Ap History 2 Chapter 20

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MINOR V. HAPPERSET

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a United States Supreme Court case appealed from the Supreme Court of Missouri concerning the Missouri law which ordained "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote."

Virginia Minor, a leader of the women's suffrage movement in Missouri, alleged that the refusal of Reese Happersett, a Missouri state registrar, to allow her to register to vote was an infringement of her civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

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POLL TAX

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In U.S. practice, a poll tax was used as a de facto or implicit pre-condition of the exercise of the ability to vote. Many countries still do not follow this law. This tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late 19th century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the ability to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws which often included a grandfather clause that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws, along with unfairly implemented literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation,[1] achieved the desired effect of disenfranchising African-American and Native American voters as well as poor whites who immigrated after the year specified.

Initially, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), found the poll tax to be constitutional. The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, reflecting a political compromise,[citation needed] abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition in voting in Federal elections, but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections.

In the 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections the Supreme Court overruled its decision in Breedlove v. Suttles, and extended the prohibition of poll taxes to state elections, declaring that the imposition of a poll tax in state elections violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Harper ruling was one of several that rely on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the 15th Amendment. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, the last four states to still have poll tax laws had those laws declared unconstitutional by Federal courts, starting with Texas on 9 February. Decisions followed for Alabama (3 March) and Virginia (25 March). Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equal to $13.53 today) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on 8 April 1966, by a Federal panel in Jackson, Mississippi.[2]

Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court did not accept this.

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WILLIAMS V. MISSISSIPPI

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a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the state constitution that set requirements for voter registration. The Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's requirements for voters to pass a literacy test and pay poll taxes, as these were applied to all voters.

In practice, the subjective nature of literacy approval by white registrars worked to drastically decrease and essentially disfranchise African American voters.

The Court considered the new Mississippi constitution passed in 1890. It upheld disfranchisement clauses which established requirements for literacy tests and poll taxes paid retroactively from one's 21st birthday as prerequisites for voter registration. A grandfather clause effectively exempted illiterate whites, but not blacks, from the literacy test by relating qualifications to whether one's grandfather had voted before a certain date. Because the provisions applied to all potential voters, the Court upheld them, although in practice the provisions had discriminatory effect on African Americans and poor whites.

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LITERACY TEST

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in the context of United States political history, refers to the government practice of testing the literacy of potential citizens at the federal level, and potential voters at the state level. The federal government first employed literacy tests as part of the immigration process in 1917. Southern state legislatures employed literacy tests as part of the voter registration process as early as the late nineteenth century.

Literacy tests, along with poll taxes and extra-legal intimidation,[1], were used to deny suffrage to African-Americans in a number of southern states, while allowing many illiterate whites to vote.

Southern states abandoned the literacy test only when forced to do so by federal legislation in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided that literacy tests used as a qualification for voting in federal elections be administered wholly in writing and only to persons who had not completed six years of formal education. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended the use of literacy tests in all states or political subdivisions in which less than 50 percent of voting-age residents were registered as of 1 November 1964 or had voted in the 1964 presidential election. In a series of cases, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legislation and restricted the use of literacy tests for non-English-speaking citizens. Since the passage of this legislation, black registration in the South has increased dramatically.

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GRANDFATHER CLAUSE

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a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption. Frequently, the exemption is limited; it may extend for a set period of time, or it may be lost under certain circumstances. For example, a "grandfathered power plant" might be exempt from new, more restrictive pollution laws, but those rules would apply if the plant were expanded. Often, such a provision is used as a compromise, to effect new rules without upsetting a well-established logistical or political situation. This extends the idea of a rule not being retroactively applied.

The term originated in late-19th-century legislation and constitutional amendments passed by a number of U.S. Southern states, which created new literacy and property restrictions on voting, but exempted those whose ancestors (grandfathers) had the right to vote before the Civil War. The intent and effect of such rules was to prevent poor and illiterate African American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote. Although these original grandfather clauses were eventually ruled unconstitutional, the terms grandfather clause and grandfather remain in use, with no connotation regarding the justness of these provisions when applied in other areas.

