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The United States Since the Civil War

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Title: The United States Since the Civil War

Author: Charles Ramsdell Lingley


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9868]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNITED STATES SINCE THE CIVIL WAR ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Beth Trapaga
and PG Distributed Proofreaders










THE UNITED STATES

SINCE THE CIVIL WAR


By

CHARLES RAMSDELL LINGLEY
Professor of History, Dartmouth College.


TO MY WIFE


1920.




PREFACE

To write an account of the history of the United States since the
Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the
omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a
miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to
have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been
brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political,
economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides
of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look
sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual,
because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the
truth.

It used to be believed that history could not be written until at
least half a century had elapsed after the events which were to be
chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time
can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves
of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily,
however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in
a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. He
must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand.
Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in
the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge
of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a
sensible opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between
government and industry, international relations, current politics, the
leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests
without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I
have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently
available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the
belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize
later work.

Some day somebody will delineate the _spiritual_ history of America
since the Civil War--the compound of tradition, discontent,
aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the
floundering progress of these United States through the last half
century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with
care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase
of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.

I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field--Andrews,
Beard, Paxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the
American Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latane
and Ogg. Haworth's _United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_, was
unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's
well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My
colleagues, Professors F.A. Updyke, C.A. Phillips, G.R. Wicker, H.D.
Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual
chapters. Professor E.E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel
on several economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, Professor B.B. Kendrick of Columbia University,
Professor W.T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors L.B.
Richardson and F.M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire
manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia
University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial
facilities for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth
have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as
well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros. allowed me to use a
map appearing in Ogg, _National Progress_, and D. Appleton and Co. have
permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre,
_Principles of Railroad Transportation_; A.J. Nystrom and Co. and the
McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines
copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife
and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.

CHARLES R. LINGLEY.
Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
   II IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME
  III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA
   IV POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES
    V THE NEW ISSUES
   VI THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
  VII THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES
 VIII THE OVERTURN OF 1884
   IX TRANSPORTATION AND ITS CONTROL
    X EXTREME REPUBLICANISM
   XI INDUSTRY AND _LAISSEZ FAIRE_
  XII DEMOCRATIC DEMORALIZATION
 XIII THE TREND OF DIPLOMACY
  XIV THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER
   XV MONETARY AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
  XVI 1896
 XVII REPUBLICAN DOMINATION AND WAR WITH SPAIN
XVIII IMPERIALISM
  XIX THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY
   XX THEODORE ROOSEVELT
  XXI POLITICS, 1908-1912
 XXII ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896
XXIII LATER INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
 XXIV WOODROW WILSON
  XXV THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD WAR

INDEX




MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

The growth of the United States from 1776 to 1867

Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868 to 1896

Economic interests, 1890

Relative prices, 1865 to 1890

The New West

Railroad mileage, 1860 to 1910, in thousands of miles

Map of the United States showing railroads in 1870

Map of the United States showing railroads in 1890 (The maps showing
the railroads are from Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad
Transportation, by courtesy of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co.)

Financial operations, 1875 to 1897, in millions of dollars

Total silver coinage, 1878 to 1894, in millions of dollars

Net gold in the treasury, by months, January, 1893, to February,
1896, in millions of dollars

The presidential election of 1896

The Philippines

The Spanish-American War in the West Indies

Campaign about Santiago

The chief foreign elements in the population of the United States

The cost of food, 1900 to 1912

Morgan-Hill railroads as listed shortly after 1900

Daily newspaper circulation, 1918

Election of 1904 by counties

Caribbean interests of the United States

Election of 1916 by counties

The Western Front

Strength of the American Expeditionary Force, July 1, 1917, to
November 1, 1918

The United States--1920

The cost of food, January, 1913, to January, 1920




CHAPTER I


RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH

Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair was regarded by many of the
politicians of his party as an "unutterable calamity"; and while the
news of Lincoln's assassination was received with expressions of genuine
grief, the accession of Vice-President Andrew Johnson was looked upon as
a "Godsend to the country." As the Civil War came to a close, Lincoln
opposed severe punishments for the leaders of the Confederacy; he urged
respect for the rights of the southern people; he desired to recognize
the existence of a Union element in the South, to restore the states to
their usual relations with as little ill-feeling as possible, and in the
restoration process to interfere but little with the normal powers of
the states. Johnson, on the contrary, "breathed fire and hemp."
"Treason," he asserted over and again, "should be made odious, and
traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must
be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious
men." For a time it seemed that the curtain would go down on the tragedy
of Civil War only to rise immediately on the execution of the
Confederate leaders and the confiscation of their property. A large and
active group of Washington politicians believed in the necessity of a
stern accounting with the "rebels." Lincoln's gentleness seemed to these
bitter northerners like a calamity; Johnson's vindictiveness like a
Godsend to the country. In the conflict between the policy of clemency
and the policy of severity is to be found the beginning of the period of
reconstruction.

Andrew Johnson was a compact, sturdy figure, his eyes black, his
complexion swarthy. In politics he had always been a Democrat. So
diverse were his characteristics that one is tempted to ascribe two
personalities to him. He was a tenacious man, possessed of a rude
intellectual force, a rough-and-ready stump speaker, intensely loyal,
industrious, sincere, self-reliant. His courage was put to the test
again and again, and nobody ever said that it failed. His loyalty held
him in the Union in 1861, although he was a senator from Tennessee and
his state as well as his southern colleagues were withdrawing. His
public and private integrity withstood a hostile investigation that
included the testimony of all strata of society, from cabinet officers
to felons in prison. Later, at the most critical moment of his whole
career, when he had hardly a friend on whom to lean, he was unflurried,
dignified, undismayed.

Although Johnson was born in North Carolina, the greater part of his
life was spent in eastern Tennessee. His education was of the slightest.
His wife taught him to write, and while he plied his tailor's trade she
read books to him that appealed to his eager intellect. When scarcely of
voting age he became mayor of the town in which he lived and by sheer
force of character made his way up into the state legislature, the
federal House of Representatives and the Senate. President Lincoln made
him military governor of Tennessee in 1862. In 1864 many Democrats and
most Republicans joined to form a Union party, and in order to emphasize
its non-sectional and non-partisan character they nominated Andrew
Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. And now this unschooled, poor-white,
slave-holding, Jeffersonian, states-rights Democrat had become President
of the United States.

It was scarcely to be expected that a man who had fought his way to the
fore in eastern Tennessee during those controversial years would possess
the characteristics of a diplomat. Even his friends found him
uncommunicative, too often defiant and violent in controversy,
irritating in manners, indiscreet, and lacking flexibility in the
management of men. The messages which he wrote as President were
dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power,
but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when
speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were
all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and
"Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner
grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The
North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had
been intoxicated when inaugurated as Vice-President. Unhappily, too, he
was distrustful by nature, giving his confidence reluctantly and with
reserve, so that he was almost without friends or spokesmen in either
house of Congress. His policies have commended themselves, on the whole,
even after the scrutiny of half a century. The extent to which he was
able to put them into effect is part of the history of reconstruction.

The close of the Civil War found the nation as well as the several
sections of the country facing a variety of complicated and pressing
social, economic and political problems. Vast armies had to be
demobilized and re-absorbed into the economic life of the nation.
Production of the material of war had to give way to the production of
machinery, the building of railroads and the tilling of the soil. The
South faced economic demoralization. The federal government had to
determine the basis on which the lately rebellious states should again
become normal units in the nation, and the civil, social and economic
status of the negro had to be readjusted in the light of the outcome of
the war. Most of these problems, moreover, had to be solved through
political agencies, such as party conventions and legislatures, with all
the limitations of partisanship that these terms convey. And they had
obviously to be solved through human beings possessed of all the
prejudices and passions that the war had aroused: through Andrew Johnson
with his force and tactlessness; through able, domineering and
vindictive Thaddeus Stevens; through narrow and idealistic Charles
Sumner and demagogic Benjamin F. Butler; as well as through finer
spirits like William Pitt Fessenden and Lyman Trumbull.

