The Presidential victory of the Republican Party in 1860 and the secession of the powerful agrarian states of the South placed the federal government in the hands of the business interests of the North and East. In the years that followed occurred the fundamental change from an agriculture/industry nation to a unified industrial nation. The political changes of the Civil War and Reconstruction were the violent manifestations of this profound change. Statistics of the nation’s economy provide ample evidence of the rapid growth of business and urban life. The Republican Party, the political instrument by which the machinery of the federal government was managed by business interests, enacted a number of laws highly favorable to …show more content…
Subsequent financial measures assuring a “sound money” and adoption of the gold standard provided a boon to banking and creditor interests. The various enactments chartering railroad companies and providing subsidies in the form of land grants and loans to the 42 transcontinental railroads created a new industry throughout all of the nation, which was essential to the industrial complex of the nation. Special protection of business corporations against action by the state governments was deliberately written into the Fourteenth Amendment. This provision provides that no state may enforce any law that would “deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” Soon afterwards, the Republican dominated Supreme Court ruled that corporations are considered “persons” in the eyes of the law. The postwar building boom created huge profits for businesses and many others wanted to get in on the money being made. The friendly attitude of government after 1861 provided a climate of freedom (Congressional government) for businesses to operate with little government interference. In the mid-nineteenth century many economic factors came together to make the United States the world’s largest