American Pageant Chapter 23

Despite his status as a military hero, General Ulysses S. Grant proved to be a weak political leader because he...

• was personally dishonest and corrupt.

• did not believe in the principles of the Republican party.

• was incapable of striking the type of political compromises necessary for a successful political leader.

• had no political experience and was a poor judge of character.

• lacked political ambition.

In the presidential election of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant...

• transformed his personal popularity into a large majority in the popular vote.

• owed his victory to the votes of former slaves.

• gained his victory by winning the votes of the majority of whites.

• won a clear majority of electoral votes in the Electoral College, but narrowly lost the popular vote in the country.

In the late nineteenth century, those political candidates who campaigned by "waving the bloody shirt" were reminding voters

• of the gory memories of the Civil War and the Republican party's role in the Union's victory.

• that the Civil War had been caused by the election of a Republican president.

• that Republicans had reformed the corrupt radical regimes in the Reconstruction South.

• that radical Republicans catered to freed slaves during Reconstruction.

• of Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War...

• the push for social, political, and economic reforms intensified and gained momentum in and out of state, local, and the federal government.

• Americans retained a strong sense of idealistic sacrifice.

• the North developed a strong sense of moral superiority.

• concern for racial questions took precedence over economics.

• waste, speculation, and corruption afflicted both business and government.

The example of New York's Boss Tweed illustrated...

• the typical lack of ethics of the Gilded Age, which also pervaded government in the form of bribery, graft, and fraudulent elections.

• the concern of urban political bosses with representing the best political and economic interests of their urban constitutients.

• the high value on honesty and ethics put on governing during this age.

• the inability of the press and the legal establishment to take down a notoriously venal political figure after a lifetime of managing a politically corrupt machine.

• the effectiveness of the federal government in ferreting out urban political corruption at an early stage in its development.

The Crédit Mobilier scandal involved...

• public utility company bribes.

• Bureau of Indian Affairs payoffs.

• railroad construction kickbacks.

• bribes to French government officials in exchange to promises of favorable tariff treatment of French goods.

• manipulating agricultural commodities traded on the Chicago Board of Trade.

President Ulysses S. Grant was reelected in 1872 because...

• the Democrats and Liberal Republicans could not decide on a single candidate.

• he promised reforms in the political system.

• he was the only candidate who enjoyed support in both the North and South.

• the Democrats and Liberal Republicans chose the politically and personally eccentric and dubiously sound editor Horace Greeley as their candidate.

• of the massive support of black voters in the Reconstruction South.

A major cause of the panic that broke in 1873 was...

• the issuance of millions of dollars in greenbacks.

• the expansion of more factories, railroads, and mines than existing markets would bear.

• a credit crunch caused by extremely high interest rates.

• Wall Street's fears about the power of the radical Greenback Labor party.

• excessive speculation in mining stocks.

The major electoral problem in the 1876 presidential election centered on

• who would be Speaker of the House.

• the two sets of different election returns, one Democratic, and one Republican, submitted by Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana.

• Samuel Tilden's association with corrupt politicians of the Northeast.

• President Grant's campaign for a third term.

• Rutherford Hayes's controversial ties to U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling and the Stalwarts.

The Compromise of 1877 resulted in...

• a renewal of the Republican commitment to protect black civil rights in the South and the continued presence of federal troops in the South.

• the withdrawal of federal troops and abandonment of federal protection of black civil and voting rights in the South.

• the election of Democrat presidential candidate Samuel Tilden to the presidency.

• Republican support for an inflationary silver-money policy.