In their attitude toward the South, the people of the North, as well as
the politicians, fell into two groups. The smaller or radical party
desired a stern reckoning with all "rebels" and the imprisonment and
execution of the leaders.[1] They hoped, also, to effect an immediate
extension to the negroes of the right to vote. It was this faction that
welcomed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. The other group was
much the larger and was inclined toward gentler measures and toward
leaving the question of suffrage largely for the future. Lincoln and his
Secretary of State, Seward, were representative of this party. The
attitude of the South toward the North was more difficult to determine.
To be sure the rebellious states were beaten, and recognized the fact.
There was general admission that slavery was at an end. But careful
observers differed as to whether the South accepted its defeat in good
faith and would treat the blacks justly, or whether it was sullen,
unrepentant and ready to adopt any measures short of actual slavery to
repress the negro.

In theory, the union of the states was still intact. The South had
attempted to secede and had failed. Practically, however, the southern
states were out of connection with the remainder of the nation and some
method must be found of reconstructing the broken federation. President
Lincoln had already outlined a plan in his proclamation of December 8,
1863. Excluding the leaders of the Confederacy, he offered pardon to all
others who had participated in the rebellion, if they would take an oath
of loyalty to the Union and agree to accept the laws and proclamations
concerning slavery. As soon as the number of citizens thus pardoned in
each state reached ten per cent. of the number of votes cast in that
state at the election of 1860, they might establish a government which
he would recognize. It was his expectation that a loyal body of
reconstructed voters would collect around this nucleus, so that in no
great while the entire South would be restored to normal relations. At
the same time he called attention to the fact that under the
Constitution the admission into Congress of senators and representatives
sent by these governments must rest exclusively with the houses of
Congress themselves. In pursuance of his policy he had already appointed
military governors in states where the federal army had secured a
foothold, and they directed the re-establishment of civil government.
The radicals opposed the plan because it left much power, including the
question of negro suffrage, in the hands of the states. A contest
between Congress and the executive was clearly imminent when the
assassin's bullet removed the patient and conciliatory Lincoln.

Lincoln's determination to leave control over their restoration as far
as possible in the hands of the states was in line with Johnson's
Democratic, states-rights theories. Moreover, the new executive retained
his predecessor's cabinet, including Seward, whose influence was
promptly thrown on the side of moderation. To the consternation of the
radicals the President issued a proclamation announcing a reconstruction
policy which substantially followed that of Lincoln. Like his
predecessor he intended to confine the voting power to the whites,
leaving to the states themselves the question whether the ballot should
be extended to any of the blacks. Wherever Lincoln had not already
acted, he appointed military governors who directed the establishment of
state governments, the revival of the functions of county and municipal
officials, the repeal of the acts of secession, the repudiation of the
war debts, and the election of new state legislatures, governors,
senators and representatives. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the new legislatures
and declared in effect December 18, 1865.

During the last half of the year, the President's policy met with wide
approval among the people of the North, where both Republicans and
Democrats expressed satisfaction with his conciliatory attitude. The
South was not unpleased, as was indicated by the speed with which men
presented themselves for pardon and assisted in setting up new state
governments. Nevertheless there were disquieting possibilities of
dissension. Northern radicals could be counted upon to oppose so
moderate a policy. There was a reaction, too, against the great power
which the executive arm of the government had exercised in war time.
Congress felt that it had been thrust aside, its functions reduced and
its prestige diminished. It could be looked to for an assertion of its
desire to dominate reconstruction. Finally when ex-confederates began to
be elected to office, many a northerner shook his head and wondered
whether the South was attempting to get into the saddle once more.

When Congress convened in December, 1865, its members held a wide
variety of opinions in regard to the best method of restoring the
confederate states to the Union. On one point, however, there was some
agreement--that Congress ought to withhold approval of executive
reconstruction until it could decide upon a program of its own. Led by
Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader of the House, a joint congressional
committee of fifteen was appointed to report whether any of the southern
state governments were entitled to representation in Congress. For the
present, all of them, even the President's own state, were to be denied
representation. With Stevens as chairman of the House Committee on
Reconstruction and Johnson in the President's chair, a battle was
inevitable, in which quarter would be neither asked nor given.

Unhappily for themselves, the southern states played unwittingly into
the hands of Stevens and his radical colleagues. The outcome of the war
had placed upon the freedmen responsibilities which they could not be
expected to carry. To many of them emancipation meant merely cessation
from work. Vagabondage was common. Rumor was widespread that the
government was going to give each negro forty acres of land and a mule,
and the blacks loafed about, awaiting the division. The strict
regulations which had surrounded the former slave were discarded and it
was necessary to accustom him to a new regime. "The race was free, but
without status, without leaders, without property, and without
education." Fully alive to the dangers of giving unrestricted freedom
to so large a body of ignorant negroes, the southern whites passed the
"black codes," which placed numerous limitations on the civil liberty
of "persons of color." In some cases they were forbidden to carry arms,
to act as witnesses in court except in cases involving their own race,
and to serve on juries or in the militia. Vagrancy laws enabled the
magistrates to set unemployed blacks at work under arrangements that
amounted almost to peonage. It is now evident that the South was
actuated by what it considered the necessities of its situation and
not merely by a spirit of defiance. Yet the fear on the part of the
North that slavery was being restored under a disguise was not
unnatural. Radical northern newspapers and leading extremists in Congress
exaggerated the importance of the codes until they seemed like a
systematic attempt to evade the results of the war. As Republican
leaders in Congress saw the satisfaction created in the South by the
President's policy, and discovered that northern Democrats were rallying
to his support, the jealousies of partisanship caused them still further
to increase their grip on the processes of reconstruction. A disquieting
by-product of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, also began
to appear. Hitherto only three-fifths of the negroes had been counted in
apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. As soon as
the slaves became free, however, they were counted as if they were
whites, and thereby the strength of the South in Congress would be
increased. It was hardly to be expected that the North would view such a
development with satisfaction.

The first action of the leaders in Congress was the introduction of a
bill to continue and extend the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, a
federal organization which supervised charitable relief given the
negroes, protected them in making contracts for labor and assumed a sort
of guardianship over the race in making its transition out of slavery.
The new measure was intended to continue this federal tutelage of the
blacks. The President's veto of the bill, February 19, 1866, served to
widen the breach between him and Congress and thereby postponed still
further the admission of the representatives of the southern state
governments. Three days later Johnson addressed a crowd which collected
before the White House. In the course of his speech he lost control of
himself to such an extent as to indulge in undignified remarks and
personalities, and even to charge leaders in Congress with seeking to
destroy the fundamental principles of American government. Thoughtful
men everywhere were dismayed. In the meantime a Civil Rights bill was
pending in Congress, the purpose of which was to declare negroes to be
citizens of the United States and to give them rights equal to those
accorded other citizens, notwithstanding local or state laws and codes.
The President objected to the bill as an unconstitutional invasion of
the rights of the states, but it was promptly passed over the veto.
Scarcely any members of Congress now supported him except the Democrats.
The conservative or conciliatory Republicans were lost to him for good.
Throughout the North it was felt that protection must be accorded the
freedmen against the black codes, and when the President opposed it he
lost ground outside of Congress as well as in it. "From that time
Johnson was beaten."

Stevens in the House and Sumner and others in the Senate were now in a
position to press successfully a stern, congressional reconstruction
policy to replace that of the executive. The first item in the radical
program was the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed Congress in June,
1866, although it did not become of force until 1868. It contained four
sections: (1) making citizens of all persons born or naturalized in the
United States and forbidding states to abridge their rights; (2)
providing for the reduction of the representation in Congress of any
state that denied the vote to any citizens except those guilty of
crimes; (3) disabling confederate leaders from holding political office
except with the permission of Congress; and (4) prohibiting the payment
of confederate debts. The first section was, of course, designed to put
the civil rights of the negro into the Constitution where they would be
safe from hostile legislation. The second sought to get negro suffrage
into the South by indirection at a time when a positive suffrage
amendment could not be passed. The third was to take the pardoning
power out of executive hands.

