Deck 20: From Smoke-Filled Rooms to Prairie Wildfire: 1877-1896

Question 1

The presidents during the last quarter of the nineteenth century

A) were weak leaders.
B) took strong stands on the issues.
C) were elected by landslides.
D) dominated both houses of Congress.

Answer 1

were weak leaders.

Question 2

During the late 1800s, the legislative body known as a "rich man's club" was the

A) New York State Assembly.
B) City Council of New York.
C) House of Representatives.
D) Senate.

Answer 2

Senate.

Question 3

During the late nineteenth century, the House of Representatives was

A) controlled by a few long-term members.
B) disorderly and inefficient.
C) admired for its statesmanship.
D) more deliberative than the Senate.

Answer 3

disorderly and inefficient.

Question 4

The distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans during the late nineteenth century arose from differences

A) in religious affiliation, geographic location, and ethnic background.
B) on civil service reform, foreign policy, and protective legislation.
C) on civil rights for blacks, Indian policy, and women's rights.
D) on tariffs, internal improvements, and currency policy.

Question 5

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, Republicans were particularly strong in the ________ states.

A) middle Atlantic
B) southern
C) far western
D) New England

Question 6

National elections between 1856 and 1912 were characterized by

A) close elections mostly won by the Democrats.
B) close elections mostly won by the Republicans.
C) contests easily won by the Democrats.
D) close elections with an even balance of power.

Question 7

The "bloody shirt" issue of the late 1800s refers to

A) post-Civil War sectional tensions.
B) federal Indian policies.
C) conflicts between homesteaders and ranchers.
D) conflicts between workers and employers.

Question 8

How did politicians respond to the demand for civil service reform?

A) Democrats supported and Republicans rejected it.
B) Republicans refused to include it in their party platforms.
C) Both Democrats and Republicans insisted it would destroy the political parties.
D) Republicans supported and Democrats rejected it.

Question 9

Political campaigns during the late nineteenth century were characterized by

A) extensive debate on the major issues.
B) character assassination, bribery, and fraud.
C) honesty and integrity.
D) restraint of partisanship.

Question 10

The presidents during the late nineteenth century

A) were often elected by landslides, but failed to carry out the voters' wishes.
B) took strong stands on the issues, giving the voters clear choices.
C) were lackluster leaders who showed little interest in important contemporary questions.
D) dominated both houses of the Congress by their patronage powers.

Question 11

Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated for the presidency because of his reputation for

A) favoring an inflationary monetary policy.
B) getting bribes and offices for his supporters.
C) political glamour and charisma.
D) being honest and moderate.

Question 12

In 1881 President ________ was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, an unbalanced office-seeker.

A) Rutherford B. Hayes
B) Grover Cleveland
C) Benjamin Harrison
D) James A. Garfield

Question 13

The Pendleton Act of 1883 was a triumph for those Americans who sought ________ reform.

A) monetary
B) civil service
C) immigration
D) tariff

Question 14

The New York Democrat who won the "dirty" presidential election of 1884 was

A) Grover Cleveland.
B) Chester A. Arthur.
C) James G. Blaine.
D) Benjamin Harrison.

Question 15

Blacks in the South were not totally disfranchised or segregated until

A) Cleveland gave his approval in 1887.
B) southern states enacted literacy tests and poll taxes in the 1890s.
C) Radical Reconstruction ended in 1877.
D) the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Question 16

"If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." The source of this quote was

A) Minor v. Happersett.
B) Plessy v. Ferguson.
C) The Gilded Age.
D) the Civil Rights Act.

Question 17

The doctrine of "separate but equal" facilities was handed down by the Supreme Court in

A) Hall v. De Cuir.
B) Plessy v. Ferguson.
C) the Civil Rights Cases.
D) Munn v. Illinois.

Question 18

The black militant who founded the Afro-American League and called on blacks to use violence when attacked by whites was

A) John Marshall Harlan.
B) T. Thomas Fortune.
C) James Bryce.
D) W. E. B. Du Bois.

Question 19

The black leader who identified with the Atlanta Compromise was

A) Frederick Douglass.
B) W. E. B. Du Bois.
C) T. Thomas Fortune.
D) Booker T. Washington.

