19th Century and 20th Century Elections Compared to Present Day

Politics/Presidency The most significant difference between the process of elections in the 19th and 20th centuries is that in the 19th century, politics were dominated and controlled by party to a much greater extent than they were in the 20th century. Another very significant difference was that in the 19th century, women could not vote and many Blacks were blocked from voting in the South.

However, early in the 20th century women won the right to vote, and Blacks and other minorities encountered fewer and fewer obstacles to voting as the 20th century progressed. In the 19th Century, party politics ruled politics and elections. Political campaigns were major events in small towns. This translated into a very high voter turnout at election time. Remarkably, campaigners were allowed to campaign quite aggressively at the polling places, sometimes even resulting in violence.

Party loyalty was passed on from one generation to the next and not based on such things as economics in the 19th century. Party allegiance tended to be regional, with Republicans common in the North and Midwest. African-Americans, when they could vote, tended to prefer the Republican Party, which supported the North during the Civil war. Of particular importance were the party "machines," or the organizations that supported them at the city level.

Because the parties tended to have regional tendencies, the dominant party in a given city could have tremendous influence over local politics. Party machines gave out municipal jobs based on loyalty (the "patronage" system). In return for voter loyalty, the party provided relief for families in the form of food as well as jobs. However, the system also encouraged graft and corruption to develop, as votes and influence were sometime for sale. Gradually, what we think of now as public interest groups began to form.

Farmers organized in the form of the "Grange," followed by industry special interests. Groups such as unions, however, started to note people of both parties who might favor their interests and began contributing selectively to both parties. Toward the end of the 19th century, women began to have more influence, creating welfare organizations, fighting for temperance, and campaigning to get the right to vote. Another influence that strengthened parties was the relative weakness of Congress and the Presidency.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War Johnson was impeached and very nearly found guilty, and no one party had clear control over Congress. Presidents acted more like bureaucrats than policy-shapers and often spent much of the day doling out patronage jobs and other political favors. The federal government was considerably smaller in the 19th century; the presidential staff was so small that it would have been hard for a president to make significant changes. There were only 6,000 federal workers total in Washington, DC in 1871.

This gave added control to the local party machines and put much of what they did beyond the influence of voters. Called the "Spoils" system after the saying "To the victor belongs the spoils," corruption grew and what federal government there was performed inefficiently. State governments were similarly small, but toward the end of the century began enacting laws to fill the void left by the hands-off policies of the federal government.

Change may have begun with Civil Service reform and a gradual shift from patronage jobs to jobs given to people based on their ability to do the job. This was followed by efforts to support American products through tariffs and duties passed by the federal government on imports. This was followed by increased federal regulation of businesses with the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act.

These laws began to correct the abuses committed by larger businesses against smaller ones and industry's domination over such things as transportation at the expense of farmers. In addition, the government took steps to stabilize the economy by setting the gold standard for money and controlling the amount of paper money printed. But one of the major influences was the depression of the 1890's, which led to events such as the establishment of a third political party.

The Farmer's Alliance, which fought to alleviate the many financial pressures on American farmers, was not able to bring about changes for such things as loans, but the Populist or People's Party brought together other small parties into one group. This group engineered the defeat of the Republican Party in 1890 and was instrumental in the passage of anti-monopoly laws. All these changes play a much more prominent role in today's politics and elections.

Both the 1996 election between Clinton and Dole and the 2000 election between Clinton and Bush focused on what the federal government could do for voters by passage of laws instead of through patronage. Instead of a "hands off" federal government, the differences were in how the candidates intended to influence federal government policy. Campaign finance reform laws have diminished the influence of special interest groups both on who is elected and what policies are instigated by government.

While in the 19th century the role of the political party was to deliver votes for the party candidate, today the political parties work to get the candidate's message out. Elections are no longer determined by blind party loyalty but by voters who examine the issues and cross party lines to vote for the candidate who best represents what they want from their government. Once civil servant jobs moved out of the realm of.