At this point there came a halt in the controversy until the country
could be heard from in the congressional elections of 1866. Both sides
made unusual efforts to organize political sentiment. Both attempted to
demonstrate their thoroughly national character by holding conventions
attended by southern as well as northern delegates. Each angled for the
soldier vote by encouraging conferences of veterans. Late in July
occurred an incident which the radicals were able to use to advantage.
A crowd of negroes attending a convention in New Orleans in behalf of
suffrage for their race became engaged in a fight with white
anti-suffragists and many of the blacks were killed. The riot was
commonly referred to in the North as a "massacre," the moral of which
was that the negroes must be protected against the unrepentant rebels.
But it was Johnson himself who furnished greatest aid to his
adversaries. Having been invited to speak in Chicago, he determined
upon an electioneering trip, "swinging around the circle," he called
it. Again he was guilty of gross indiscretions. He made personal
allusions, held angry colloquies with the crowd and at one place met
such opposition that he had to retire unheard. It mattered little that
the greater part of his speeches were sound and substantial. His lapses
were held up to public scorn and he returned to Washington amid the
hoots of his enemies. It was commonly believed that he had been
intoxicated. Probably no orator, _The Nation_ sarcastically remarked,
ever accomplished so much by a fortnight's speaking. There could be
little doubt as to the outcome of the elections. The Republicans
carried almost every northern state and obtained a two-thirds majority
in each house of Congress, with which to override vetoes.

As if impelled by some perverse fate the southern whites during the fall
and winter of 1866-67 did the thing for which the bitterest enemy of the
South might have wished. Except in Tennessee, the legislature of every
confederate state refused with almost complete unanimity to ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment. Natural as the act was, it gave the North
apparently overwhelming proof that the former "rebels" were still
defiant. Encouraged by the results of the election and aroused by the
attitude of the South toward the Amendment, Congress proceeded to
encroach upon prerogatives that had hitherto been considered purely
executive, and also to pass a most extreme plan of reconstruction.

The first of these measures, the Tenure of Office Act, was passed over a
veto on March 2, 1867. By it the President was forbidden to remove civil
officers except with the consent of the Senate. Even the members of the
Cabinet could not be dismissed without the permission of the upper
house, a provision inserted for the protection of Edwin M. Stanton, the
Secretary of War. Stanton was in sympathy with the radical leaders in
Congress and it was essential to them that he be kept in this post of
advantage. General Grant, who had charge of the military establishment,
was made almost independent of the President by a law drafted secretly
by Stanton. On the same day, and over a veto also, was passed the
Reconstruction Act, the most important piece of legislation during the
decade after the war. It represented the desires of Thaddeus Stevens and
was passed mainly because of his masterful leadership. At the outset the
new Act declared the existing southern state governments to be illegal
and inadequate, and divided the South into five military districts. Over
each was to be a commanding general who should preserve order, and
continue civil officers and civil courts, or replace them with military
tribunals as he wished. Under his direction each state was to frame and
adopt a new constitution which must provide for negro suffrage. When
Congress should approve the constitution and when a legislature elected
under its provisions should adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, the state
might be readmitted to the Union.

The Reconstruction Act was remarkable in several features. The provision
imposing negro suffrage was carried through the Senate with difficulty
and only as the result of the tireless activity of Charles Sumner.
Sumner and other radicals were determined that the blacks should be
enfranchised in order that they might protect themselves from hostile
local legislation and also in order that they might form part of a
southern Republican party. Even more noteworthy was the military
character of the Act. The President had already exercised his
prerogative of declaring the country at peace on August 20, 1866, more
than six months before the Act was passed. In the decision in the
Milligan case, which preceded the Act by nearly three months, the
Supreme Court had decided that military tribunals were illegal except
where war made the operation of civil courts impossible. Military
reconstruction was illogical, not to say unlawful, therefore, but
Congress was more interested in a method that promised the speedy
accomplishment of its purposes than it was in the opinions of the
executive and judicial departments.

Despite his dissent from its provisions, the President at once set
military reconstruction in operation. When he mitigated its harshness,
however, where latitude was allowed him, Congress passed additional
acts, over the veto, of course, extending and defining the powers of
the commanding generals. Armed with complete authority, the generals
proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace
them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the
soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and
to enact legislation. In the meanwhile a total of 703,000 black and
627,000 white voters were registered, delegates to constitutional
conventions were elected, constitutions were drawn up and adopted which
permitted negro suffrage, and state officers and legislators elected.
In conformity with the provisions of the Act, the newly chosen
legislatures ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
sent representatives and senators to Washington, where they were
admitted to Congress, and by 1871 the last confederate state was
reconstructed.

The commanding generals were honest and efficient, in the main, even if
their stern rule was distasteful to the South, but the regime of the
newly elected state officers and legislators was a period of dishonesty
and incapacity. Most of the experienced and influential whites had been
excluded from participation in politics through the operation of the
presidential proclamations and the reconstruction acts. In all the
legislatures there were large numbers of blacks--sometimes, indeed, they
were in the majority. Two parties appeared. The radical or Republican
group included the negroes, a few southern whites, commonly called
"scalawags," and various northerners known as "carpet-baggers." These
last were in some cases mere adventurers and in others men of ability
who were attracted to the South for one reason or another, and took
a prominent part in political affairs. The old-time whites held both
kinds in equal detestation. The other party was called conservative or
Democratic, and was composed of the great mass of the whites. Many of
them had been Whigs before the war, but in the face of negro-Republican
domination, nearly all threw in their lot with the conservatives.

Not all the activities of the legislatures were bad. Provisions were
made for education, for example, that were in line with the needs of
the states. Nevertheless, their conduct in the main was such as to
drive the South almost into revolt. In the South Carolina legislature
only twenty-two members out of 155 could read and write. The negroes
were in the majority and although they paid only $143 in taxes
altogether, they helped add $20,000,000 to the state debt in four
years. In Arkansas the running expenses of the state increased 1500
per cent.; in Louisiana the public debt mounted from $14,000,000 to
$48,000,000 between 1868 and 1871. Only ignorance and dishonesty could
explain such extravagance and waste. Submission, however, was not
merely advisable; it presented the only prospect of peace. Open
resentment was largely suppressed, but it was inevitable that the
whites should become hostile to the blacks, and that they should
dislike the Republican party for its ruthless imposition of a system
which governed them without their consent and which placed them at the
mercy of the incompetent and unscrupulous. A system which made a negro
the successor of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate could
scarcely fail to throw the majority of southern whites into the ranks
of the enemies of the Republican organization.[2]

One step remained to ensure the continuance of negro suffrage--the
adoption of a constitutional provision. In 1869 Congress referred to the
states the Fifteenth Amendment, which was declared in force a year
later. By its terms the United States and the states are forbidden to
abridge the right of citizens to vote on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude.

While radical reconstruction was being forced to its bitter conclusion,
the opponents of the President were maturing plans for his impeachment
and exclusion from office. By the terms of the Constitution, the chief
executive may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors." Early in the struggle between President Johnson and
Congress a few members of the House of Representatives urged an attempt
to impeach him. Such extremists as James M. Ashley of Ohio, and Benjamin
F. Butler of Massachusetts, believed that he had even been implicated in
the plot to assassinate Lincoln. A thorough-going search through his
private as well as his public career failed to produce any evidence that
could be interpreted as sufficient to meet constitutional demands, and a
motion to impeach was voted down in the House by a large majority. So
indiscreet a man as the President, however, was likely at some time to
furnish a reason for further effort. The occasion came in the removal of
the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.

Stanton, although of a domineering and brusque personality, had ably
administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the
controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in
the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents and
had even drafted one of the reconstruction acts. Johnson had tolerated
the questionable conduct of his Secretary, despite the advice of many
of his supporters, until August 5, 1867, when he requested Stanton's
resignation. The latter took refuge behind the Tenure of Office Act,
denying the right of the President to remove him, but yielding his
office at Johnson's insistence. This episode had occurred during a
recess of Congress and, in accord with the law, the removal of Stanton
was reported when it convened in December. The Senate at once refused
to concur and Stanton returned to his office. The President now found
himself forced, by what he regarded as an unconstitutional law, into
the unbearable position of including one of his enemies within his
official family, and once more he ordered the Secretary to retire. But
meanwhile the House of Representatives had been active and had on
February 24, 1868, impeached the President for "high crimes and
misdemeanors."

