The Presidential Election of 1896, Essay Example

American politics had a watershed year in 1896: it arguably began the final political chapter of the American Civil War (Kelly, 2003). After first conquering the American South, the northern industrial economy then began its campaign against the West and the Midwest. It was an ideological and economic war between urban and rural economies and cultures. Goldfield and his fellow historians (Goldberg, Abbott, Anderson, Argersinger, Argersinger, Barney & Weir, 2009) are correct in saying that a weakened presidency and inefficient Congress from 1877 to 1900 hampered the government’s ability to resolve many ideological and economic issues. But it’s not really a historically meaningful point of view. The reason Grover Cleveland in 1896 was weakened and the Congress (specifically sessions 53 and 54) was inefficient was because of those very issues. One could just as well say that Lincoln was also weakened by the existence of the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and W. Virginia (whose interests he had to keep constantly in mind); or that his wartime Congress was inefficient because of the existence of powerful factions, even within his own Republican Party. One could add that both Lincoln and McKinley paid for their electoral success — being reelected — with their lives.

The election of 1896 ended the widespread debtors’ movement to inflate the currency with silver by minting both silver and gold into coin. (Doing so would have enabled debtors, primarily farmers, to benefit from the subsequent devaluation in the currency.) It also maintained the system of high tariffs, tariffs that some historians argue actually caused the Civil War in the first place (Adams, 2004). (Tariffs kept weak domestic manufacturers profitable by limiting competitive overseas imports.) Like 1865, 1896 marked the end of the last regional forces strong enough to profoundly divide the American political landscape. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, Americans and their geographic entities would stay united forever.

References

Adams, C. (2004). When in the course of human events: Arguing the case for southern secession. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Retrieved from https://rowman.com/ISBN/ 9780847697236

Goldfield, D., Abbott, C., Anderson, V. D., Argersinger, J. E., Argersinger, P. H., Barney, W. L., & Weir, R. M. (2009). The american journey. (5 ed., Vol. 2). New York: Prentice Hall. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/ goldfield_amjourn/tlc/0136032583_ FM.pdf

Kelly, P. J. (2003). The election of 1896 and the restructuring of civil war memory. (Vol. 49). Kent: Civil War History. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type= summary&url=/journals/civil_war_history/v049/49.3kelly.pdf