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HOMESTEAD ACT

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one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "Homestead" –typically 160 acres (65 hectares or one-fourth section) of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. The occupant also had to be 21 or older, had to live on the land for five years and show evidence of having made improvements. The original Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Because much of the prime low-lying alluvial land along rivers had been homesteaded by the turn of the twentieth century, a major update called the Enlarged Homestead Act was passed in 1909. It targeted land suitable for dryland farming, increasing the number of acres to 320.[7] In 1916, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act targeted settlers seeking 640 acres (260 ha) of public land for ranching purposes.[7]

Only about 40 percent of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it and obtain title to their homestead land.[8] Eventually 1.6 million homesteads were granted and 270,000,000 acres (420,000 sq mi) of federal land were privatized between 1862 and 1934, a total of 10% of all lands in the United States.[9] Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986.

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MUNN V. ILLINOIS

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a United States Supreme Court case dealing with corporate rates and agriculture. The Munn case allowed states to regulate certain businesses within their borders, including railroads, and is commonly regarded as a milestone in the growth of federal government regulation.

This case was decided 7 to 2 and involved the famous opinion delivered by Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite (1816–1888). In it, he upheld legislation proposed by the National Grange to regulate the rates of railroad owned grain elevators, declaring that business interests (private property) used for public good be regulated by government. This decision also affected similar laws governing railroad rates; as they were also deemed private utilities serving the public interest, the laws governing their rates were constitutional as well. Both applications were considerably narrowed and weakened by the decision in Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois (also known as the Wabash Case). The other judges presiding on the case were Nathan Clifford, Noah Swayne, Samuel Miller, David Davis, Joseph Bradley, and Ward Hunt with the majority opinion, and Stephen Field and William Strong with the dissenting opinion.

In Munn v. Illinois, the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment (because Munn asserted his due process right to property was being violated) did not prevent the State of Illinois from regulating charges for use of a business' grain elevators. Instead, the decision focused on the question of whether or not a private company could be regulated in the public interest. The court's decision was that it could, if the private company could be seen as a utility operating in the public interest.

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WABASH DECISION

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also known as the Wabash Case, was a Supreme Court decision that severely limited the rights of states to control interstate commerce. It led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

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ICC

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a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. The agency was abolished in 1995, and its remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.

The Commission's five members were appointed by the President with the consent of the United States Senate. This was the first independent agency (or so-called Fourth Branch).

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INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT

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a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices.[1] The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. It also required that railroads publicize shipping rates and prohibited short haul/long haul fare discrimination, a form of price discrimination against smaller markets, particularly farmers. The Act created a federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which it charged with monitoring railroads to ensure that they complied with the new regulations.

The Act was the first federal law to regulate private industry in the United States.[2] It was later amended to regulate other modes of transportation and commerce.

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BLAND-ALLISON SILVER PURCHASE ACT

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The Fourth Coinage Act was enacted by the United States Congress in 1873 and embraced the gold standard and demonetized silver. Western mining interests and others who wanted silver in circulation years later labeled this measure the "Crime of '73"[1]. Gold became the only metallic standard in the United States, hence putting the United States de facto on the gold standard.

The U.S. did not actually adopt the gold standard de jure until 1900, following a lengthy period of debate that was made famous by William Jennings Bryan's cross of gold speech at the 1896 Democratic convention. By this time, most major nations had moved to a gold standard. The only major nation that continued on the silver standard into the twentieth century was China. China and Hong Kong abandoned the silver standard in 1935.

The act (H. R. 2934) also placed the United States Mint within the jurisdiction of the United States Department of the Treasury, and specified four United States mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco, Carson City, and Denver, and two assay-offices at New York and Boise City, Idaho.

Finally, the act also ended production of three minor coins, the half dime, the silver Three-cent piece, and the Two-cent piece. None of these were still necessary, and both the half dime and Three-cent piece had been replaced by other coins.

H. R. 2934 was a very lengthy bill written in 67 sections which filled 35 pages in the House Journal on May 27, 1872. When presented to President Grant, he promptly signed it into law on February 12, 1873.

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JAMES G BLAINE

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a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State. He was nominated for president in 1884, but lost a close race to Democrat Grover Cleveland.