The trial was conducted before the Senate, as the Constitution
provides, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acting as the
presiding officer. The House chose a board of seven managers to conduct
the prosecution, of whom Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler were
best known. The President was defended by able counsel, including
former Attorney-General Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, who had earlier
sat upon the Supreme Court, and William M. Evarts, an eminent lawyer
and leader of the bar in New York. The charges, although eleven in
number, centered about four accusations: (1) that the dismissal of
Secretary Stanton was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; (2) that
the President had declared that part of a certain act of Congress was
unconstitutional; (3) that he had attempted to bring Congress into
disgrace in his speeches; and (4) that in general he had opposed the
execution of several acts of Congress. The President's counsel asked
for forty days in which to prepare their case. They were given ten,
although members of the House had been preparing for more than a year
to resort to impeachment. The trial lasted from early March to late
May.

As the trial wore on, it became increasingly evident that the House had
but little substance on which to base an impeachment, and that the force
back of it was intense hatred of the President. It was made clear to
senators who were inclined to waver towards the side of acquittal that
their political careers were at an end if they failed to vote guilty.
The general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church even appointed
an hour of prayer that the Senate might be moved to convict. The lawyers
for the defense so far outgeneraled the prosecutors that one who reads
the records at the present day finds difficulty in thinking of them as
more than the account of a pitiful farce. At length on May 16 the Senate
was prepared to make its decision. The last charge was voted upon first.
It was a very general accusation, drawn up by Stevens, and seemed most
likely to secure the necessary two-thirds for conviction. Fifty-four
members would vote. Twelve of them were Democrats and were known to be
for acquittal. The majority of the Republicans were for conviction. A
small group had given no indication of their position, and their votes
would be the decisive ones. As the roll was called each senator replied
"Guilty" or "Not guilty," while floor and galleries counted off the vote
as the knitting women clicked off the day's toll of heads during the
days when the guillotine made a reign of terror in France. The result
was thirty-five votes for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. As
thirty-six were necessary, Johnson had escaped. A recess of ten days was
taken during which the prosecution sought some shred of evidence which
might prove that some one of the nineteen had accepted a bribe for his
vote, but to no avail. When the Senate convened again there was no
change in the vote on the second and third articles, and the attempt to
convict was abandoned.

For the first time in many months Johnson enjoyed a respite from the
attacks of his foes. Stanton relinquished his office, and the integrity
of the executive power was preserved. The race of the dictator of the
House had been run, for Stevens lived less than three months after the
trial.

The continuous controversies of the Johnson administration almost
completely pressed into the background two diplomatic accomplishments of
no little importance. The more dramatic of these related to the French
invasion of Mexico. During 1861, naval vessels of England, France and
Spain had entered Mexican ports in order to compel the payment of debts
said to be due those countries, but England and Spain had soon withdrawn
and had left France to proceed alone. French troops thereupon had
invaded the country, captured Mexico City and established an empire with
Archduke Maximilian of Austria as its head, despite the protests and
opposition of the Mexicans under their leader Juarez. The United States
had expressed dissent and alarm, meanwhile, but because of the war was
in no position to take action.

As soon as civil strife was finished, however, Johnson and Seward took
vigorous steps. An army under General Sheridan was sent to the border,
and diplomatic pressure was exerted to convince France of the
desirability of withdrawal. The occupation of Mexico was, apparently,
not popular in France, and in the face of American opposition the French
government sought a means of dropping the project. Accordingly the
invading forces were withdrawn early in 1867, leaving the hapless
Maximilian to the Mexicans, by whom he was subsequently seized and
executed.

While the Mexican difficulty was being brought to a successful outcome,
the government of Russia offered to sell to the United States her
immense Alaskan possessions west and northwest of Canada. Secretary
Seward was enthusiastically disposed to accept the offer and a treaty
was accordingly drawn up on March 30, 1867, providing for the
acquisition of the territory for $7,200,000. The Senate, however, was
far less inclined to seize the opportunity. Little was known about
Alaska, and the cost seemed almost prohibitive in view of the financial
strains caused by the war. Nevertheless the inclination to acquire
territory was strong and there was a widespread desire to accede to the
wishes of Russia who was understood to have been well-disposed toward
the United States during the war. Under the operation of these forces
the Senate changed its attitude and ratified the treaty on April 9,
1867. By this act the United States came into possession of an area
measuring nearly 600,000 square miles, and stores of fish, furs, timber,
coal and precious metals whose size is even yet little understood.

It was not long before it became apparent that radical reconstruction
had been founded too little upon the hard facts of social and political
conditions in the South, and too much upon benevolent but mistaken
theories, and upon prejudices, partisanship and emotion. It was
inevitable that there should be an aftermath.

At the close of reconstruction in 1871, the southern negro was a citizen
of civil and political importance. As a voter, he was on an equality
with the whites; he belonged to the Republican party and his party was a
powerful factor in the politics of the South; his position was secured,
or at least seemed to be secured, by amendments to the federal
Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be
impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments
vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To
his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white
man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of
government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence
within the power of the congenitally unfit. To the discontent aroused by
war were added political and racial antagonism, which blazed at times
into fury. The southern whites began to invent methods for overcoming
the power of the freedmen in politics and for insuring themselves
against possible danger of violence at the hands of the blacks.

The most famous device was the Ku Klux Klan or the Invisible Empire, a
somewhat loosely organized secret society which originated in Tennessee
during the turmoil immediately after the close of the war. In theory and
practice its operations were simple and effective. Its chief officials
were the Grand Wizard, the Grand Dragon, the Grand Titan. Local branches
were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at
night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white
masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode
forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled.
The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common
among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were
thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls
of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be
"visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was
warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the
neighborhood. If the threat proved ineffective, whipping or some worse
punishment was likely to follow.

In 1872 Congress unintentionally aided in the process of overcoming
negro domination by the passage of the Amnesty Act, which restored to
all but a few hundreds of the former Confederates the political
privileges which had been taken from them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Under the latter the great majority of former southern leaders had been
deprived of the right to hold office. On the restoration of this right
such men as Alexander H. Stephens, former Vice-President of the
Confederate States, and Wade Hampton, one of the most influential South
Carolinians, could again take an active part in politics. With their
return, the cause of white supremacy received a powerful impetus.

In taking this step, however, Congress did not intend to allow the legal
and constitutional rights of the blacks to be waived without a contest.
Reports reached the North concerning the activities of the southern
whites--reports which in no way minimized the amount of intimidation and
violence involved--and in response to this information Congress passed
the enforcement laws of 1870-1871, generally known as the "Force
Acts."[3] These laws laid heavy penalties upon individuals who should
prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional political
powers--primarily the right to vote. As offences under these acts were
within the jurisdiction of the federal courts and as the federal
officials manifested an inclination to carry out the law, the number of
indictments was considerable. Convictions, however, were infrequent. The
famous Ku Klux Act of 1871 amplified the law of 1870 and was aimed at
combinations or conspiracies of persons who resorted to intimidation. It
authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas
corpus_ and made it his duty to employ armed force to suppress
opposition.

Additional sting was given the enforcement laws by provision for the
superintendence of federal elections, under specified conditions, by
federal officials called "supervisors of election." The supervisors were
given large powers over the registration of voters and the casting and
counting of ballots, so as to ensure a fair vote and an honest count.
Since here, again, federal troops stood behind the law, it was manifest
that the central government would show some degree of determination in
its handling of the southern situation. Nevertheless, the result was
merely to delay the gradual elimination of the blacks from political
activity, not to prevent it. In practice the Republican state
governments in the South were continued in the seats of authority only
through the presence of the federal soldiery. In one way or another the
whites gained the upper hand, so that by 1877 only South Carolina and
Louisiana had failed to achieve self-government unhampered by federal
force.

