A Brief History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

SUMMARY

1. The wonderful industrial growth of our country between 1860 and 1880 brought up for settlement grave industrial and financial questions.

2. The failure of the two great parties to take up these questions at once, caused the formation of many new parties, such as the National Labor, the Prohibition, the Liberal Republican, and the People's party.

3. Some of their demands were enacted into laws, as the silver coinage act, the exclusion of the Chinese, the anti-contract-labor and interstate commerce acts, the establishment of a national labor bureau, and the antitrust act.

4. In 1890-97 the tariff was three times revised by the McKinley, Wilson, and Dingley acts.

5. In the political world the most notable events were the contested election of 1876-77; the recall of United States troops from the South, and the fall of carpetbag governments; the assassination of Garfield; and the two defeats of the national Republican ticket (1884 and 1892).

6. In the financial world the chief events were the panics of 1873 and 1893, the resumption of specie payment (1879), and the free-silver issue.

7. In the world at large we had trouble with Chile, Hawaii, and Great Britain.