The Tweed Ring Scandal

The time of reconstruction occurred right after the years of the Civil War. With the recent assassination of America's beloved president, Abraham Lincoln, the nation realized how important it was to start from the bottom. Lincoln had many ideas about how to restore the United States after the tragedy known as the Civil War. However, the scandals of that time were hardly what he had hoped for. Instead, the scandals got out of hand and America went into turmoil.

During the history of the United States, there have been people who have tried to work behind the scenes in dishonest acts. For example, there have been companies and bank that were accused of taking people's money. People who have siphoned money from a person and into their

In 1853, he was elected to the House of Representatives. He rose to the head of Tammany Hall and was later elected to the New York Senate in 1867. Tweed used his political position to his own selfish advantage. A scandal, known as the Tweed Ring, originated from his self-centered greed. Tweed gathered other leaders around him. All of which controlled the city's finances in some way or the other. Tweed's ring essentially controlled all of New York's finances. Using embezzlement, bribery and kickbacks, the ring siphoned massive amounts of money into their own pockets. The amount of stolen money was anywhere between $40 million dollars and $200 millions dollars. Companies that were owned by Tweed would charge ridiculous amounts of money for the work they did or they would charge for work that wasn't done. Due to newspaper comics, Tweed and his cronies were taken under investigation. Tweed was given 12 years in prison, was released a year later, arrested again and he soon escaped and fled the country. Tweed died in prison in

Ulysses S. Grant was president at this time, and his reputation had been ruined by the rumors of his being involved with numerous scandals. Much like Johnson, Grant wanted to wanted to reduce the supply of paper money. He sued the gold to buy money from citizens at a discount. On the other side of the conflict, were two men: Jay Gould and James Fisk. President and vice president of Erie Railroad. The pair had the reputation of the most ruthless finance masterminds. They even had a relationship with William Tweed, the aforementioned financial schemer. Gould and Fisk wanted to prevent Cornelius Vanderbilt from taking control of the Erie Railroad. They wanted to cheat Wall Street