In the meantime the enforcement acts were being slowly weakened by the
Supreme Court in several decisions bearing upon the Fourteenth
Amendment. The significant portion of Section I of the Amendment is as
follows:

    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
    the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
    nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
    property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
    within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In several cases involving the enforcement acts, the Court found
portions of the laws in conflict with the Constitution and finally, in
1883, the decision in United States _v._ Harris completed their
destruction. Here the court met a complaint that a group of white men
had taken some negroes away from the officers of the law and ill-treated
them. Such conduct seemed to be contrary to that part of the Ku Klux Act
which forbade combinations designed to deprive citizens of their legal
rights. The Court, however, called attention to the important words, "No
_State_ shall make or enforce," and was of opinion that the
constitutional power of Congress extends only to cases where _States_
have acted in such a manner as to deprive citizens of their rights. If
_individuals_, on the contrary, conspire to take away these rights,
relief must be sought at the hands of the state government. As the great
purpose of the Ku Klux Act had been to combat precisely such individual
combinations, it appeared that the Court had, at a blow, demolished the
law. Not long afterwards the Court declared unconstitutional the Civil
Rights Act of 1875, which had been designed to insure equal rights to
negroes in hotels, conveyances and theatres. Here again the Court was of
opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment grants no power to the United
States but forbids certain activities by the states.[4]

Stuffing the ballot box was common in South Carolina and other states.
In one election in this state the number of votes cast was almost double
the number the names on the polling list. In some places the imposition
of a poll tax peacefully eliminated the impecunious freedman. In
Mississippi the state legislature laid out the "shoestring" election
district, 300 miles long and about 20 miles wide, which included many of
the sections where the negroes were most numerous, in order that their
votes might have as little effect as possible. By hook or by crook,
then, in simple and devious ways, the dangers of negro domination were
averted. Nevertheless the provisions of the law for federal supervision
of elections remained, becoming a bone of contention during a later
administration.

About 1890 there began a new era in the elimination of the negro from
politics in the South. The people of that section disliked the methods
which they felt the necessity of using, and searched about for a less
crude device. Furthermore the rise of a new political movement in some
parts of the South in the late eighties and early nineties was making
divisions among the Democrats and was encouraging attempts by the two
factions to control the negro vote. Suddenly, a relatively small number
of negro voters became a powerful and purchasable make-weight. Both
sides, perhaps, were a bit disturbed at this development. At any rate,
additional impetus was given to the movement for the suppression of the
negro. Eventually plans were originated, some of which were clearly
constitutional and all of which carried a certain appearance of
legality.

The first steps were taken by Mississippi in 1890. The new state
constitution of that year required as prerequisite to the voting
privilege, the payment of all taxes which were legally demanded of the
citizen during the two preceding years--a provision to which no
constitutional exception could be taken, and which effectively debarred
large numbers of colored voters. Further, it provided that after January
1, 1892, every voter must be able to read any section of the state
constitution or be able to give an interpretation of it _when read to
him_. As the election officials who would judge the ability of the
applicant properly to interpret the constitution would certainly be
whites, it was clear that the ignorant black would have scant chance of
passing the educational test. Several other states followed in the wake
of Mississippi, until in 1898 Louisiana discovered a new barrier through
which only whites might make their way to the voting lists. This was the
famous "grandfather clause." In brief, it allowed citizens to vote who
had that right before January 1, 1867, together with the descendants of
such citizens, regardless of their educational and property
qualifications. As no negroes had voted in the state before that date,
they were effectively debarred. Under the influence of such pressure,
the negro vote promptly dwindled away to negligible proportions. In
Louisiana, to cite one case, there were 127,263 registered colored
voters in 1896, and 5,354 in 1900. Between these two years the new state
constitution had been passed. In 1915 the Supreme Court finally declared
a grandfather clause unconstitutional on the ground that its only
possible intention was to evade that provision of the Fifteenth
Amendment which forbids the states to abridge, on account of color, the
rights of citizens of the United States to vote.

The history of the effects of the war and of reconstruction on the
political status of the negro has been concisely summarized as falling
into three periods. At the close of the war: (1) the negroes were
more powerful in politics than their numbers, intelligence and
property seemed to justify; (2) the Republican party was a power in
the South; and (3) the negroes enjoyed political rights on a legal and
constitutional equality with the whites. By 1877 the first of these
generalizations was no longer a fact; by 1890 the Republican party had
ceased to be of importance in the South; and by the opening of the
twentieth century, the negro as a possible voter was not on a legal
and constitutional equality with the white.

In the sphere of government the war and reconstruction were of lasting
importance. Preeminently it was definitely established that the federal
government is supreme over the states. Although the Constitution had
seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can
not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did
the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity.
Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and
self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President
had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the
character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The
depression of the executive elevated the legislature and not until the
beginning of the twentieth century did the scales swing back again
toward their former position.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

General. The best general account of the period 1865-1917 is to be found
in the following volumes of _The American Nation: A History_: W.A.
Dunning, _Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1865-1877_ (1907); E.E.
Sparks, _National Development, 1877-1885_ (1907); D.R. Dewey, _National
Problems, 1885-1897_ (1907); J.H. Latane, _America as a World Power,
1897-1907_ (1907); F.A. Ogg, _National Progress, 1907-1917_ (1918). The
volumes vary in excellence and interest, but set a high standard,
especially in their recognition of the importance of economic facts, and
contain excellent bibliographical material. The following single volumes
are useful: E.B. Andrews, _United States in Our Own Time, 1870-1903_
(1903); C.A. Beard, _Contemporary American History_ (1914); P.L.
Haworth, _Reconstruction and Union, 1865-1912_ (1912); P.L. Haworth,
_United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920_; E.P. Oberholtzer, _History
of the United States since the Civil War_ (to be in several volumes, of
which one appeared in 1917, covering 1865-1868); F.L. Paxson, _The New
Nation_ (1915); H.T. Peck, _Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885-1905_
(1907), readable and especially valuable in its interpretation of the
period which it covers; J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States from
Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896_ (1919), lacks understanding of the period
covered. J.S. Bassett, _Short History of the United States_ (1913),
has excellent chapters on the years 1865-1912; F.J. Turner in the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (11th ed.), article "United States, History
1865-1910," is brief but inclusive; the later chapters of Max Farrand,
_Development of the United States_ (1918), present a new point of view.
_The Chronicles of America Series_ (1919 and later), edited by Allen
Johnson, contains valuable volumes on especial topics. For party
platforms and election statistics consult Edward Stanwood, _A History
of the Presidency_ (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1916).

Reconstruction. The most valuable single volume on the reconstruction
period is the volume by Dunning already referred to; W.L. Fleming,
_Sequel of Appomattox_ (1919), is also excellent; J.F. Rhodes, _History
of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, vols. VI, VII
(1906), is the best detailed account; James Schouler, _History of the
United States_, vol. VII (1913), presents a new view of President
Johnson. Valuable biographies are J.A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus
Stevens_ (1913); G.H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909); Horace White,
_The Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). On impeachment, D.W. Dewitt, _The
Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903), is best. W.A. Dunning,
_Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction_ (ed. 1910), is strong on the
constitutional changes. Studies on reconstruction in the several states
have been published by W.W. Davis (Florida), (1913); W.L. Fleming
(Alabama), (1905); J.W. Garner (Mississippi), (1901); J.G. deR.
Hamilton (North Carolina), (1914); C.W. Ramsdell (Texas), (1910); and
others. For documentary material, W.L. Fleming, _Documentary History of
Reconstruction_ (2 vols., 1906-7), is essential. Edward Channing, A.B.
Hart and F.J. Turner, _Guide to the Study and Reading of American
History_ (1912), provides full references to a wide variety of works
covering 1865-1911. Consult also Appleton's _Annual Cyclopaedia_,
_1861-1902_. On foreign relations J.B. Moore, _Digest of International
Law_, 8 vols., (1906).

Periodical literature. The most useful periodicals are:

_American Economic Review_ (1911-); _American Historical Review_
(1895-); _American Political Science Review_ (1907-); _Atlantic
Monthly_ (1857-); _Century Magazine_ (1870-); _Harper's Weekly_
(1857-1916); _Harvard Law Review_; _History Teachers' Magazine_,
continued as _Historical Outlook_ (1909-); _Journal of Political
Economy_ (1892-); _Nation_ (1865-); _North American Review_ (1815-);
_Political Science Quarterly_ (1886-); _Quarterly Journal of Economics_
(1886-); _Scribner's Magazine_ (1887-); _Yale Review_ (1892-1911, _new
series_, 1912-).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, was held
in prison until 1867 and then released. He died in 1889. Suggestions
that General Lee, the most prominent military leader, be arrested and
tried met with such opposition from General Grant, the Union leader,
that the project was dropped. Lee died in 1870.

