APUSH Chapter 23 Vocab – Flashcards

The term given to a political ploy used by many Republican presidential candidates and later Democrats as well to draw voters in the period following the Civil War

was created by Union Pacific Railroad insiders for their own personal benefit. The group created this company so they could hire themselves to build the railroad line at an inflated price of up to 348 percent. In order to curb dissent among politicians, it would distribute stocks in their company to a wide range of important individuals in the political landscape

nominated by Liberal Republicans for the presidential election of 1872 (against re-election of Republican Grant); office-hungry Democrats also endorsed his candidacy; notoriously unsound in his political judgments; lost election to Grant

1878 act passed by Congress that required the U.S. Treasury to purchase a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars. The bill was first vetoed by President Hayes but was ultimately passed by an override from Congress on February 28, 1878

The name given to the group within the Republican Party that was led by Roscoe Conkling. The handsome and imperious Conkling, a senator from New York, was a strong believe in the time-honored system of swapping civil-service jobs for votes

A group led by James G. Blaine of Main, the group was opposed the spoils system espoused by the Stalwart faction and even attempted civil service reform on occasion. However, the underlying dispute for the Half-Breeds against the Stalwarts was not really whether the spoils system was right or wrong, but who should be the one handing out the benefits within the spoils system

Republican presidential nominee in 1876 presidential election (against Democrat Tilden); chosen since Grant was out of the running and the Conklingites and Blaineites neutralizing each other, he was a compromising candidate; won through the Compromise of 1877; while in office, he called in federal troops to quell the unrest over a railroad strike (this brought the striking laborers support from the working-class) with the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds blocking each other, the Republicans nominated this compromise candidate for the presidential election of 1876

the New York attorney who led the prosecution of the Tweed Ring in the 1870s

An American politician who served as the 21st President of the United States. He was a member of the Republican Party and worked as a lawyer before becoming the 20th Vice President under James Garfield. While Garfield was mortally wounded by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, he did not die until September 19 of that year, at which time he was sworn in as president, serving until March 4, 1885. Senator Roscoe Conkling ran a powerful political machine in New York in the 1870s. This man, who later became president, was his chief henchman.

An act passed in 1883 to address the spoils system after it had apparently led to the death of President James A. Garfield at the hands of the mentally deranged job-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau. The act was the first real concrete step toward civil service reform and was thus referred to as the Magna Carta of civil-service reform

the general credited with winning the Civil War for the Union, he was nominated by the Republicans to be their presidential nominee in the election of 1868 after nearly had become dissatisfied with incumbent Andrew Johnson

a gifted cartoonist who worked for the New York Times drew several condemning cartoons of William M. Tweed, otherwise known as Boss Tweed, after the political machine was exposed of fraud and swindling money from New York City at Tammany Hall

involved the paper currency, primarily greenbacks, that had been issued during the war but now had fluctuating value in comparison to the gold standard, which had a fixed value linked to Panic of 1873; "hard-money" (creditors) people wanted disappearance of greenbacks; "cheap money" supporters (afflicted agrarian and debtor groups) clamored for a reissuance of greenbacks, reasoning that more money meant cheaper money and rising prices and easier to pay debts; hard money advocates carried the day, persuaded Grant to veto a bill to print more paper money in 1874 and scored another victory with the Resumption Act of 1875, which pledged the government to the further withdrawal of greenbacks from circulation and to the redemption of all paper currency in gold at face value (to begin in 1879); "soft money" supporters then looked for relief in silver to promote inflation, however Grant continued to listen to "hard money" supporters (often Republicans); Republican hard-money policy resulted in a backlash when it helped elect a Democratic House of Representatives in 1874 and spawned the Greenback Labor party in 1878

A group led by James G. Blaine of Main, the group was opposed the spoils system espoused by the Stalwart faction and even attempted civil service reform on occasion. However, the underlying dispute for the Half-Breeds against the Stalwarts was not really whether the spoils system was right or wrong, but who should be the one handing out the benefits within the spoils system

although it proved toothless and ineffective, the last feeble grasp by radical Republicans to guarantee black equality was this law

followers of Denis Kearney, who formed the Workingmen's party of California in 1877 to protest a variety of issues that troubled the state's workers, including rampant unemployment, dishonest banking, inequitable taxation, land monopoly, the growing power of railroads, and the immigration of Chinese laborers. In 1879, the Kearneyites became a significant political force in California and sent fifty-one delegates to the state's constitutional convention. Although California's new constitution met many of their demands, the Kearneyites apparently had little direct influence on the proceedings. By the presidential campaign of 1880, Kearney's party had lost most of its momentum and had practically disappeared from the stage of California politics.

The name given to Republican party members who switched sides to join forces with the Democrats after revelations that Blaine had potentially been involved in a financial scandal

The name given to a political group led by a mobster in Tammany Hall of New York City. The group was known for their lack of ethics in using bribery and graft to rig the elections and thus gain power for themselves and their associates

Another scandal during the Grant administration, it involved the pocketing of excise taxes on whiskey by middlemen and producers from 1874-1875. The taxes were supposed to go to the Treasury, but would end up in the pockets of certain individuals who would later claim that a lesser amount of whiskey had actually been delivered in order to make up the difference that they pocketed

Supreme Court case that upheld the "separate but equal" segregationist principles in the South. The case became an important precedent in settling cases involving the matter of segregation or otherwise unfair treatment of people of color

A fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army who served in the American Civil War. It was among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics and was succeeded by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW).

The 23rd President of the United States, serving one term from 1889 to 1893. A grandson of President William Henry Harrison, he was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there. During the American Civil War, he served as a Brigadier General in the XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. After the war he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Indiana, and was later appointed to the U.S. Senate from that state. in 1888 the Republicans set out to defeat Cleveland by nominating this man

Republican candidate in presidential election of 1880 (against Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock); won election but assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau a year later

Democratic nominee for presidential election of 1884 (against Republican James Blaine); campaign full of slander (barely any focus on platforms); barely won the election through winning plurality in New York; first Democrat to take office since Buchanan (28 years earlier); narrowed North-South chasm by naming two former Confederates to his cabinet; favored civil-service reform; vetoed many bills, took a lot of risks as President; openly appealed to Congress for lower tariffs (tentative issue at the time), which was often against his party's platform; 1888, lost re-election to Republican Harrison; later re-elected in 1892 (the only President to be reelected after defeat) against Republican Harrison; depression of 1893 sprang up right after his re-election, burdening him with a deepening deficit, Treasury was quickly losing gold; caught in a snag over making a deal with a banker to lend the government gold and over signing a bill which barely lowered tariffs and was deemed unconstitutional for violating the "direct tax" clause