IN THE WAKE OF WAR

1. IN THE WAKE OF WAR • New Problems, New Solutions • industrialization and urbanization changed the structure of the American economy and society • American political history in the last quarter of the 19th century was singularly divorced from the meaningful issues of the day • on the rare occasions that important issues did become the subject of debate, they occasioned far less argument than they merited

2. The Triumph of Self-Interest • after Civil War Americans became materialistic • they professed a belief in laissez-faire, a policy of government noninterference in business • people tolerated the grossest kind of waste and corruption in high places • Mark Twain described this period as “the Gilded Age” dazzling on the surface but base metal below

3. by the 1870s, Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859) influenced American public opinion • William Graham Sumner drew an analogy between survival of the fittest in nature and in human society • the application of Darwinist theory to social relations became known as social Darwinism

4. Congress Ascendant • a succession of weak presidents occupied White House, and Congress dominated government • within Congress, the Senate generally overshadowed the House • critics called the Senate a rich man’s club, but its real source of influence derived from the long tenure of many of its members and the small number of senators • then, too, the House of Representatives was one of the most disorderly and inefficient legislative bodies in the world

5. although the Democrats and Republicans competed fiercely, they seldom took clearly opposing positions on the issues of the day • fundamental division between Democrats and Republicans was sectional, result of Civil War • the South was heavily Democratic; New England remained solidly Republican; and the rest of the country was split, although Republicans tended to have the advantage • wealthy northerners and blacks tended to be Republicans; immigrants and Catholics tended to be Democrats

6. even though Democrats won presidency only twice, most presidential elections in late nineteenth century were extremely close, and congressional majorities fluctuated continually

7. The Political Aftermath of War • Republicans attacked Democrats by waving the “bloody shirt” (reminding voters that the Democrats had been party of secession and that Democrats denied rights to blacks in South) • other major issues included the tariff, currency, and civil service reform

8. Blacks After Reconstruction • both Republicans and Democrats subscribed to hypocritical statements about black equality and constitutional rights, but neither did anything to implement them • for a time, southern blacks were not totally disfranchised • rival white political factions tried to manipulate black voters • in the 1890s, however, southern states began to use poll taxes and literacy tests to bar blacks from voting

9. Supreme Court decisions curtailed black civil rights and power of government to defend them • in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed civil rights against invasion by the state, but not by individuals • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld legality of separate public accommodations for blacks and whites, so long as they were of equal quality • in practice, facilities provided for blacks were separate; they were rarely equal

10. Booker T. Washington: A “Reasonable” Champion for Blacks • some blacks responded to racism and discrimination by adopting militant black nationalism; others advocated a revival of the African colonization movement; neither of these approaches won many adherents • the dominant black leader of the period, Booker T. Washington, believed that blacks needed to accommodate themselves to white prejudices, at least temporarily, and concentrate on self-improvement

11. these ideas, expressed in his “Atlanta Compromise” speech, established his reputation as a moderate, “reasonable” black leader • in public, he minimized the importance of civil and political rights; behind the scenes, however, he lobbied against discriminatory measures and financed test cases in the courts

12. White Violence and Vengeance • for decades after the Civil War, some southern whites had attempted to replace the legal subjugation of slavery with a new form of subjugation based on terror • between 1890 and 1910, an average of nearly a hundred blacks were lynched each year • even more striking was the utter savagery of many of the lynchings • violence succeeded in disfranchising southern black men and driving them out of public spaces

13. ironically, this created an opportunity for black women to fill the void created by the disfranchisement of black men • black women in religious and reform associations became the points of contact with the white community

14. The West after the Civil War • there was neither a typical West nor westerner • many parts of region had as large a percentage of foreign-born residents as the eastern cities • although often portrayed as an unpopulated region with large open spaces, the West contained several growing cities, including San Francisco and Denver • if the western economy was predominantly agricultural and extractive, it also had both a commercial and developing industrial component

15. the West epitomized the social Darwinist psychology of post-Civil War America • beginning in the mid-1850s, a steady flow of Chinese immigrated to the United States • many worked building the railroads • with the completion of the railroads, Chinese began to look elsewhere for work • workers in San Francisco, who resented the competition, rioted • by 1882, these problems led Congress to prohibit Chinese immigration for ten years; later this ban was extended indefinitely

16. The Plains Indians • in 1860, the Indians still occupied roughly half the United States; by 1877, they had been shattered as independent peoples; the Plains Indians lived by hunting • they eagerly adopted the products of white culture-clothing, weapons, horses • westward expansion by whites put pressure on Indian lands • in 1851, Thomas Fitzpatrick, an Indian agent, negotiated agreements with several tribes of Plains Indians at Horse Creek, Wyoming