[2] A number of these states later repudiated their debts.

[3] The threats used to keep the negroes away from the polls are
typified in the following, which was published in Mississippi:

    "The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election."

    "The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election.

    "The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair
    election.

    "Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?

    "The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.

    "It _shall_ be a Democratic victory."

[4] In regard to segregation of the races in railroad coaches, the
Court decided, 1910, that constitutional rights are not interfered with
when separate accommodations are provided, if the accommodations be
equally good. Chiles _v._ Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Co., 218 U.S.,
71.




CHAPTER II


IN PRESIDENT GRANT'S TIME

Aside from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the
northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General
Ulysses S. Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the
early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture
of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged
drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When
the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's
army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned
with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the
politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put
to account in the field of politics.

Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government.
In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a
candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he
was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against
Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the
residence requirement for suffrage in the town where he was living.
Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters
after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into
contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the
controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at
first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time
of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between
them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open
hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case
with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as
the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.

The convention of the National Union Republican Party, as it was
called at that time, was held in Chicago, May 20, 1868, during the
interval between the votes on the eleventh and second charges of the
impeachment of President Johnson. General Grant was unanimously
nominated for the presidency and Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, for the second place on the ticket. The
platform portrayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and
defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at that time the
black was commonly denied the vote--the Fifteenth Amendment having
not yet been ratified--and the convention accordingly declared that
the question of suffrage in all the "loyal" states properly belonged
in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt
ought to be paid in full, that pensions for the veterans were an
obligation and that immigration ought to be encouraged. The
administration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five
senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were
commended.

The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their
platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land
to actual occupants, praised the administration of President Johnson,
arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction acts
"unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If the radical party
should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would
be "a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and
the scattered fragments of the Constitution." The regulation of the
suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the
individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however,
was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds
issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable
in "dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold
dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were
hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly
be paid in paper. Such was the "Ohio idea," which was made part of
the Democratic platform.

The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials
indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as
"Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the "Ohio idea." Johnson
also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to
obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was
willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the
twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio
Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met
with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he
would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.

[Illustration:
Popular vote in presidential elections, 1868-1896]

The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in
the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in
Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states
had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled
the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again
under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general
operation throughout the South and its activities, both real and
imaginary, received wide advertisement in the North. Public interest,
therefore, in the underlying issues of the campaign centered upon the
attitude of the candidates toward the southern question. General
Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the
conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the
Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried
twenty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral
votes, but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination
of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the
solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South,
moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when
these states should become conservative, as they were sure to do, the
political parties would be almost evenly divided.[1]

The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder
of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the
space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven
years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had
been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather
than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness; had grubbed a scanty
living out of "Hard Scrabble," a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand
at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a
leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than
three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which
only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief
of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative
man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election
and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about
his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address
and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning
legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the
appointment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dismay.
Most of the men named were but little known and some of them were not
aware that they were being chosen until the list was made public. The
Secretary of State, Elihu Washburne, was a close personal friend, and
was appointed merely that he might hold the position long enough to
enjoy the title and then retire. He was succeeded by Hamilton Fish,
of New York, who proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the
Treasury was A.T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New York, but he had to
withdraw on account of a law forbidding any person "interested in
carrying on the business of trade or commerce" to hold the office.
The Secretary of the Navy, A.E. Borie, was a rich invalid of
Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and
resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J.D. Cox,
of Ohio, as Secretary of the Interior, and Judge E.R. Hoar, of
Massachusetts, as Attorney-General.

When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in 1869 its first act
was a measure providing for the payment of the public debt in coin.
Part of the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, the President having
indicated his opposition to it. On the southern question General
Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radical counsels
and the logic of events led him to join Congress in the passage of
the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already
been mentioned.

It was during this, the first year of Grant's administration, that
there occurred the famous gold conspiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and
James Fisk, Jr., two of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the
time, determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market
price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which
they had recently purchased. The likelihood that the conspirators
could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the
Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several
millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be
stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on
friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance
of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and
other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing
his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was
informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the
message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold
as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on "Black
Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad
that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon,
after consultation with the President, he decided to place four
millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went
bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to
save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of
the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his
association with them during the period when their scheme was being
perfected made him a target for all manner of accusations.

Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward
two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he
suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he
was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested
and that certain southern members demanded the post of attorney-general
for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's
resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of
politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had
protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts
brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the
President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox were succeeded by
mediocre men.

The treaty which caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the
President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The
Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant was accustomed
to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at
his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President
and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter's refusal to support
ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal
of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he
had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the
chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he
had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had
to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his
estimate of its probable value.

In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the
administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever
since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to
make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle.
Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England
should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the
South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States
demanded reparation for destruction committed by the _Alabama_ and
other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe
was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War,
and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon
England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier
attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little
emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect
damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871,
provided for the arbitration of the _Alabama_ claims under such rules
that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made
exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a
representative--the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland
and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably
to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to
preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was
ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.

The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that
might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of
domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade
after the war was the wide-spread corruption in political and
commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring
in New York. The government of that city was in the hands of a band
of highwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall,
was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution
of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power
despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite
method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a
bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked to present one for
$55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the
remainder would be divided among the members of the Ring. The
plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House
presented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The New York
_Times_ and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in _Harper's Weekly_ were the
chief agents in arousing the people of the city to their situation.
The former obtained and published proofs of the rascality of the
Ring, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871,
overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the
country, while Tweed himself died in jail.

More important both because of its effect on national politics and
because of its influence on railway legislation for many years
afterward was the Credit Mobilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a
construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of
the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line which was being
built between 1865 and 1869. In their capacity of railroad
stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the
construction company the contract to build and equip a large part of
the railway. The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as
to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit
Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.
Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was
being introduced in Washington and he therefore decided to take steps
to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier
stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said,
they would "do most good." Rumors concerning the nature of the
transaction resulted finally in accusations in the New York _Sun_
during 1872, which involved the names of many prominent politicians.
Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the
charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found
guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to
influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of
Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several
others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations
and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A.
Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years
on the defensive.

Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled
with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that
day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of
the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had
begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little
earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned
largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and
especially of General Grant himself.

There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President
of the United States--this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious
man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who
talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted
with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted
nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who
had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had
been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's
souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he
was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded,
persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and
upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was
his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the
counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside
he associated too frequently with questionable characters who
cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his
integrity, but which his lack of experience and his utter inability
to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and
loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men
who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered
what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and
appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their
generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his
services during the war.[2]

It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential
campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but
its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's
first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had
deprived southern sympathizers of the right to vote and hold office.
A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had
begun a counter-movement, intended to remove the restrictions on the
southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel
Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man
of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz
faction had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the
Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout
the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at
Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal
Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time
become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of
the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the
Liberal revolt--those who deprecated the President's choice of
associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused
by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff
reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for their
plans.

On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it
and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly
resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political
conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of
influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of
the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed
likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most
respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the
convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men
in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on
southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the
federal government in local affairs--a reference to the use of troops
to enforce the radical reconstruction policy--and advocated civil
service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its
attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get
the support of Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_,
the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley
was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the
issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts,
and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was
the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available--Charles
Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman
Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court.
Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention,
however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as
being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile
to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve
success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity,
Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were
the joy of the cartoonist.

The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated
Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861,
urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and
approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.

To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in
the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a
course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had
excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three
war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had
accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement
of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his
platform were accordingly accepted.

The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the
opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the
nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too
many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in _Harper's Weekly_, especially,
held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by
750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which,
together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign
resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the
Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a
sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the
party might desire.

On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close,
Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials
from the President to the members of the House of Representatives.
The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of
them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country
whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier
scandal, the "salary grab" and the "back pay steal" were fresh
indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators
and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies.
Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next
session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to
the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.

