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From ABC-CLIO's American History website https://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/

Populist Party The Populist Party was the popular name of the People's Party, founded in St. Louis, Missouri in 1892. The rise of the Populist Party was the culmination of two decades of agrarian distress among farmers of the South and West. The Populists advocated policies to relieve the hardships of farmers and had an important impact on the politics of the 1890s. Though the party ultimately failed to achieve its aims, the Populist movement illustrated the impact of industrial expansion on farming and demonstrated how ordinary farmers could form their own unions to better their conditions.

After the Civil War, farmers all over the United States were hit with hard times. Although the growing industrial economy improved transportation, created new goods, increased farm production, and opened new markets to farmers, farmers were increasingly plagued by declining prices for their goods, high interest rates, economic depressions, land speculation, bad crop years, chronic debt, and increased volatility of national and international markets for farm products. All of these factors contributed to make farming less pro�table.

Farmers responded in three ways to their predicament. First, they criticized banks and railroads, the businesses that they depended on for credit and transportation to markets. Second, they banded together in alliances and formed cooperative ventures for storing and marketing their crops. Third, they organized for political action and advocated policies designed to ease their debt, including regulation of railroad shipping prices, low-interest federal loans, and in�ation of the money supply.

In 1890, politicians representing the farmers' alliances won control of many state legislatures and some governorships in the South and West. In 1892, galvanized by their political success, farmer organizations and their leaders met in St. Louis and formed the People's Party. In that year's presidential election, the party ran James B. Weaver of Iowa as its candidate on an impressive platform that called for government ownership of railroads, a graduated income tax, and unlimited coinage of silver to increase the money supply. Weaver received more than 1 million popular votes and captured the electoral votes of four states, indicating to the major political parties that these issues were important to the public and therefore could not be ignored.

As if to vindicate the arguments of the Populists, a �nancial panic hit the nation in 1893, sparking the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that time. Crop prices dropped, banks collapsed, and unemployment increased for the nation as a whole; for farmers, already in precarious �nancial situations, the depression caused serious economic dislocation. Many Americans began to embrace the idea of increasing the money supply by coining silver to ease the nation's �nancial hardship—a measure that the Populists had widely espoused in their political campaigns.

The "money question" became a burning issue in the Election of 1896, and the Populists, the major proponents of free silver (as the policy came to be called), joined forces with the Democratic Party in an attempt to wrest the presidency from the Republicans. They nominated Nebraska politician William Jennings Bryan for president and Populist Tom Watson from Georgia for vice president on a platform of free silver. To gain the Democratic nomination at the party convention, Bryan delivered a speech entitled "Cross of Gold," which ended with a promise to the moneyed interest in the country: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" Despite his talent as a speechmaker, Bryan lost the hard-fought election to

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Republican William McKinley, who campaigned on the slogan of "sound money" (adherence to the gold standard, no coinage of silver) and warned of the danger of Populist radicalism.

Populism gave rise to such colorful characters as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman of South Carolina, "Sockless" Jerry Simpson of Kansas, and stump-orators like Mary Lease of Kansas, who argued that farmers needed "to raise less corn and more hell!" Some even argued that white and Black farmers in the South were both "in the same ditch" and should unite to better their conditions. African American farmers organized alliances among people of color and in some cases held important positions in Populist organizations.

The Populist movement lost any signi�cant political power following the election of 1896. Shortly after McKinley won the presidency, gold was discovered in South Africa, Colorado, and Alaska, and the resulting increase in the gold supply ended the depression and brought renewed prosperity to many farmers.

Many Populist ideas survived the demise of the movement and were enacted into law over the span of the next 20 years. The graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, the secret ballot, and government subsidies to farmers all had Populist origins.

ABC-CLIO Further Reading

Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1978; Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1931; Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Vintage, 1960.

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This content may be used for non-commercial, course and research purposes only.

Image Credits

William Jennings Bryan: Library of Congress

James B. Weaver: Library of Congress

Populist Party swallows Democratic Party: Library of Congress

APA Citation Populist Party. (2024). American History. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://americanhistory2.abc- clio.com/Search/Display/253567   http://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/253567? sid=253567&cid=0&oid=0&subId=0&view=print&lang=&useConcept=False Entry ID: 253567

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From ABC-CLIO's American History website https://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/

Recall Election

A recall election is an election in which voters decide whether to remove an elected o�cial from o�ce before his or her term has expired. Nineteen states have recall provisions for state-elected o�cials. Twenty-nine states allow local o�cials to be recalled. However, national o�cials, such as members of Congress and the president, cannot be recalled.

History of the Recall

In the United States, recall provisions have been popular among voters but have also raised concerns about how distant or protected government o�cials should be from public opinion. The Articles of Confederation included recall provisions. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention also debated providing for the recall in the U.S. Constitution.

