AP U S History Document Based Question

AP U S History Document Based Question The years after the American Civil War have been characterized by Mark Twain and others as “The Gilded Age.” Generally, historians have emphasized the decline of human values, the low state of public morality, greed, corruption and crass materialism. To what extent is this an accurate characterization of the years 1865-1900? Use the documents and your knowledge of U S History to answer the question. Document A “Our agricultural products have been abundant for the last few years. The crops of cotton, four-fifths of which have been raised by the colored people since the close of the Rebellion, have been increasing annually in quantity, till that of 1880 was the largest ever made. Our exports to Europe have taken an annually wide range. . . . . So great have these exports been for the last few years that the balance of trade has been in our favor on an average of 150,000,000 dollars a year. For many years the value of our exports has been many millions in excess of our imports.” Harper’s Weekly, 1881. Document B "AN ACT To regulate and improve the civil service of the United States. First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical in their character, and so far as may be shall relate to those matters which will fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the persons examined to discharge the duties of the service into which they seek to be appointed." Pendleton Act of 1883 Document C “AN ACT To regulate commerce. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the provisions of this act shall apply to any common carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad, or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used, under a common control, management, or arrangement, for a continuous carriage or shipment, from one State or Territory of the United States, or the District of Columbia, to any other State or Territory of the United States, or the District of Columbia, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States, and also to the transportation in like manner of property shipped from any place in the United States to a foreign country and carried from such place to a port of trans-shipment, or shipped from a foreign country to any place in the United States and carried to such place from a port of entry either in the United States or an adjacent foreign country: Provided, however. . . .” Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 Document D “It is remarkable that the center of the territory, of the United States and the center of its population are both near the thirty-ninth degree of north latitude. The former is not far from Abilene, Kansas, and the latter, as found by the census of 1880, is in Kentucky, about eight miles west by south of Cincinnati.” U S Census, 1880.

Document E “Congress. . . . .passed a revised tariff to take effect on July 1, 1883. The main features may be summed up: in respect to imported articles of luxury and of great value the tariff was not diminished, but sometimes increased; on many articles of general use it was reduced. In respect to internal revenue the tax was taken off numerous classes of articles, but not much off tobacco, whiskey and other classes of spirituous liquors. This revised tariff and schedule of diminished rates in the Internal revenue tax, went into effect; but after one year's experiment, it was found that the income from imports was diminished only $23,000,000 instead of the forty that had been estimated, and that of internal revenue $19,000,000 instead of thirty. The prosperity of the country had been so great that the people were able to purchase more than usual of high-priced foreign articles, while their industrial energy produced more than usual of home manufactures, the lower tariff on the cheaper grades not having been changed enough to make any difference either in volume of importations or in home prices; in consequence, the revenue from both sources was diminished only forty-two million instead of the seventy anticipated.” Harper’s Weekly, 1885. Document F ". . . . . A due regard for the interests and prosperity of all the people demands that . . . our system of revenue shall be so adjusted as to relieve she people of unnecessary taxation, . . . . .and preventing the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury to tempt extravagance and waste. . . . The people demand reform in the administration of the Government, and the application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this end Civil Service reform should be in good faith enforced. . . . In the administration of a government pledged to do equal and exact justice to all men, there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the protection of the freedmen in their rights or their security in the enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitution and its Amendments. . . . The fact that they are citizens entitles them to all the rights due to that relation, and charges them with all its duties, obligations and responsibilities." President Grover Cleveland, Inaugural Address 1885. Document G “Civil Rights—Negroes—Separate Traveling Accommodations. 1. An act requiring white and colored persons to be furnished with separate accommodations on railway trains does not violate Const. Amend. 13, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude. 11 South. 948, affirmed. 2. A state statute requiring railway companies to provide separate accommodations for white and colored persons, and making a passenger insisting on occupying a coach or compartment other than the one set apart for his race liable to fine or imprisonment, does not violate Const. Amend. 14, by abridging the privileges or immunities of United States citizens, or depriving persons of liberty or property without due process by law, or by denying them the equal protection of the laws. 11 South. 948, affirmed.” Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 Document H “It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the ballot box and about the elector further safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free and pure, but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not so soon discover the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control of elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the several States, provided penalties for their violation and a method of supervision. . . . . Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating relief to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their valor and sacrifice.” Benjamin Harrison, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1889

Document I

Document J “This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community--the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves. . . .” Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth.

Document K “The panic of 1873, so far as it resulted from contraction, had its main origin abroad, not in America, so that its subordinate causes were generally looked upon as its sole occasion; yet these bye causes were important. The shocking destruction of wealth by fires and by reckless speculation, of course, had a baneful effect. During 1872 the balance of trade was strongly against the United States. The circulation of depreciated paper money had brought to many an apparent prosperity which was not real, leading to the free creation of debts by individuals, corporations, towns, cities and States. An unprecedented mileage of railways had been constructed. Thus the entire business of the country was on a basis of inflation, and when contraction came disaster was inevitable. . . . .In the course of the summer solid values began to be hoarded and interest rates consequently to rise. In August there was a partial corner in gold, broken by a government sale of $6,000,000. In September panic came, with suspension of several large banking houses in New York. Jay Cooke & CO., who had invested heavily in the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway, suspended on September 18th. When authoritative news of this event was made known in the Stock Exchange a perfect stampede of the brokers ensued. E. Benjamin Andrews, Panic Of 1873 Document L “You have no right to be poor. It is your duty to be rich. Oh, I know well that there are some things higher, sublimer than money! Ah, yes, there are some things sweeter, holier than gold! Yet I also know that there is not one of those things but is greatly enhanced by the use of money. Money is power, and it ought to be in the hands of good men. It would be in the hands of good men if we comply with the Scripture teachings, where God promises prosperity to the righteous man. . . . You should be a righteous man. If you were, you would be rich. . . . No man has a right to go into business and not make money. It is a crime to go into business and lose money, because it is a curse to the rest of the community. No man has a moral right to transact business unless he makes something out of it. . . . . It is cruel to slander the rich because they have been successful. It is a shame to "look down" upon the rich the way we do. They are not scoundrels because they have gotten money. They have blessed the world. They have gone into great enterprises that have enriched the nation and the nation has enriched them. It is all wrong for us to accuse a rich man of dishonesty simply because he secured money. Go through this city and your very best people are among your richest people. Owners of property are always the best citizens.” Reverend Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (1901) Document M “AN ACT To protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court. Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

Document N “We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions... From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes, tramps and millionaires. . . . . A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world.” The People’s Party Platform, 1892. Document O “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house. . . . In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Speech, 1895. Document P

The Gospel according to Carnegie