A Brief History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

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.

FOOTNOTES

[1] After the discovery of gold in California, Chinamen, called coolies, came to that state in considerable numbers. But they attracted little attention till 1852, when the governor complained that they were sent out by Chinese capitalists under contract, that the gold they dug was sent to China, and that they worked for wages so low that no American could compete with them. Attempts were then made to stop their importation, especially by heavy taxes laid on them. But the courts declared such taxation illegal, and appeals were then made to Congress for relief. No action was taken; but in 1868 an old treaty with China was amended, and to import Chinamen without their free consent was made a penal offense. This did not prevent their coming, so the demand was made for their exclusion by act of Congress.

[2] In the early years of the nineteenth century liquor was a part of the workingman's wages. Every laborer on the farm, in the harvest field, every sailor, and men employed in many of the trades, as carpenters and masons, demanded daily grog at the cost of the employer. About 1810 a temperance movement put an end to much of this. But intemperance remained the curse of the workingman down to the days of Van Buren and Tyler, when a greater temperance movement began.