📘The Gilded Age Presidents

The Gilded Age Presidents (or forgotten presidents)

1869—1877: Ulysses S. Grant

Grant was a Republican war hero, but his administration was riddled with scandal. Significant scandals that occurred in his presidency included:
The Jim Fisk and Jay Gould gold scheme that resulted in Black Friday
The Whisky Ring bribes implicating Grant's personal secretary, Oliver Babcock
The scandal over William Belknap, secretary of war, taking bribes for selling Indian trading posts
The Crédit Mobilier scandal, which involved his vice president, in which railroad insiders hired themselves at inflated rates to build railways
The Panic of 1873, which led to economic depression

 

1876 Election, Tilden Versus Hayes: Electoral Votes

A close election had Tilden with 184 electoral votes (185 needed to win), but 20 votes were irregular. He had about 300,000 more popular votes than Hayes. Nineteen of the disputed electoral votes were from three Southern states. All three submitted two sets of returns, one for the Democrat and one for the Republican. The Constitution specified who should open the votes (president of the Senate) but not who counts them.

The Electoral Count Act passed in early 1877. It resolved the deadlock by appointing a commission of 15 men selected from the Senate, House, and Supreme Court. Although one commission member was independent, he dropped out and was replaced by a Republican. The eight Republicans outvoted the seven Democrats to elect Hayes. Inauguration day almost arrived without a clear winner.

1877–1881: Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes served one term. When Democrats threatened to filibuster over the Republican bias of the Electoral Committee, the Compromise of 1877 was drafted. Democrats would reluctantly accept Hayes if remaining troops were removed from the last two Civil War states. Republicans promised to subsidize the Texas and Pacific Railroad's construction on the transcontinental railway line, although they did not comply. Democrats agreed to stop the filibuster just three days before inauguration. Hayes's presidency was marred by the perceived fraud of his election.

 

1881: James Garfield
Garfield's vice presidential running mate was Chester A. Arthur, a Stalwart who had ties to a New York machine famous for patronage. Stalwarts were Republicans who supported Grant even during his cabinet's scandals. Half-breeds were Republicans who half supported Grant and half supported spoils reform.

After only four months in office, Charles Guiteau assassinated Garfield. Guiteau claimed that he was a Stalwart and wanted Stalwart vice president Arthur in office, probably assuming supporters would get patronage jobs.

1881–1885: Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur was a Stalwart and was expected to continue patronage. However, Arthur became a reformer, maybe due to Garfield's assassination. In 1883, he pushed the Pendleton Act for civil service reform. Government jobs were to be awarded on merit through competitive examinations, not on party politics. It was then unlawful to fire or demote employees for political reasons. Only about 10 percent of employees at the time fell under the system. About 90 percent do so today. Arthur's reforms angered his own party, and he was not renominated.

 

 

1885–1889: Grover Cleveland
Cleveland ran against Republican James G. Blaine. Again, scandal sullied the election. Blaine was accused of using his influence for selfish gain. Republican reformers then supported Cleveland. Regular Republicans "waved the bloody flag" of the Civil War tragedies to discredit the Democrats and exploited the scandal that bachelor Cleveland had a child with a widow. A Protestant preacher's misguided quote unwittingly helped Cleveland by alienating Catholic and Irish voters, calling them the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion."

In office, Cleveland advocated sound money over greenbacks, reducing inflation, stopping patronage, and vetoing bloated government pensions. However, he angered businesses by supporting lower tariffs.

1889–1893: Benjamin Harrison
Electoral votes were key once again. While Cleveland received almost 100,000 more popular votes (although voter fraud occurred), Harrison won the electoral vote. Harrison rewarded his supporters with the McKinley Tariff (highest rates to that time), and ballooning pensions.

However, this was out of touch with the country's disadvantaged. Democrats regained seats in the congressional elections, and farmers rose against Republicans, forming the Grange and eventually the Populist Party.

 

1893–1897: Grover Cleveland
The Populists split the Republican vote so that Cleveland was reelected to a nonconsecutive term. He was immediately confronted with an economic depression. Although he dealt with a bothersome surplus in his first term, he was plagued by deficit in the second.

The depression and the deficit resulted in his attempt to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Cleveland also dealt with the violent Pullman strike of 1894.