
• Under Reconstruction, African Americans gained greater equality and joined
whites in creating new governments that were more democratic than the
south had ever seen.
• These improvements for Africans Americans were short lived. It would take
nearly a century for Africans Americans to gain full equality in the United
States, for segregation, the separation of races, would haunt the Union for
several years.
• The First Failed Civil Rights Era