Supporters argued that the recall was important to give the public a way of keeping representatives responsive and accountable once elected. They argued that this was particularly important in the Senate. The long six-year terms of the Senate meant that senators might ignore the public altogether for many years before being held accountable in an election.

Opponents argued that elected representatives should be relatively free to enact legislation that re�ected not just the narrow interests of their constituents but also the nation as a whole. Being subject to recall would constrain representatives' ability to cooperate in the national interest. This was particularly important in the Senate. Senators' long terms of o�ce were intended to provide protection from public pressure. This was meant to enable senators to take a more considered, long-term view of both their states' and the nation's interests. In the end, the arguments against the recall prevailed. No provision for recall was included in the U.S. Constitution.

Recall in the States

Similarly, no states included recall provisions in their early constitutions. Support for state recall provisions grew during the Populist movement of the late 19th century. The nation faced multiple economic crises and the upheaval of industrialization, immigration, and urbanization. Populists argued that many of these problems were the result of corrupt government o�cials who ignored the public. They thought that the existing way of removing elected o�cials from o�ce, impeachment, was insu�cient because it applied only to misconduct. Populists pointed out that voters have many reasons for electing a given candidate beyond misconduct. Given this, they argued that voters should be able to remove those candidates from o�ce for a broad variety of reasons.

The Populists succeeded in building popular support for the recall. However, the �rst state recall provisions were not enacted until the Progressive Era of the early 20th century. Progressives were middle- and upper-middle-class citizens. They wanted to break up what they saw as a corrupt relationship between elected representatives and industrial and �nancial interests. Their �rst success came in 1903 in Los Angeles. Voters there considered their local o�cials too close to the Southern Paci�c Railroad. So, they voted to enact the United States' �rst recall law. Other California cities soon followed suit, but no statewide recall came until 1908, in Oregon. By 1912, momentum was building, and four western states had adopted statewide recall provisions.

Recall provisions did not spread to all 50 states and are largely con�ned to states west of the Mississippi River. However, recall provisions have been added recently, as Illinois demonstrated in 2010.

Recalls in Action

Recalling a public o�cial includes several steps and can often be a di�cult process. The �rst step in recalling a public o�cial is to submit a petition with a speci�ed number of voters demanding a recall election.

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States vary in petition requirements and in the acceptable grounds for attempting a recall. In most states, any registered voter can initiate a recall campaign against an elected o�cial for any reason. However, eight states restrict the grounds on which a recall election can be called, with di�erent requirements

Opponents of recalls argue that they are often groundless and politically motivated. Many recent recall attempts have been in response to politically unpopular actions, rather than incompetence or unethical behavior. In these recall attempts, support and opposition usually falls along partisan lines. For example, several Colorado state senators faced recall elections in response to their support of increased gun control. These policy-oriented recalls are legal in most recall states, but some voters may not feel that political motivation warrants a recall.

The Politics of Recalls

Another debate, present since the Progressive Era, centers on whether or not to recall judges. Opponents, then and now, argue that judges should be impartial and rule based only on the law and the merits of the case. Recall would force judges to incorporate public opinion into their rulings, perhaps to the point of violating their oaths of o�ce. Worse, fear of a recall could cause judges to side with a majority in denying a minority its legal rights. This could create a "tyranny of the majority," something the founders greatly feared. Many states that allow the recall speci�cally exclude elected judges. But supporters of judicial recall in the Progressive Era and today argue that judges were already violating their duty by favoring business interests and should be at least somewhat accountable to the public.

The debate over judicial recalls highlights one potential upside of these institutions: they make elected o�cials more responsive to public preferences. So, does the recall make for more responsible elected o�cials, or o�cials who are less corrupt and more responsive to public opinion, as proponents argue? Or, does the recall compel elected o�cials to submit to majority opinion at the expense of minority rights? Research on these questions has only produced mixed evidence. An early study found no di�erence in the amount of o�cial corruption in states that do and do not have recall provisions, but a later study found that the recall makes legislators less likely to pursue their own interests at the expense of the public's interests. Still another study found that states with recall provisions are more likely to legislate and implement policies that are harmful to minority interests.

Despite these issues, most Americans support state recall provisions, and many would like to see these provisions adopted for national o�cials as well. However, such a provision would require a constitutional amendment, so recalls face extremely di�cult odds at the national level. Daniel C. Lewis Robert Worth Further Reading

Cronin, Thomas E. Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989; Persily, Nathaniel A. "The Peculiar Geography of Direct Democracy: Why the Initiative, Referendum and Recall Developed in the American West." Michigan Law & Policy Review 11 (1997); Schmidt, David D. Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989; Wilcox, Delos F. Government by All the People (Or the Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall As Instruments of Democracy). New York: Macmillan, 1912.

COPYRIGHT 2024 ABC-CLIO, LLC

This content may be used for non-commercial, course and research purposes only.

APA Citation Lewis, D. C. , & Worth, R. Ph.D. (2024). Recall Election. American History. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/2243807  

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