Blaine was a dominant Republican leader of the late 19th century, and champion of the "Half-Breed" faction of the GOP. Nicknamed "The Continental Liar From the State of Maine," "Slippery Jim," and "The Magnetic Man," he was a magnetic speaker in an era that prized oratory, and a man of charisma. As a moderate Republican he supported President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. As a major leader during Reconstruction he took an independent course in his advocacy of black suffrage, but opposed the coercive measures of the Radical Republicans during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. He opposed a general amnesty bill, secured the support of the Union veterans who mobilized as the Grand Army of the Republic, worked for a reduction in the tariff and generally sought and obtained strong support from the western states. Railroad promotion and construction were important in this period, and as a result of his interest and support Blaine was charged with graft and corruption in the awarding of railroad charters. The proof or falsity of the charges was supposed to rest in the so-called "Mulligan letters," which Blaine refused to release to the public, but from which he read in his controversial defense in the House.

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PENDLETON ACT

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The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of United States is a federal law established in 1883 that stipulated that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit.[1] The act provided selection of government employees competitive exams,[1] rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons.[1] To enforce the merit system and the judicial system, the law also created the United States Civil Service Commission.[1]

Started during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to the massive public support of civil service reform that grew following President James Garfield's assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau.[1] Despite his previous support of the patronage system,[1] Arthur, nevertheless, became an ardent supporter of civil service reform as president.[1] The Act was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The Act was sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, Democratic Senator of Ohio, and written by Dorman Bridgeman Eaton, a staunch opponent of the patronage system who was later first chairman of the United States Civil Service Commission. However, the law would also prove to be a major political liability for Arthur.[1] The law offended machine politicians within the Republican Party and did not prove to be enough for the party's reformers; hence, Arthur lost popularity within the Republican Party and was unable to win the party's Presidential nomination at the 1884 Republican National Convention.[1]

The law only applied to federal government jobs: not to the state and local jobs that were the basis for political machines. At first, the Pendleton Act only covered very few jobs, as only 10% of the US government's civilian employees had civil service jobs.[1] However, there was a ratchet provision whereby outgoing presidents could lock in their own appointees by converting their jobs to civil service. After a series of party reversals at the presidential level (1884, 1888, 1892, 1896), the result was that most federal jobs were under civil service. One result was more expertise and less politics. An unintended result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls. The act also prohibits soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property.

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MCKINLEY TARIFF ACT

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The Tariff Act of 1890, commonly called the McKinley Tariff, was an act framed by Representative William McKinley that became law on October 1, 1890. The tariff raised the average duty on imports to almost fifty percent, an act designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.[1] Protectionism, a tactic supported by Republicans, was fiercely debated by politicians and condemned by Democrats. The McKinley Tariff was replaced with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff in 1894, which promptly lowered tariff rates.

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SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT

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requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901–1909).

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US V. EC KNIGHT

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also known as the "'Sugar Trust Case,'" was a United States Supreme Court case that limited the government's power to control monopolies. The case, which was the first heard by the Supreme Court concerning the Sherman Antitrust Act, was argued on October 24, 1894 and the decision was issued on January 21, 1895.

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SHERMAN SILVER PURCHASE ACT

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The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was enacted on July 14, 1890[1] as a United States federal law. It was named after its author, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. While not authorizing the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the Free Silver supporters wanted, it increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase every month. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been passed in response to the growing complaints of farmers and mining interests. Farmers had immense debts that could not be paid off due to deflation caused by overproduction, and they urged the government to pass the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in order to boost the economy and cause inflation, allowing them to pay their debts with cheaper dollars.[2] Mining companies, meanwhile, had extracted vast quantities of silver from western mines; the resulting oversupply drove down the price of their product, often to below the point where it was not profitable to mine it. They hoped to enlist the government to artificially increase the demand for silver.
The act was enacted in tandem with the McKinley Tariff of 1890. William McKinley, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee worked with John Sherman, the senior Republican Senator from Ohio, to create a package that could both pass the Senate and receive the President's approval.
Under the Act, the federal government purchased millions of ounces of silver, with issues of paper currency; it became the second-largest buyer in the world, after the government of India. In addition to the $2 million to $4 million that had been required by the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, the U.S. government was now required to purchase an additional 4.5 million ounces of silver bullion every month. The law required the Treasury to buy the silver with a special issue of Treasury (Coin) Notes that could be redeemed for either silver or gold. That plan backfired, as people (mostly investors) turned in the new coin notes for gold dollars, thus depleting the government's gold reserves. The reduction of receipts of specie in payment of the tariff, from the curtailment of imports under the McKinley Tariff, compounded the problem. After the Panic of 1893 broke, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the repeal of the Act in 1893 to prevent the depletion of the country's gold reserves. Banker J. P. Morgan stepped in to form a syndicate that saved the U.S. with a massive gold loan, for which he received a commission. Nevertheless, Morgan succeeded in saving the nation from bankruptcy. While the repeal of the Act is sometimes blamed for the Panic, the Panic was already well underway.[2]