17. each tribe agreed to accept definite limits on its hunting grounds • in return, the Indians were promised gifts and annual payments • this policy, known as “concentration,” was designed to reduce intertribal warfare and, more important, to enable the government to negotiate separately with each tribe • the United States maintained that each tribe was a sovereign nation, to be dealt with as an equal in treaties, although both sides knew that such was not the case

18. Indian Wars • white encroachments led to the outbreak of guerrilla warfare, in the course of which both sides committed atrocities • in 1867, the government tried a new strategy to replace the “concentration” policy • all Indians would be confined to reservations and forced to become farmers • some Indians refused to yield to the new policy and waged war against both the U.S. Army and settlers

19. Indians made superb cavalry soldiers and often held off or defeated American troops • granting the inevitability of white expansion, some version of the “small reservation” policy was probably best for the Indians • however, maladministration hampered the government’s policy • treaties did not provide adequate land for the Indians, and Indian agents often cheated Indians • the discovery of gold on the Black Hills Indian Reservation led to further fighting, including Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn

20. The Destruction of Tribal Life • the bison formed the mainstay of the Indian’s food and provided materials for clothing, tools, and shelter • its destruction led to disintegration of tribal life • many whites, including those sympathetic to the Indians’ plight, believed that the only way to solve the “Indian problem” was to persuade them to abandon their tribal culture and to live on family farms

21. the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) allotted tribal lands to individual Indians, provided funds for education, and granted United States citizenship to those who accepted allotments and “adopted the habits of civilized life” • although the bill’s sponsors perceived it as a humanitarian reform, it had disastrous results • it shattered what remained of Indian culture without enabling Indians to adapt to white ways

22. The Lure of Gold and Silver in the West • Americans had long regarded the West as a limitless resource to be exploited • miners chased “strikes,” which gave rise to boom towns, many of which soon died • major strikes were made at Fraser River, Pikes Peak, and Nevada (the Comstock Lode) • the boom towns of the West reflected the get-rich-quick attitude prevalent in the East • few gave any thought of conserving the resources

23. gold towns attracted a variety of characters, and law enforcement was a constant problem • prospectors may have made key discoveries, but larger mining interests developed the resources and made most of the profits • gold rushes increased interest in the West and generated a valuable literature • moreover, each new strike and rush, no matter how ephemeral, brought permanent settlers: farmers, cattlemen, storekeepers, lawyers, and ministers

24. gold bolstered the financial position of the United States and helped pay for the import of European goods • gold towns also consumed American agricultural and manufactured goods

25. Big Business and the Land Bonanza • the Homestead Act (1862) intended to create 160-acre family farms, but things did not work out as planned • even if land was free, most landless Americans could not afford the cost of moving and purchasing the necessary farm equipment • factory workers had neither the skills nor the interest to become farmers

26. moreover, 160 acres was not sufficient for farms in the far West; the Timber Culture Act (1873) increased the figure to 320 acres and required the planting of trees on the land • large speculators grabbed much of the land, and private interests destroyed much of the western forests • some corporate “bonanza” farmers made profits, but even commercialized agriculture could not withstand the droughts of the 1880s

27. Western Railroad Building • the government subsidized the construction of western railroads through a combination of land grants and loans • government lands adjacent to the railroads were not open to homesteading because such free land would prevent the railroads from disposing of their granted lands at good prices • land grant railroads encouraged the growth of the West by advertising and selling their lands • they also provided inexpensive transportation and shipping for settlers • corruption and waste often marred the construction of railroads

28. The Cattle Kingdom • the cattle industry developed as a result of increasing demands for food in eastern cities and the expansion of the railroad network • cattle were driven from Texas to Sedalia, Abilene, and points westward on the railroads, where the cattlemen sold them for substantial profits the long drive produced the American cowboy, about a third of whom were black or Mexican • cattle towns such as Abilene, Wichita, and Dodge City thrived • life in these towns was neither so violent nor disorderly as legend has it

29. Open-Range Ranching • cattlemen began raising stock closer to the railheads, eliminating the long drive • open-range ranching on the northern plains required little more than the possession of cattle and access to water • the open range made actual ownership of much land unnecessary • ranchers often banded together to obtain legal title to watercourses and grazed their cattle in common on adjacent lands

30. their herds became intermixed and could be distinguished only by brands • Easterners and Europeans invested in the ranches, and a few large ranches eventually came to dominate the industry

31. Barbed Wire Warfare • by the mid-1880s, crowding on the range and lack of clear land titles gave rise to conflict and violence • compounding matters, Congress refused to change the land laws and thereby encouraged those who could not get title to enough land legally to resort to fraud • individuals and groups began to fence off large areas of land they considered their own, a step made possible by the invention of barbed wire • fencing often led to conflicts

32. overproduction drove down beef prices, and many sections were overgrazed • the severe winter of 1886 to 1887 killed between 80-90 percent of cattle on the range and ended open-range cattle ranching • the industry revived on a smaller, more efficient scale