The Post-Civil War Era

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Post-Civil War business practices and abuses made it necessary for the federal government to abandon the laissez-faire principle and to adopt an interventionist and regulatory role in leading our country. Unrestrained industrial growth lead to monopolistic practices, stifling of competition, poverty wages, and worker mistreatment. Other effects were business and political corruption and a government controlled by corporate interests and the spoils system, instead of being responsive to the needs of the American people. Intervention and activism by the government resulted in a more competitive business and fair business atmosphere to the benefit of all Americans. Our country in 1865 had just survived a bloody and divisive civil war and the…show more content…
This began an era of unequaled growth in railroad building, manufacturing, coal mining, and later the oil industry. One big factor to this revolution was our country being knitted together with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. What would normally take months to travel from place to place was now possible in days. This also made it possible to expand West much more quickly. The Republican Congress made building this enormous railroad possible by using subsidies and federal land grants, though the government took no interest in actually owning the…show more content…
After William McKinley’s assassination in 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt became as the most prominent reformer at the political level. Roosevelt did not agree with the limited role of the president. An early example of his actions was his role favoring neutral arbitration in a strike by the United Mine Workers in the Pennsylvania coal fields. He threatened to use the army to seize the mines and renew operations. He was the first president not to side with the corporate interests in a labor conflict. The Progressives argued the need for government regulation of business practices to ensure competition and free enterprise. Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate railroads in 1887, and one to prevent large firms from monopolizing in 1890 called the Sherman Antitrust Act. To many people’s disappointment, these were not strictly enforced until years later. The laws began being imposed more harshly when Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and others who agreed with the views of the Progressives came to
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