This thesis investigates the political career of Stephen Dorsey, an Ohio industrialist who moved to Arkansas in 1871. Dorsey was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arkansas in 1873, served as secretary of the Republican National Committee for. the election of 1880, and was tried twice, in 1882 and 1883, for the Star Route postal frauds. Although Dorsey was acquitted, the Star Route frauds ended his political career. Separate chapters treat each phase of Dorsey's career. Major sources included the D41 Arkansas Gazette, the Congressional Record, the Garfield Papers, and the official transcripts of the Star Route trials. The thesis concludes that Dorsey's career was, the product of Ulysses S. Grant's influence within the Republican party in. the Gilded Age.

This study traces the public life of Stephen Dorsey chronologically from his service in the Civil War to the end of his political career, which came with his failure to have a friend appointed governor of New Mexico Territory in 1889. Traditional interpretations of Dorsey are based on a combination of scant evidence, carpetbagger stereotypes, and the assumption that he was guilty of masterminding the monumental swindle of the Star Route Frauds. Closer examination of Dorsey's public life, however, reveals that this traditional view is distorted. A major conclusion of this study is that the assumption on which most traditional views of Dorsey are based, that he was the mastermind behind the Star Route Frauds, is not supported by the evidence. This study shows that it is impossible to study a Gilded Age political figure without also considering his business interests. Many of Dorsey's political activities, for example his involvement in the Compromise of 1877, can be traced to his business enterprises. Although Dorsey was not entirely innocent in the frauds, he was not guilty of the crimes with which the government charged him. This study also concludes that Dorsey was left vulnerable to the prosecution which ended his career in national politics by the peculiarly personal nature of the Republican party in the Gilded Age. That personal control had contributed to Dorsey's rise to power in the Republican party; it also led to his destruction.