Bourbon Democrats was a term used in the United States from 1876 to 1904 to refer to conservative or reactionary members of the Democratic Party, especially those who supported President Grover Cleveland in 1884-1896 and Alton B. Parker in 1904. // History Predecessors The Democratic Partys origins lie in the original Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1792. ... 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. ...

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 agarian 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 a gifted orator and three-time Democratic nominee for President of the United States. ... 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. ...

Besides Cleveland and Parker, nationally prominent Bourbons included:

• New York's Samuel J. Tilden, David Bennett Hill, and William C. Whitney
• 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. ... Arthur P. Gorman Arthur Pue Gorman (b. ... Categories: People stubs | 1828 births | 1898 deaths | U.S. Secretaries of State | United States Senators ... 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. ...

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. ... In United States history, reconstruction was the period after the American Civil War when the states of the breakaway Confederacy were reintegrated into the United States of America. ...

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. Baton Rouge : 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. Detroit : Wayne State University, 1962.
• Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University, 1951.

See Also

History of the United States Democratic Party // History Predecessors The Democratic Partys origins lie in the original Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1792. ...