The Greenback Party (known successively as the Independent Party, the National Independent Party, the Greenback Party, and the Greenback Labor Party) was an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party fielded Presidential tickets three times — in the elections of 1876, 1880, and 1884, before fading away.
The party's name referred to the non-gold backed paper money, commonly known as "greenbacks," issued by the North during the American Civil War and shortly afterward. The party opposed the deflationary lowering of prices paid to producers entailed by a return to a bullion-based monetary system, the policy favored by the dominant Republican Party. Continued use of unbacked currency, it was believed, would better foster business and assist farmers by raising prices and making debts easier to pay.
Initially an agrarian organization associated with the policies of the Grange, from 1878 the organization took the name Greenback Labor Party and attempted to forge a farmer-labor alliance, adding industrial reforms to its agenda, such as support of the 8-hour day and opposition to the use of state or private force to suppress union strikes. The organization faded into oblivion in the second half of the 1880s, with its basic program reborn shortly under the aegis of the People's Party, commonly known as the "Populists."
Other articles related to "greenback party, party, greenback":
... The Greenback Party was in decline throughout the entire Cleveland administration ... In the election of 1884, the party failed to win any House seats outright, although they did win one seat in conjunction with Plains States Democrats (James B ... In the election of 1886, only two dozen Greenback candidates ran for the House, apart from another six who ran on fusion tickets ...
... Many Greenback activists, including 1880 Presidential nominee James B ... Weaver, later participated in the Populist Party ... By the middle of the 1880s, Greenback Labor nationally was losing its labor-based support, in part as a result of craft union voluntarism and in part as a ...
... Edward served as editor of the Iowa Tribune, the central organ of the Populist party of Iowa ... He also served as chairman of the Greenback Party's National Committee, and was a delegate to its National Convention in 1876 ... In 1878, Gillette was elected as a Greenback Party member to the United States House of Representatives, serving in the 46th Congress with fellow Iowa Greenback Party member James B ...
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“We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)