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SILVERITES

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The Silverites were a political group in the United States in the late-19th century that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792. The Silverite coalition's famous slogan was "16 to 1" – that is, the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver equal in value to one ounce of gold, a ratio similar to that established in the Coinage Act of 1834.
The Silverites advocated free coinage of silver. They wanted to lower the gold standard of the United States to silver, which would have simultaneously allowed more money to be printed and made available to the public and cause inflation. Many Silverites were in the West, where silver was mined. Advocates predicted that if silver were used as the standard of money, they would be able to pay off all of their debt. The debt amount would stay the same but they would have more silver money with which to pay it.
The Silverites' main presidential candidate was William Jennings Bryan, who famously argued in favor of their position in his Cross of Gold speech. Though he ran several times for president, he was never elected.

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BILLION DOLLAR CONGRESS

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The Fifty-first United States Congress, referred to by some critics as the Billion Dollar Congress, was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1889 to March 4, 1891, during the first two years of the administration of U.S. President Benjamin Harrison.
The apportionment of seats in this House of Representatives was based on the Tenth Census of the United States in 1880. Both chambers had a Republican majority.It was responsible for a number of pieces of landmark legislation, many of which asserted the authority of the federal government.
Emboldened by their success in the elections of 1888, the Republicans enacted virtually their entire platform during their first 303-day session, including a measure that provided American Civil War veterans with generous pensions and expanded the list of eligible recipients to include noncombatants and the children of veterans. Grover Cleveland had vetoed a similar bill in 1887. It was criticized as the "Billion Dollar Congress'" for its lavish spending and, for this reason it incited drastic reversals in public support that led to Cleveland's reelection in 1892.
Other important legislation passed into law by the Congress included the McKinley tariff, authored by Representative, and future President, William McKinley; the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibited business combinations that restricted trade; and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the U.S. government to mint silver. The last two were concessions to Western farmer interests in exchange for support of the tariff and would become central tenets of the Populist Party later in the decade. They were authored by Senator John Sherman.
The Fifty-first Congress was also responsible for passing the Land Revision Act of 1891, which created the national forests. Harrison authorized America's first forest reserve in Yellowstone, Wyoming, the same year.
Other bills were discussed but failed to pass, including two significant pieces of legislation focused on ensuring African Americans the right to vote. Henry Cabot Lodge sponsored a so-called Force Bill that would have established federal supervision of Congressional elections so as to prevent the disfranchisement of southern blacks. Henry W. Blair sponsored the Blair Education Bill, which advocated the use of federal aid for education in order to frustrate southern whites employing literacy tests to prevent blacks from registering to vote.
June 27, 1890: Dependent Pension Act
July 2, 1890: Sherman Antitrust Act, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209
July 14, 1890: Sherman Silver Purchase Act, ch. 708, 26 Stat. 289
August 30, 1890: Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
October 1, 1890: McKinley Tariff, ch. 1244, 26 Stat. 567
March 3, 1891: Forest Reserve Act of 1891
March 3, 1891: Land Revision Act of 1891
March 3, 1891: Immigration Act of 1891
March 3, 1891: Merchant Marine Act of 1891

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NATIONAL FARMERS ALLIANCE AND INDUSTRIAL UNION (ALL THE ALLIANCES)

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The Farmers Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement amongst U.S. farmers that flourished in the 1880s. One of the goals of the organization was to end the adverse effects of the crop-lien system on farmers after the American Civil War.[1][2] First formed in 1876 in Lampasas, Texas, the Alliance was designed to promote higher commodity prices through collective action by groups of individual farmers. The movement was strongest in the South, and was widely popular before it was destroyed by the power of commodity brokers. Despite its failure, it is regarded as the precursor to the Populist Party, which grew out of the ashes of the Alliance in 1892.

