The Third Party System dates from 1854 to 1895, essentially: the final decade before the Civil War, then the Civil War, then Reconstruction, then building towards the industrialization and modernization that led to the Gilded Age.
Most of the first Presidential biographies I read first were from this era – Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Chester A. Arthur in particular. I found many fascinating parallels to our own era, from the sharp political divides over race, immigration, and sound fiscal policy, to the relentless and rapid technological developments that drove social change. Concerns over graft and corruption, partisan politics, and intraparty fighting – these were the hallmarks of the era, and it all resonated with modern politics.
The Civil War and events immediately before and after deserve their own writeup; suffice it to say that prior to the war, the various constituencies that comprised the major parties began to break away and re-align. The Whig party ended, and the Republican party was born. Various alternate parties formed and disbanded during this era, from the Know-Nothings to the American Party, the Constitutional Party, and later the Liberal Republican Party. Even within the parties, there was disagreement; notably during the Republican National Convention for the 1880 election, three men contended for the nomination, which ultimately went to a fourth, James A. Garfield. Admittedly, that seems tame compared to recent primaries, with over a dozen candidates vying for nomination, in either party.
In economics, the issue of whether to remain on a gold standard or embrace bi-metallism was the equivalent of arguing about the Federal Reserve’s fiscal policy; the Fed hadn’t been invented yet. There is a lot to read up on regarding one or the other, but to simplify the politics, basically if you were in debt you favored bi-metallism because inflation would lower the real value of your debts, and if you were owed money, you favored the gold standard. Thus, farmers, as well as people in Western states with large silver deposits, favored bi-metallism, while bankers favored the gold standard.
The United States consolidated geographically as well; at the start of this period over half the modern lower 48 US, between the midwest and California, was territory not formed into states; by the end, only Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah were not yet formed into states. This played in directly to the Civil War, as one of the key pre-war issues was whether and how to allow new states to enter as either free states or slave states; Bleeding Kansas earned its moniker.
Presidents in this period were:
- Franklin Pierce.
- James Buchanan.
- Abraham Lincoln.
- Andrew Johnson.
- Ulysses S. Grant.
- Rutherford B. Hayes.
- James A. Garfield.
- Chester A. Arthur.
- Grover Cleveland.
- Benjamin Harrison.
- Grover Cleveland (redux).
Clearly, Lincoln’s legacy towers over all the rest; those before him fall into the “not memorable” category, and those after are generally in the “overlooked” category.
And yet, each of these contributed, in small ways as well as large, to the course of American history. Some held remarkable careers before the Presidency; others made small changes that resulted in institutions that exist today.
As I read through these biographies, I came to be less wary about the sharp debates and surprising changes of the modern era. That isn’t to say I don’t care, or hold onto Pollyanna optimism; it’s more that I believe the United States has been in worse shape before, and paid a higher cost to get better.