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The legacy of the Populists, or "People's Party," included demands for direct popular election of United States Senators and the empowerment of the Congress to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived without apportionment or regard to any census.

Unfortunately for its chances of winning elections to the offices of President or Vice President of the United States, however, the party's legacy also included the only major time when basing American currency on the standard of bimetallism (the coinage of silver AND gold at a ratio of sixteen silver coins minted for every one gold coin minted) ever became a major political issue.http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_legacy_of_the_Populist_Party

I agree with some of the Populists ideas…1861….not a dawn of “Happy Days” in America and not a great age of dawning idealism. The end of slavery was idealistic and bloody when it did not have to be…but was. I grew-up in the south where civil war was memorialized with reenactments of battles…I can think of nothing so dim and dismal to celebrate.

The rush to war victimized Populism and crushed its interest beneath the wheels of Civil War Artillery.