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OCALA DEMANDS(PLATFORM)

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a platform for economic and political reform that was later adopted by the People's Party.
In December, 1890, the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, more commonly known as the Southern Farmers' Alliance, its affiliate the Colored Farmers' Alliance, and the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association met jointly in the Marion Opera House in Ocala, Florida, where they adopted the Ocala Demands.

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POPULIST PARTY

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a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away. Based among poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), it represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to banks, railroads, and elites generally. It sometimes formed coalitions with labor unions, and in 1896 endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan. The terms "populist" and "populism" are commonly used for anti-elitist appeals in opposition to established interests and mainstream parties.

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GREENBACK-LABOR PARTY

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an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology[2] that was active between 1874 and 1884. Its name referred to paper money, or "greenbacks," that had been issued during the American Civil War and afterward. The party opposed the shift from paper money back to a bullion coin-based monetary system because it believed that privately owned banks and corporations would then reacquire the power to define the value of products and labor. It also condemned the use of militias and private police against union strikes.[3] Conversely, they believed that government control of the monetary system would allow it to keep more currency in circulation, as it had in the war. This would better foster business and assist farmers by raising prices and making debts easier to pay. It was established as a political party whose members were primarily farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.

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INDUSTRIAL BLACK FRIDAY

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known as the Fisk/Gould scandal, was a financial panic in the United States caused by two speculators’ efforts to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange. It was one of several scandals that rocked the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. During the reconstruction era after the American Civil War, the United States government issued a large amount of money that was backed by nothing but credit. After the war ended, people commonly believed that the U.S. Government would buy back the “greenbacks” with gold. In 1869, a group of speculators, headed by James Fisk and Jay Gould, sought to profit off this by cornering the gold market. Gould and Fisk first recruited Grant’s brother-in-law, a financier named Abel Corbin. They used Corbin to get close to Grant in social situations, where they would argue against government sale of gold, and Corbin would support their arguments. Corbin convinced Grant to appoint General Daniel Butterfield as assistant Treasurer of the United States. Butterfield agreed to tip the men off when the government intended to sell gold.
In the late summer of 1869, Gould began buying large amounts of gold. This caused prices to rise and stocks to plummet. After Grant realized what had happened, the federal government sold $4 million in gold. On September 20, 1869, Gould and Fisk started hoarding gold, driving the price higher. On September 24 the premium on a gold Double Eagle (representing 0.9675 troy ounces (30.09 g) of gold bullion at $20) was 30 percent higher than when Grant took office. But when the government gold hit the market, the premium plummeted within minutes. Investors scrambled to sell their holdings, and many of them, including Corbin, were ruined. Fisk and Gould escaped significant financial harm.
Subsequent Congressional investigation was chaired by James A. Garfield. The investigation was alleged on the one hand to have been limited because Virginia Corbin and First Lady Julia Grant were not permitted to testify. Garfield's biographer, Alan Peskin, however, maintains the investigation was quite thorough. Butterfield resigned from the U.S. Treasury. Henry Adams, who believed that President Ulysses S. Grant had tolerated, encouraged, and perhaps even participated in corruption and swindles, attacked Grant in an 1870 article entitled The New York Gold Conspiracy.
Although Grant was not directly involved in the scandal, his personal association with Gould and Fisk gave clout to their attempt to manipulate the gold market. Also, Grant's order to release gold in response to gold's rising price was itself a manipulation of the market. Grant had personally declined to listen to Gould's ambitious plan to corner the gold market, since the scheme was not announced publicly, but he could not be trusted. Gould had promoted the plan to Grant as a means to help farmers sell a bountiful 1869 wheat crop to Europe.[1]
A highly fictionalized account of Fisk's life, culminating in a dramatic presentation of the gold corner, was shown in the 1937 film The Toast of New York.