The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the
popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J.
Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the
House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped
out and the Democrats given complete control. Even the redoubtable
Benjamin F. Butler lost his seat.

Further apprehensions were aroused by rumors concerning the
operations of a "Whiskey Ring." For some years it had been suspected
that a ring of revenue officials with accomplices in Washington were
in collusion with the distillers to defraud the government of the
lawful tax on whiskey. Part of the illegal gains were said to have
gone into the campaign fund for Grant's re-election, although he was
ignorant of the source of the revenue. Benjamin H. Bristow, who
became Secretary of the Treasury in 1874, began the attempt to stop
the frauds and capture the guilty parties. This was no simple task,
because information of impending action was surreptitiously sent out
by officials in Washington. Finally Secretary Bristow got the
information which he sought, and then moved to capture the criminals.
One of the most prominent members of the Ring was an internal revenue
official in St. Louis who, it was recollected, had entertained
President Grant, had presented him with a pair of horses and a wagon,
and had given the General's private secretary a diamond shirt-stud
valued at $2,400. Public opinion was yet further shocked, however,
when the trail of indictments led to the President's private
secretary, General Babcock. On first receiving the news of Bristow's
discoveries, Grant had written "Let no guilty man escape"; but later
he became secretly and then openly hostile to the investigation.
During the trial of Babcock, the President asked to be a witness in
his behalf. A verdict of acquittal was given, but afterwards the two
men had a private conference, and when "Grant came out, his face was
set in silence." Babcock never returned to the White House as
Secretary, but was given the post of Superintendent of Public
Buildings and Grounds. Several of the members of the Ring were
imprisoned but were later pardoned by the President. In the meanwhile
Grant seems to have been brought to believe that Bristow was
persecuting Babcock with a view to getting the favor of the reform
element in the party and eventually the presidential nomination.
Relations between the two became strained and Bristow resigned.

The last year of Grant's second administration was blackened by the
case of W.W. Belknap, who was then Secretary of War. Investigation by
a House committee uncovered the fact that since 1870 an employee in
the Indian service had paid $12,000 and later $6,000 a year for the
privilege of retaining his office. The money had been paid at first
to Mrs. Belknap, who had made the arrangement, and after her death to
the Secretary himself. The House unanimously voted to impeach him,
but on the day when the vote was taken he resigned and the President
accepted the resignation. Only the fact that he was out of office
prevented the Senate from declaring him guilty, and critics of the
administration noted that the President had saved another friend from
deserved punishment.

It would be easy to over-estimate the responsibility of General Grant
for the political corruption of his administrations. For the most
part the wrong-doing of the time began before his first election.
Democrats as well as Republicans participated in many of the
scandals. Politicians in the cities, the states and the nation seemed
to be determined to have a share in the enormous wealth that was
being created in America, and they got it by means that varied from
the merely unethical and indiscreet, to the openly corrupt. As for
the President, his own defence, given in his last message to
Congress, may be taken as the best one: "Failures have been errors of
judgment, not of intent."

Under the circumstances, however, it was natural that the
presidential campaign of 1876 should turn upon the failings of the
administration. Popular interest in the southern issue was on the
wane. Early in the election year, nevertheless, James G. Blaine,
Republican leader in the House, made a forceful attack on Jefferson
Davis, as the wilful author of the "gigantic murders and crimes at
Andersonville," the southern prison in which federal captives had
been held. Instantly the sectional hatred flared up and Blaine,
already a well-known leader, became a prominent candidate for the
nomination. Republican reformers generally favored Bristow. A
third-term boom for Grant was effectively crushed by an adverse
resolution in the House.

The Republican nominating convention met on June 14. The virtues of
Blaine were set forth in a famous speech by Robert G. Ingersoll in
which he referred to the attack on Davis: "Like an armed warrior,
like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the
American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against
the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country." The "plumed
knight," however, was open to attack concerning a scandal during the
Grant regime, and the convention turned to Governor Rutherford B.
Hayes, of Ohio, a man of quiet ability who had been unconnected with
Washington politics, was relatively unknown and, therefore, not
handicapped by the antagonisms of previous opponents. The platform
emphasized the services of the party during the war, touched lightly
on the events of the preceding eight years, advocated payment of the
public debt, and favored import duties and the reform of the civil
service.

The Democrats met on June 27. There was little opposition to the
nomination of Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a wealthy
lawyer who had made a record as a reformer in opposition to "Boss"
Tweed and a corrupt canal ring. The platform was distinctly a reform
document. It demanded reform in the governments of states and nation,
in the currency system, the tariff, the scale of public expense, and
the civil service. An eloquent paragraph exhibited those corruptions
of the administration which had caused such general dismay.

There was little in the campaign that was distinctive, and on
November 8, the morning after the election, it seemed clear that
Tilden had been successful. He had carried the doubtful states of
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. When the figures were
all gathered, it was found that his popular vote exceeded that of his
rival by more than 250,000. But there were disputes in three states,
Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Hayes would be elected only if
the electoral votes of all these states could be obtained for him.
If, however, Tilden received even one electoral vote from any of the
states, the victory would be his. Hayes was conceded 166 electoral
votes; Tilden 184. Nineteen were in dispute. The Republican leaders
at once claimed the nineteen disputed votes, and asserted that their
candidate was elected. The Democrats had no doubt of the victory of
Tilden.[3] The capitals of the three doubtful states now became the
centers of observation. Troops had long been stationed in South
Carolina and Louisiana, and others were promptly sent to Florida.
Prominent politicians from both parties also flocked thither, in
order to uphold the party interests.

In South Carolina it became evident that a majority of the popular
vote was for Hayes, although both the Democratic and the Republican
electors sent in returns to Washington. In Florida there was a board
of canvassers which had power to exclude false or fraudulent votes.
It was composed of two Republicans and one Democrat. When all ballots
had been sent in, the Democrats claimed a majority of ninety; the
Republicans a majority of forty-five. The board went over the returns
and by a partisan vote threw out enough to make the Republican
majority 924. Republican electoral votes were thereupon sent to
Washington, but so also were Democratic votes. The situation in
Louisiana was still more complicated. Political corruption and
intimidation had been commonplaces in that state. On the face of the
returns, Tilden's electors had received majorities varying from 6,000
to 9,000. As in Florida there was a board of canvassers which was
here composed of four Republicans, three of whom were men of low
character. The vote of the state was offered to the Democrats, once
for $1,000,000 and once for $200,000, but the offer was not taken.
The board then threw out enough ballots to choose all the Hayes
electors. As in the other cases, Democratic electors also sent
ballots to Washington.

There was no federal agency with power to determine which sets of
electors were to be counted, and the fact that the federal Senate was
Republican and the House Democratic seemed to preclude the
possibility of legislation on the subject. No such critical situation
had ever resulted from an election, and a means of settlement must
quickly be discovered, for only three months would elapse after the
electoral votes were sent to Washington, before the term of General
Grant would expire. The means devised was the Electoral Commission.
This body was to be composed of five senators, five representatives,
and five justices of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House were
each to choose their five members, and four members of the Court were
designated by the Act which established the Commission, with power to
choose a fifth. It was understood that seven would be Republicans,
seven Democrats and that the fifteenth member would be Justice David
Davis, an Independent, who would be selected by his four colleagues.
On him in all probability, the burden of the decision would fall. On
the day when the Senate agreed to the plan, however, the Democrats
and Independents in the Illinois legislature chose Justice Davis as
United States Senator and under these circumstances he refused to
serve on the Commission. It was too late to withdraw, and since all
the remaining justices from whom a commissioner must be chosen were
Republicans, the Democrats were compelled to accept a body on which
they were outnumbered eight to seven.

The Electoral Commission sat all through the month of February, 1877.
Its decisions were uniformly in favor of Hayes electors by a vote of
eight to seven, always along party lines, and on March 2, it was
formally announced that Hayes had been elected. The disappointment of
the Democrats was bitter and lasting, for their candidate had
received over a quarter of a million popular votes more than his
opponent, and yet had been declared defeated. For a time there was
some fear of civil war. Tilden, however, accepted the decision of the
Commission in good faith, and forbade his friends and his party to
resist. Moreover, close friends of the Republican candidate assured
southern Democratic politicians that Hayes if elected would adopt a
conciliatory policy toward the South, and would allow the southern
states to govern themselves unhampered by federal interference.
Peaceful counsels prevailed, therefore, and the closing days of
President Grant's administration were undisturbed by threats of
strife.

