United States

As the power of the Knights declined, the leadership in the trade union movement passed to the American Federation of Labor (AFL). This was a loose federation of local and craft unions, organized first in 1881 and reorganized in 1886. For a few years there was some nominal cooperation between the Knights and the AFL, but the basic organization and philosophy of the two groups made cooperation difficult. The AFL appealed only to skilled workers, and its objectives were those of immediate concern to its members: hours, wages, working conditions, and the recognition of the union. It relied on economic weapons, chiefly the strike and boycott, and it eschewed political activity, except for state and local election campaigns. The central figure in the AFL was Samuel Gompers, a New York cigar maker, who was its president from 1886 to his death in 1924.

Samuel Gompers, 1911.Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

National politics

The dominant forces in American life in the last quarter of the 19th century were economic and social rather than political. This fact was reflected in the ineffectiveness of political leadership and in the absence of deeply divisive issues in politics, except perhaps for the continuing agrarian agitation for inflation. There were colourful political personalities, but they gained their following on a personal basis rather than as spokesmen for a program of political action. No president of the period was truly the leader of his party, and none apparently aspired to that status except Grover Cleveland during his second term (1893–97). Such shrewd observers of U.S. politics as Woodrow Wilson and James Bryce agreed that great men did not become presidents; and it was clear that the nominating conventions of both major parties commonly selected candidates who were “available” in the sense that they had few enemies.

Grover Cleveland.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Congress had been steadily increasing in power since the Johnson administration and, in the absence of leadership from the White House, was largely responsible for formulating public policy. As a result, public policy commonly represented a compromise among the views of many congressional leaders—a situation made the more essential because of the fact that in only four of the 20 years from 1877 to 1897 did the same party control the White House, the Senate, and the House.

The Republicans appeared to be the majority party in national politics. From the Civil War to the end of the century, they won every presidential election save those of 1884 and 1892, and they had a majority in the Senate in all but three Congresses during that same period. The Democrats, however, won a majority in the House in eight of the 10 Congresses from 1875 to 1895. The success of the Republicans was achieved in the face of bitter intraparty schisms that plagued Republican leaders from 1870 until after 1890 and despite the fact that, in every election campaign after 1876, they were forced to concede the entire South to the opposition. The Republicans had the advantage of having been the party that had defended the Union against secession and had freed the slaves. When all other appeals failed, Republican leaders could salvage votes in the North and West by reviving memories of the war. A less tangible but equally valuable advantage was the widespread belief that the continued industrial development of the nation would be more secure under a Republican than under a Democratic administration. Except in years of economic adversity, the memory of the war and confidence in the economic program of the Republican Party were normally enough to ensure Republican success in most of the Northern and Western states.

The Rutherford B. Hayes administration

President Hayes (served 1877–81) willingly carried out the commitments made by his friends to secure the disputed Southern votes needed for his election. He withdrew the federal troops still in the South, and he appointed former senator David M. Key of Tennessee to his Cabinet as postmaster general. Hayes hoped that these conciliatory gestures would encourage many Southern conservatives to support the Republican Party in the future. But the Southerners’ primary concern was the maintenance of white supremacy; this, they believed, required a monopoly of political power in the South by the Democratic Party. As a result, the policies of Hayes led to the virtual extinction rather than the revival of the Republican Party in the South.

Hayes, Rutherford B.Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.