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PANIC OF 1893

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a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year.[1] Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. Compounding market overbuilding and the railroad bubble, was a run on the gold supply (relative to silver), because of the long-established American policy of bimetallism, which used both silver and gold metals at a fixed 16:1 rate for pegging the value of the US Dollar. Until the Great Depression, the Panic of '93 was considered the worst depression the United States had ever experienced.

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COXEY'S ARMY

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a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by the populist Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Army of the Commonweal in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march.

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PULLMAN STRIKE

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a nationwide conflict between labor unions and railroads that occurred in the United States in 1894. The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois on May 11 when approximately 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt.[1] The American Railway Union, the nation's first industry-wide union, led by Eugene V. Debs, subsequently became embroiled in what The New York Times described as "a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital" that involved some 250,000 workers in 27 states at its peak.[2]

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IN RE DEBS

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a United States Supreme Court decision handed down concerning Eugene V. Debs and labor unions. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, had been involved in the Pullman Strike earlier in 1894 and challenged the federal injunction ordering the strikers back to work where they would face being fired. The injunction had been issued because of the violent nature of the strike. However, Debs refused to end the strike and was subsequently cited for contempt of court; he appealed the decision to the courts.
The main question being debated was whether the federal government had a right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars. With an opinion written by Justice David Josiah Brewer, the court ruled in a unanimous decision in favor of the U.S. government. Joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Associate Justices Stephen Johnson Field, John Marshall Harlan, Horace Gray, Henry Billings Brown, George Shiras, Jr., Howell Edmunds Jackson, and Edward Douglass White, the court ruled that the government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and ensure the operations of the Postal Service, along with a responsibility to "ensure the general welfare of the public." The decision somewhat slowed the theretofore building momentum of labor unions, which had been making gains in government in respect to legislation, Supreme Court decisions, etc. Debs would go on to lose another Supreme Court case in Debs v. United States.

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WILSON-GORMAN TARIFF ACT

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The Revenue Act or Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 (ch. 349, §73, 28 Stat. 570, August 27, 1894) slightly reduced the United States tariff rates from the numbers set in the 1890 McKinley tariff and imposed a 2% income tax. It is named for William L. Wilson, Representative from West Virginia, chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, and Senator Arthur P. Gorman of Maryland, both Democrats.
Supported by the Democrats, this attempt at tariff reform was important because it imposed the first peacetime income tax (2% on income over $4,000 or $88,100 in 2010 dollars, which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any). The purpose of the income tax was to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions. By coincidence, $4,000 ($88,100 in 2010 dollars) would be the exemption for married couples when the Revenue Act of (October) 1913 was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, as a result of the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in February 1913.
The bill introduced by Wilson and passed by the House significantly lowered tariff rates, in accordance with Democratic platform promises, and dropped the tariff to zero on iron ore, coal, lumber and wool, which angered American producers. With Senator Gorman operating behind the scenes, protectionists in the Senate added more than 600 amendments that nullified most of the reforms and raised rates again. The "Sugar Trust" in particular made changes that favored itself at the expense of the consumer.
President Grover Cleveland, who had campaigned on lowering the tariff and supported Wilson's version of the bill, was devastated that his program had been ruined. He denounced the revised measure as a disgraceful product of "party perfidy and party dishonor," but still allowed it to become law without his signature, believing that it was better than nothing and was at the least an improvement over the McKinley tariff.
The Wilson-Gorman Tariff attracted much opposition in West Texas, where sheepraisers opposed the measure. A Republican, George H. Noonan, was elected to Congress from the district stretching from San Angelo to San Antonio but only for a single term. Among Noonan's backers was a former slave, George B. Jackson, a businessman in San Angelo often called "the wealthiest black man in Texas" in the late 19th century.[1]