Question 20

Big-city political bosses and their machines emerged in the late nineteenth century because

A) Catholic church leaders sought their protection.
B) most immigrants knew little about democracy.
C) Protestant churches sought to use them to clean up city governments.
D) factory owners encouraged them.

Question 21

The most notorious of all city bosses was

A) "Hinky Dink" Kenna.
B) Daniel P. Moynihan.
C) William Marcy Tweed.
D) "Big Tim" Sullivan.

Question 22

Many urban reformers resented the boss system because it

A) led to increased taxes for public services.
B) promoted civil service reform.
C) gave political power to poor immigrants.
D) encouraged gambling and prostitution.

Question 23

The vacuity of American politics in the late nineteenth century may have stemmed from the

A) simmering class conflict which politicians could not face.
B) inability to deal with foreign threats.
C) prevailing sectional and political harmony.
D) complacency of the middle-class majority.

Question 24

In the late 1880s the Farmers' Alliance

A) was simply a social, non-political organization.
B) tried but failed to establish marketing cooperatives for their crops because they could not raise the necessary capital from banks.
C) focused on encouraging the latest techniques in scientific agriculture.
D) elected state legislators committed to regulating railroad rates and establishing rural free delivery of the mail.

Question 25

The earlier group from which the Populist movement emerged was the

A) Farmers Union.
B) Farm Bureau.
C) Knights of Labor.
D) Farmers' Alliance.

Question 26

In 1892 the Populist nominee for president was former Union General

A) Ulysses S. Grant.
B) James B. Weaver.
C) Tom Watson.
D) William T. Sherman.

Question 27

The platform of the People's or Populist party called for a

A) guaranteed price for wheat.
B) high tariff on farm produce.
C) graduated income tax.
D) social security plan.

Question 28

Populist party members saw themselves as

A) a victimized majority betrayed by the establishment.
B) rural revolutionaries.
C) a persecuted minority.
D) masses of downtrodden workers.

Question 29

National ownership of the railroads, unlimited coinage of silver, and the creation of a "subtreasury" were all a part of the platform of which party?

A) Populists in 1892
B) Democrats in 1884
C) Republicans in 1896
D) mugwumps in 1870

Question 30

The Minnesota Populist who saw himself as an authority on Shakespeare, economics, and science was

A) Ignatius Donnelly.
B) "Sockless" Jerry Simpson.
C) Tom Watson.
D) William A. Peffer.

Question 31

Southern black Populists often joined the

A) Grange.
B) Southern Alliance.
C) Farmers Union.
D) Colored Farmers' Alliance.

Question 32

After the election of 1892, it became clear that _______ was of utmost interest to voters.

A) workers' rights to unionize
B) the coinage of silver
C) civil service reform
D) black voting rights

Question 33

The debate over the coinage of silver in the late nineteenth century was

A) superficial because the key question was halting the inflationary spiral of the economy.
B) a smokescreen created by Wall Street bankers to distract the public from their financial manipulations.
C) superficial because the key question was halting the deflationary spiral of the economy.
D) the key issue to understanding the floundering of the economy in these years.

Question 34

The Coinage Act of 1873, which demonetized silver, came to be known as the ________ by the silver interests.

A) "Crime of '73"
B) "Corrupt Bargain"
C) "Miners' Lament"
D) "Gold Ring"

Question 35

During 1894 and 1895, at the beginning of Grover Cleveland's presidency, the economy

A) floundered in one of the worst depressions in American history.
B) was devastated by double-digit inflation.
C) surged forward, bringing unrivaled prosperity to all sectors of the economy.
D) finally stabilized after a decade of turbulence.

Question 36

The small-town businessman who led an "army" of the unemployed on a march to Washington, D.C. in 1894 was

A) Jacob Coxey.
B) Eugene Debs.
C) Terence Powderly.
D) George Pullman.

Question 37

In early 1895, when the Treasury's gold reserves reached a desperately low point,

A) President Cleveland devalued the dollar.
B) President Cleveland ordered twenty million dollars worth of silver dollars coined even though this caused significant inflation.
C) President Cleveland took the country off the gold standard.
D) a banking syndicate headed by J. P. Morgan underwrote a new bond issue and saved the government from bankruptcy.

