Party Games
Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics
Published on 15. December 2005
368 pages
978-0-8078-6375-6 (ISBN)
Description
Much of late-nineteenth-century American politics was parade and pageant. Voters crowded the polls, and their votes made a real difference on policy. In Party Games, Mark Wahlgren Summers tells the full story and admires much of the political carnival, but he adds a cautionary note about the dark recesses: vote-buying, election-rigging, blackguarding, news suppression, and violence.
Summers also points out that hardball politics and third-party challenges helped make the parties more responsive. Ballyhoo did not replace government action. In order to maintain power, major parties not only rigged the system but also gave dissidents part of what they wanted. The persistence of a two-party system, Summers concludes, resulted from its adaptability, as well as its ruthlessness. Even the reform of political abuses was shaped to fit the needs of the real owners of the political system — the politicians themselves.
Summers also points out that hardball politics and third-party challenges helped make the parties more responsive. Ballyhoo did not replace government action. In order to maintain power, major parties not only rigged the system but also gave dissidents part of what they wanted. The persistence of a two-party system, Summers concludes, resulted from its adaptability, as well as its ruthlessness. Even the reform of political abuses was shaped to fit the needs of the real owners of the political system — the politicians themselves.
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Other editions
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Book
04/2004
The University of North Carolina Press
€52.80
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Mark Wahlgren Summers is Thomas D. Clark Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. He is author of many books, including The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865–1878 and Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface. The Dog That Didn't Bark at Night
- Notes
- Part I. Our Friend the Enemy
- 1. A Typical Year
- Notes
- 2. What Else Could He Have Put into H--l?
- Notes
- 3. Politics Is Only War without the Bayonets
- Notes
- 4. The Demon Lovers
- Notes
- Part II. Party Tricks
- 5. The Press of Public Business
- Notes
- 6. The Best Majority Money Can Buy
- Notes
- 7. An Eye on the Maine Chance
- Notes
- 8. Anything, Lord, but Milwaukee!: Malapportionment and Gerrymandering
- Notes
- Part III. Policy-The Golden Rule?
- 9. Purse'n'All Influence
- Notes
- 10. The (Round) House of Legislation
- Notes
- 11. Class Warfare, Mainstream-Party Style
- Notes
- Part IV. Rounding off the Two and a Half Party System
- 12. The Treason of the Ineffectuals
- Notes
- 13. A Little Knight Music
- Notes
- 14. The Fix Is In
- Notes
- 15. Dishing the Pops
- Notes
- Coda. Parties to a Conspiracy
- Notes
- Notes
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- A-B
- C-E
- F-G
- H-L
- M-N
- O-R
- S-V
- W-Y