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ROMANTICISM VS REALISM

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Romanticism (or the Romantic Era or the "'Romantic Period"') was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution.[1] In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.[2] It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography,[3] education[4] and natural history.[5]
The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and terror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made of spontaneity a desirable character (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage.
Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.
The modern sense of a romantic character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner, creatively following the dictates of his inspiration rather than the standard ways of contemporary society.
Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.[6] Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.Realism, Realist or Realistic are terms that describe any manifestation of philosophical realism, the belief that reality exists independently of observers, whether in philosophy itself or in the applied arts and sciences. In this broad sense it is frequently contrasted with Idealism.
Realism in the arts concerns the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life. Political realism is a dominant school of thinking within the international relations discipline that prioritizes national interest and security over ideology, moral concerns and social reconstructions. In ethics moral realism takes the view that there are objective moral values. Scientific realism is the view that the world described by science is the real world and Mathematical realism a branch of philosophy of mathematics.

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COIN'S FINANICAL SCHOOL

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a popular pamphlet written in 1893 that helped popularize the free silver and populist movements. The author of the text "Coin", William Hope Harvey, would later go on to aid William Jennings Bryan in his bid for the presidency and would run for the presidency himself in the 1930s. The book was remarkably popular in its day, selling an estimated 1 million copies.
The thesis of Coin's Financial School is that London arranged the end of the free coinage of silver in 1873 because they had gold cornered and thus the large Civil War debt became payable in gold instead of silver. The Coinage Act of 1873 demonetized silver by allowing repayment of all debts in gold or silver at the option of the holder of the debt. The deflation resulting from the immediate removal of a significant portion of the nation's money supply affected agriculture and business severely.

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WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

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an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States (1896, 1900 and 1908). He served in the United States Congress briefly as a Representative from Nebraska and was the 41st United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson, 1913–1916. Bryan was a devout Presbyterian, a supporter of popular democracy, an enemy of gold, banks and railroads, a leader of the silverite movement in the 1890s, a peace advocate, a prohibitionist, and an opponent of Darwinism on religious grounds. With his deep, commanding voice and wide travels, he was one of the best known orators and lecturers of the era. Because of his faith in the goodness and rightness of the common people, he was called "The Great Commoner."
In the intensely fought 1896 and 1900 elections, he was defeated by William McKinley but retained control of the Democratic Party. With over 500 speeches in 1896, Bryan invented the national stumping tour, in an era when other presidential candidates stayed home. In his three presidential bids, he promoted Free Silver in 1896, anti-imperialism in 1900, and trust-busting in 1908, calling on Democrats to fight the trusts (big corporations) and big banks, and embrace anti-elitist ideals of republicanism. President Wilson appointed him Secretary of State in 1913, but Wilson's strong demands on Germany after the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915 caused Bryan to resign in protest.
After 1920 he was a strong supporter of Prohibition and energetically attacked Darwinism and evolution, most famously at the Scopes Trial in 1925. Five days after Bryan had won the case, he died in his sleep.[2]

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CROSS OF GOLD SPEECH

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delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 8, 1896.[1][2][3] The speech advocated bimetallism. Following the Coinage Act (1873), the United States abandoned its policy of bimetallism and began to operate a de facto gold standard, which was then modified by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1890. This was followed by the Panic of 1893, which resulted in a depression. In 1896, Bryan's wing of the Democratic Party rejected the policies of Bourbon Democratic President Grover Cleveland and wanted to standardize the value of the dollar to silver and opposed a monometallic gold standard. Despite other economic problems of the 1890s, the mandated purchasing of silver by the United States government is credited in part for reversing the deflation which the U.S. experienced from 1873 to 1896. Bryan would win the Democratic nomination in 1896, but he ultimately lost the general election.

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GOLD STANDARD ACT

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The Gold Standard Act of the United States was passed in 1900 (approved on March 14) and established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, stopping bimetallism (which had allowed silver in exchange for gold). It was signed by President William McKinley.
The Act fixed the value of the dollar at 25 8⁄10 grains of gold at 90% purity, equivalent to 23.22 grains (1.5046 grams) of pure gold.
The Gold Standard Act confirmed the nation's commitment to the gold standard by assigning gold a specific dollar value (just over $20.67 per Troy ounce). This took place after McKinley sent a team to Europe to try to figure out a silver agreement with France and Great Britain.
On April 25, 1933 the United States and Canada dropped the gold standard.