Question 38

The dramatic "Cross of Gold" speech won the 1896 Democratic presidential nomination for

A) Thomas Watson.
B) Grover Cleveland.
C) Ignatius Donnelly.
D) William Jennings Bryan.

Question 39

What was the main issue propounded by candidate William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896?

A) the proposal to coin both silver and gold
B) his desire to have the government print more greenbacks
C) changing policy so that the Treasury only coined gold
D) the removal of all trade barriers and protective tariffs

Question 40

William Jennings Bryan discarded tradition in 1896 by

A) conducting a "front porch" campaign for visiting delegations.
B) traveling throughout the country giving hundreds of speeches.
C) spending millions of dollars on advertising.
D) selecting a third-party candidate as his running mate.

Question 41

In the election of 1896, McKinley's campaign manager, who raised an enormous campaign fund from business, was

A) James G. Blaine.
B) Marcus Alonzo Hanna.
C) Arthur Sewall.
D) Andrew Carnegie.

Question 42

McKinley's campaign manager Marcus Hanna

A) rejected party organization.
B) allowed McKinley to run his own campaign.
C) relied almost exclusively on small donations from individuals.
D) blanketed the country with campaign literature.

Question 43

Ultimately, the battle between gold and silver,

A) proved Bryan right and the country began to coin both.
B) remained a politically significant issue for the next century.
C) was won by silver after the discovery of silver in Alaska led to an expansion of the money supply based on silver bullion.
D) was insignificant because within two decades the country abandoned basing the volume of currency on bullion.

Question 44

Comparing and contrasting McKinley and Bryan in the election of 1896,

A) Bryan was pragmatic, while McKinley was an uncompromising idealist.
B) McKinley looked toward an idealized rural past, but Bryan welcomed revolutionary forces of the next century.
C) Bryan's approach was parochial, whereas McKinley's was national.
D) Bryan's approach was national, whereas McKinley's was parochial.

Question 45

McKinley won by carrying states in the

A) South, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains.
B) Midwest, Great Plains, and Pacific Coast.
C) East, Midwest, and Pacific Coast.
D) South, Midwest, and Great Plains.

Question 46

President Hayes responded with every power he had available when southern blacks were mistreated after the last federal troops were withdrawn from the former Confederacy as a result of the Compromise of 1877.

Question 47

Chester A. Arthur became more dignified and sober after he became president due to Garfield's assassination.

Question 48

In the election of 1888, Harrison gained a plurality of the popular vote, but Cleveland received the majority of the electoral votes and was therefore elected president.

Question 49

In the civil rights cases the Supreme Court upheld laws guaranteeing equal accommodations and access to public places for blacks.

Question 50

The typical political boss in the late nineteenth century had the goal of reforming city government to make it more responsive to poor urban immigrants.

Question 51

In the 1890s, farmers on the plains were devastated by a severe drought and a downturn in the business cycle.

Question 52

The Coinage Act of 1873, the Bland-Allison Act, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act were all attempts to inflate the money supply.

Question 53

In 1894 Jacob S. Coxey and his "army" of the unemployed marched to Washington to demand a program of federal public works.

Question 54

In 1896 the Populists nominated Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan for president but substituted Tom Watson for their vice-presidential nominee.

Question 55

McKinley's front-porch meetings were carefully orchestrated despite the fact that they appeared to be informal and off-the-cuff.

Question 56

Summarize the major characteristics of politics during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Describe the leading issues and figures.

Question 57

Describe how blacks were treated after the end of Reconstruction. To what extent did Booker T. Washington symbolize the dilemma faced by most black Americans in this era?

Question 58

Explain how Populism emerged from the agricultural discontent of the late nineteenth century. Describe the major values, programs, and figures associated with Populism.

Question 59

Describe the controversy over the coinage of silver. How did the controversy ultimately play out? What was its long-term effect?

Question 60

Describe the major issues and events of the presidential election of 1896. Explain why this election is often seen as a turning point in American political history.

Question 61

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Atlanta Compromise :

Question 62

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Bland-Allison Silver Purchase Act :

Question 63

What is the definition of the following key term:
-mugwumps :

Question 64

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Plessy v. Ferguson :

Question 65

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Sherman Silver Purchase :