The Gilded AgeEssay Preview: The Gilded AgeReport this essayWhen you are young and even well into your adult years people will tell you there will always be somebody who is smarter, faster, happier, or better at something than you are. This is true for all periods of time but in the Gilded Age those who were better gained more and more crushing the people below them with unprecedented greed, corruption, and power. The few exploited the many by way of opportunity. Something our nation was built on, yet the avaricious elite used it for evil methods.
In the years that followed Reconstruction many issues came up including whether laissez-faire was the correct system to follow. Because of problems like that remained unsettled for some time industrial leaders began to pop up and create overpowering monopolies. Just like what Walmart is considered today. Monopolies could lower prices to a degree at which smaller businesses could not compete. This would allow them to buy out a smaller company and lower competition. In todays world we value competition because we know it is what makes prices lower. It is what allows smaller businesses to get into the market and provide new knowledge to the same concepts. It is what allows new companies to gain momentum and have the means to develop new methods. In the gilded age freedom was valued over equality. Those who could rise would rise, crushing those they surpassed.
During the Gilded Age, many industrialists were considered robber barons. They were in fact, because of the monopolies they created, the large amounts they “stole” from the American people, and their selfish attitudes. A few of these industrialists were Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. . It was this morality and their personal business strategies that have lead historian to classify these three men as either robber barons or captains of industry.
These men established large monopolies and bought out all other little businesses. This made it impossible for competition of any kind. Perhaps the most famous of these men and most definitely the richest of them is John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller joined with smaller companies through trust agreements and mergers. Many people consider Rockefeller a tyrant who suppressed many because of his forcible ways of gaining his monopolies. Rockefeller was fond of buying out small and large competitors. If the competitors refused to sell they often found Rockefeller cutting the prices of his Standard Oil or in the worst cases, their factories mysteriously blowing up. Rockefeller was obsessed with controlling the oil market and used many of undesirable tactics to flush his competitors out of the market. Rockefeller was also a master of the rebate game. He was one of the most dominant controllers of the railroads. He was so good at the rebate that at some times he skillfully commanded the railroad to pay rebates to his standard oil company on the traffic of other competitors. He was able to do this because his oil traffic was so high that he could make or break a section of a railroad a railroad company by simply not running his oil on their lines. Another one of Rockefellers earlier mentioned but not explained tactics was his horizontally integrated monopoly. Rockefeller used this horizontal monopoly to set prices and force his competitors to merge with him. (All with Doc. J) Document J shows that Rockefeller had his tentacles, or his influence and power around every piece of the oil industry. That, also, includes the politicians and their support.
Rockefeller was an intelligent man who sought for better means in order to increase productivity. He used the opportunities of the time to take advantage of a free system. One of his best characteristics was that he lowered the cost of oil across the word by his largest scale production. To see that his oil was top quality at minimum cost he also hired specialist managers, this was a revolutionary concept at the time. Rockefellers most remembered and quite possibly best feature was his fanatical relationship with efficiency.
Some of the industrialists tried to justify their monopolies by saying it helped the poor. This is just like the Iron Law of wages in the sense that the industrialists were trying to get out of trouble by claiming its a good thing. Doc. F. shows Rockefellers several justifications for monopolies. One of them is permanent work and good wages for laborers. This was just Rockefellers attempt at justification. In reality consumers and workers were crushed with lack of competition. Quality and prices could go up and wages could go down. They could not refuse to buy monopoly goods or work at a monopoly for lack of choice. Doc. H shows the train of bribery and extortion traveling over what looks like politicians. This shows that politicians and possibly high-end businessmen upheld monopolies. If the politicians and businessmen could not be bribed there would be no problem with the political system but there were several. Doc. M also supports this by showing the power monopolies had in the senate. The monopolies represented as old men who look like moneybags oversee the senate. The peoples entrance is closed showing that the people, the many had no influence.
The financial situation in the government was becoming an important issue. One way was with tariffs. Some people wanted to place tariffs on foreign goods in order to protect the businesses at home. The ones they were involved in. The problem with this was that it would hurt the common peoples ability to buy certain products. Southern Democrats wanted the coinage of silver. This would increase inflation and make southern farmers debts easier to pay. A minor tariff reduction passed in 1894 under the anti-tariff Democrat, Grover Cleveland was the Wilson-Gorman Tariff. Although the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional, part of the Wilson-Gorman Act also established an income tax. After failing to secure a low tariff, the Populists and the Democrats increasingly
took up opposition to the tariff. “This is the time when the government’s economic operation is becoming an urgent issue,” noted the Unionist writer, who said that “the government would like to keep its monopoly of the cotton and wool trade, as well as to create the new market opportunity within an area where it can obtain more of it.”
The War of 1857 and the Civil War
Though the Union government was to take over most of America’s cotton, it did not enter a formal fighting war until the defeat of the Confederates. To fill this gap in the Civil War, the Southern Congress, with the help of the Southern Alliance, began to impose the tariff on cotton. The Southern Alliance was led by Representative Andrew Jackson, a Republican from the Tennessee and Tennessee Counties, who had been a leader of southern states during the war. The Southern government could not raise tariffs on other goods unless it had enough money, a law which would have allowed Union traders the benefit of legal standing. The tariff cut, which was on October 22, 1861, was to be followed by the signing of the Constitution on November 3, 1861. The war marked the third major war of the Confederate campaign, for the most part an effort by Southern states to keep the peace and consolidate Southern powers. Although the South continued to wage the war against the Confederacy, it was not by design to dominate the U.S. and the world in this conflict. The war was also over a hundred thousand dead, about seventy thousand wounded, and the Confederates were under the necessity of sending troops to the war. This was a relatively good time for the Union and its military, as it had long been dominated by their Confederate generals.
The Civil War provided a moment when political forces in the various states could come together to form and establish a common government. The civil war had been raging for several decades in the states of New Mexico, Kansas, Maryland and Missouri, and the war resulted in the loss of three million Mexican American lives at the hands of the Union forces.[3] It was also the most bloody war in history, since no other conflict had lasted longer than three centuries. The war was the seventh most active war in U.S. history, and involved the Union in seven hundred of its six hundred states, which included the North, West, South and West Indies (see map).
Southern States
While the Civil War was fought on a large scale in the North and West, the war in the South continued to be dominated by the Confederates. The Confederates held some of America’s most advanced military structures, such as a major artillery site which was guarded by the Confederate lines from 1776 to 1796. Confederate troops also built fortifications and cities throughout the South from which to fight alongside the Union. Several famous Confederate states fought against the Confederacy before the war. The United States had fought with the Confederate states for centuries before the Civil War. However, during the Civil War, these two sides faced off in the Union war, and on April 5, 1862 the