Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States from 1876 to 1904 to refer to a conservative or reactionary member of the Democratic Party, especially one who supported President Grover Cleveland in 1884–1896 and Alton B. Parker in 1904. For current status see United States Democratic Party // History Origins The Democratic Party evolved from the political factions that opposed Alexander Hamiltons fiscal policies in the early 1790s; these factions are known variously as the Anti-Administration “Party” or the Anti-Federalists. ... Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd (1885–1889) and 24th (1893–1897) President of the United States, and the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. ... Alton Brooks Parker (May 14, 1852 – May 10, 1926) was an American lawyer and judge and a U.S. presidential candidate in the 1904 elections. ...

Bourbon Democrats represented business interests, supported banking and railroad goals, promoted laissez-faire capitalism, opposed imperialism and U.S. overseas expansion, fought for the gold standard, and opposed bimetallism. They strongly supported reform movements such as Civil Service Reform and opposed corruption of city bosses, leading the fight against the Tweed Ring. The corruption theme earned the votes of many Republican Mugwumps in 1884. Laissez-faire is short for laissez faire, laissez passer, a French phrase meaning to let things alone, let them pass. First used by the eighteenth century Physiocrats as an injunction against government interference with trade, it is now used as a synonym for strict free market economics. ... This article is on the monetary principle. ... In economics, bimetallism is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit can be expressed either with a certain amount of gold or with a certain amount of silver: the ratio between the two metals is fixed by law. ... The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called spoils system. ... 1869 tobacco label featuring Boss Tweed William Marcy Tweed (April 3, 1823–April 12, 1878), known as Boss Tweed, was an American politician and political boss of Tammany Hall who became an icon of urban political machines. ... Mugwumps were Republicans who supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the 1884 United States presidential election. ...

Besides Cleveland and Parker, nationally prominent Bourbons included:

• New York's Samuel J. Tilden, David Bennett Hill, and William C. Whitney
• New Jersey's Woodrow Wilson
• Maryland's Arthur Pue Gorman
• Delaware's Thomas F. Bayard
• West Virginia's William L. Wilson
• Kentucky's John Griffin Carlisle
• Wisconsin's William F. Vilas
• Nebraska's J. Sterling Morton
• Illinois' John M. Palmer
• Iowa's Horace Boies
• Mississippi's Lucius Q. C. Lamar
• Minnesota's James J. Hill

Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 - August 4, 1886) was the Democratic candidate for the US presidency in the disputed election of 1876, the most controversial American election of the 19th century. ... David Bennett Hill (August 29, 1843 - October 20, 1910) was a Governor of New York. ... William Collins Whitney (July 5, 1841 - February 2, 1904) was an American political leader and financier and founder of the prominent Whitney family. ... Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States (1913–1921). ... Arthur P. Gorman Arthur Pue Gorman (b. ... Thomas Francis Bayard, Sr. ... William Lyne Wilson (1843 - 1900) was a U.S. political figure. ... John G. Carlisle (September 5, 1834 - July 31, 1910) was a prominent American politician in the Democratic Party during the last quarter of the 19th century. ... William Freeman Vilas (July 9, 1840–August 27, 1908) was a member of the Democratic Party who served in the United States Senate for the state of Wisconsin from 1891 to 1897. ... Julius Sterling Morton (NSHC statue) Julius Sterling Morton (April 22, 1832 – April 27, 1902) was born in Adams, New York. ... John McAuley Palmer (September 13, 1817 – September 25, 1900) was a Union Major General during the American Civil War. ... Horace Boies was a governor of Iowa, and was the only Democrat to serve in that position from 1845-1933. ... Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (September 17, 1825–January 23, 1893) was born near Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia. ... James Jerome Hill (September 16, 1838 – May 29, 1916), was a noted American and Canadian railroad tycoon. ...

Bourbons and Bryan

The Panic of 1893 damaged the Bourbons because Cleveland was President at the time and was blamed for the consequent economic losses. The Panic of 1893 was a serious decline in the economy of the United States that began in 1893 and was precipitated in part by a run on the gold supply. ...

The Bourbons' great opponent was William Jennings Bryan, who harnessed the energy of an agrarian insurgency with his Cross of Gold speech and defeated the Bourbons at the decisive 1896 Democratic National Convention. Bryan would demonstrate his hold on the party by winning the 1900 and 1908 Democratic nominations as well, but he was defeated in the general election each time. William Jennings Bryan, 1907 William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860–July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, statesman, and politician. ... The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention on July 9, 1896 at the Chicago Coliseum in Chicago, Illinois. ... The 1896 Democratic National Convention, held at the Chicago Coliseum from July 7 to July 11, was the scene of William Jennings Bryans nomination as Democratic presidential candidate for the 1896 U.S. presidential election, the youngest ever nominee. ...

William L. Wilson, Cleveland's postmaster general, confided to his diary that he opposed Bryan on moral and ideological as well as party grounds. He had begun his public service convinced that Congress was too much controlled by special interests, and his unsuccessful tariff fight had burned this conviction deeper. He feared the triumph of free silver would bring class legislation, paternalism, and selfishness feeding upon national bounty as surely as did protection. Moreover, free silver at 16 to 1 was morally wrong, "involving as it does the attempt to call 50 cents a dollar and make it legal tender for dollar debts." Populism, he said, was "the product of protection founded on the idea that Government can and therefore Government ought to make people prosperous." [Summers 240] There have been two William L. Wilsons. ...

Origins of the term

The term was first used as a pun to refer both to bourbon whiskey and even more to the Bourbon monarchy of France that was overthrown in the French Revolution, but returned to power in 1815 to rule in a reactionary fashion. Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet typically applied to conservatism. ...

The term was occasionally used in the 1860s and 1870s to refer to conservative Democrats (both North and South), and in the 1870s to refer to the regimes set up in the South by Redeemers as a conservative reaction against Reconstruction. We dont have an article called Redeemers Start this article Search for Redeemers in. ... Reconstruction-era military districts in the South For other uses, see Reconstruction (disambiguation). ...

See also

• History of the United States Democratic Party

For current status see United States Democratic Party // History Origins The Democratic Party evolved from the political factions that opposed Alexander Hamiltons fiscal policies in the early 1790s; these factions are known variously as the Anti-Administration “Party” or the Anti-Federalists. ...

References

• Going, Allen J. Bourbon Democracy in Alabama, 1874-1890. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 1951.
• Merrill, Horace Samuel. Bourbon Leader: Grover Cleveland and the Democratic Party. Boston : Little, Brown, 1957. Merrill argues that in an age of rapid economic change Cleveland staunchly defended the untenable status quo.
• Merrill, Horace Samuel. Bourbon Democracy of the Middle West, 1865-1896. Louisiana State University, 1953.
• Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896. Syracuse : Syracuse University, 1969.
• Sperber, Hans and Travis Trittschuh. American Political Terms: An Historical Dictionary. Wayne State University, 1962.
• Summers, Festus P. William L. Wilson and Tariff Reform, a Biography. New Brunswick : Rutgers University, 1953.
• Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. Louisiana State University, 1951.

Comer Vann Woodward (November 13, 1908 - December 17, 1999) was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. ...

Primary sources

• Democratic Party (U.S.) National Committee. Campaign Text-book of the National Democratic Party. 1896. This is the handbook of the Gold Democrats; it strongly opposed Bryan.
• Nevins, Allan. ed. The Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850-1908. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1933.
• Wilson, William L. The Cabinet Diary of William L. Wilson, 1896-1897. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina, 1957.