Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics

Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics
ISBN-10
0807863750
ISBN-13
9780807863756
Series
Party Games
Category
History
Pages
368
Language
English
Published
2005-12-15
Publisher
Univ of North Carolina Press
Author
Mark Wahlgren Summers

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.

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