The question whether Hayes was fairly elected is a fascinating one.
There is no doubt that there was fraud and intimidation on both
sides, in the disputed states. In Louisiana, for example, the
Democrats prevented many negroes from voting by outrageous
intimidation, while the Republicans had many negroes fraudulently
registered. Little is known, also, of the activities of the "visiting
statesmen," as those politicians were called who went to the South to
care for their party interests. It is known that they were well
provided with money and that the boards of canvassers contained many
unscrupulous men. Nor is it likely that politicians who lived in the
days of the Credit Mobilier and the Whiskey King would falter at a
bargain which would affect the election of a president. Republicans
looked upon the Democrats as being so wicked that they were justified
in "fighting the devil with fire." Democrats looked upon the election
as so clearly theirs that no objection ought to be made to their
taking what belonged to them. It seems certain, however, that Hayes
had no hand in any bargains made by his supporters. As for Tilden,
his wealth was such that he could have purchased votes if he had
desired to do so, and the fact that all the votes went to his rival
indicates that he did not yield to the temptation. Moreover, one of
his closest associates, Henry Watterson, the journalist, tells of one
occasion when the presidency was offered to Tilden and refused by
him. Perhaps a definitive statement of the rights and wrongs of this
famous election will never be made; for one after another the men
most intimately associated with it have died leaving some account of
their activities, but none of them has told much more than was
already known.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dunning, Rhodes and Schouler, together with most of the works
referred to at the close of Chapter 1, continue to be useful. L.A.
Coolidge, _Ulysses S. Grant_ (1917), is not as partisan as most of
the biographies of the time and is valuable despite a lack of a
thorough understanding of the period. The following are valuable for
especial topics: H. Adams, _Historical Essays_ (1891); C.F. Adams,
Jr., and H. Adams, _Chapters of Erie_ (1886), (gold conspiracy); C.F.
Adams, Jr., _Charles Francis Adams_ (Treaty of Washington); C.F.
Adams, Jr., "The Treaty of Washington" in _Lee at Appomattox, and
Other Papers_ (1902); James Bryce, _American Commonwealth_ (vol. II,
various editions since 1888, contains famous chapter on the Tammany
Tweed ring); A.B. Paine, _Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures_
(1904), (Tweed ring). P.L. Haworth, _Hayes-Tilden Disputed
Presidential Election of 1876_ (1906), is a thorough study; on this
election, see also John Bigelow, _The Life of S.J. Tilden_ (2 vols.,
1895), and C.R. Williams, _Life of Rutherford B. Hayes_ (2 vols.,
1914).

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in
a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any
social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White
House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of
his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to
the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.

[2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted
friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began
slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage
he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often
penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he
might repay his debts with the proceeds.

[3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in
Oregon, which was easily settled.




CHAPTER III


ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA

With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems
connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war,
however, important economic and social developments had been taking
place throughout the United States which were destined to take on
greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked
backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new
America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went
on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every
individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by
which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the
conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with
which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information
concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that
could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought
and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in
society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the
twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and
definite terms.

From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before
1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both
constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people
increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three
millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent.
Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York
and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the
Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others
expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the
valley drained by the Mississippi River system.

Detailed study of particular sections of the country discloses a
continuous shifting of population which indicates changes in the
economic life of the people. In northern New England, the numbers
increased slowly. Both Maine and New Hampshire lost from 1860 to 1870;
nearly half of Maine's counties and nearly two-thirds of Vermont's lost
population between 1880 and 1890; the people were abandoning the rural
districts to flock to the cities or migrate to the West. Shipbuilding
fell off in Maine; the dairy interests languished in Vermont, less
wheat was being planted and the farmers, no longer growing wool, were
selling their flocks. Most of the growth was to be found in the
industrial counties. The traditional New England thrift, however, was
not lost with the migration of the people, for savings bank deposits
were increasing, and the state of Vermont was free from debt in 1880,
and all its counties in 1890. The South, between 1870 and 1890,
increased in numbers a little less rapidly than the country as a whole.
On the Atlantic Coast the greatest relative expansion was in Florida;
in the western South, in Texas. The increase was almost wholly native,
as immigration did not flow into that section.

The great expansion of the Middle West, from Ohio to Kansas, was based
upon the public land policy of the federal government. Substantially
all this region had once been in the possession of the United States,
which had early adopted the system of laying out townships six miles
on a side, with subdivisions one mile square, (containing 640 acres),
called sections. An important feature of the policy had been the
encouragement of education and of transportation through the gift
of large grants of the public land. Moreover, settlement had been
stimulated by the disposal of land to purchasers at extremely liberal
figures. In 1862 the famous Homestead Act had inaugurated a still
more generous policy. Under this law the citizen might settle upon a
quarter-section and receive a title after five years of actual
occupation, with no charge other than a slight fee. Millions of acres
were taken up in this way both by natives and by immigrants. 1,300,000
people poured into Illinois between 1870 and 1890; over 1,000,000 into
Kansas, and nearly that number into Nebraska; in the Dakotas a young
man of college age in 1890 might have remembered almost the entire
significant portion of the history of his state and have been one of
the oldest inhabitants. The frontier of settlement advanced from the
western edge of Missouri into mid-Kansas, and almost met the growing
population of the Far West, whose economic possibilities had already
attracted attention.

The discovery of gold-dust in a mill-race in California had drawn the
"Forty-niners" to

    ... lands of gold
    That lay toward the sun.

For a few years fabulous sums of the precious metal had been extracted
from the ground by the hordes of treasure-seekers who had come from
all over the world by boat, pack-animal or "prairie schooner," around
Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama or over the western mountains.
When the yield of the mines had slackened, some of the population had
filtered off to newer fields, but more had settled down to exploit the
agricultural and lumber resources of California. In Nevada a rich vein
of silver called the "Comstock Lode" had been discovered; in 1873 a
group operating the "Virginia Consolidated" mine struck the great
"bonanza," and the output reached unheard of proportions. The success
of the mines, however, was essential to Nevada, which had few other
resources to develop, and when the yield slowed down the population
growth of the state noticeably slackened. In Colorado during the late
fifties some prospectors had struck gold, and another rush had made
"Pike's Peak or Bust" its slogan. Some had returned, "Busted by
Thunder," but others had better fortune, discovered gold, silver or
lead, and helped lay the foundations of Denver and Leadville. In Idaho
and Montana, in Wyoming and South Dakota and other states, prospectors
found gold, silver, copper and lead, and thus attracted much of the
population that later settled down to occupations which were less
feverish and more reliable than mining. In general, the advance of
population into the Middle West was more or less regular, as wave on
wave made its way into the Mississippi Basin; in the Far West,
however, population extended in long arms up the fertile valleys of
Washington, Oregon and California, or was found in scattered islands
where mineral wealth had been discovered in the Rocky Mountain region.

From the standpoint of absolute growth, the expansion of most of the
far western states was not imposing, but the relative increase was
suggestive of the future. Colorado nearly quadrupled in a decade,
(1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten
years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in
the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something
more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were
fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in
1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year
Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population
equivalent to the federal ratio for representation in the House.[1]

Utah was kept outside for a few years longer, until the Mormon Church
gave satisfactory indication that anti-polygamy laws were being
enforced.

The migration westward, which has been a constant factor in American
development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War;
indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict
undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By
1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in
states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of
Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in
California; and considerable numbers in every state between the two.
The North Carolinians were equally well distributed. 43,000 were in
South Carolina, 18,000 in Texas, and 5,500 in Washington. Every state
had contributed to populate every other, although in general the
migration tended to take place on east and west lines, and
predominantly westward.

Within the westward-moving tide of population were swirling
eddies--cities--which tended to attract to themselves larger and larger
proportions of the surrounding people. In 1870 two men in every ten
lived in cities whose population was 8,000 or more; by 1890 another man
in every ten had forsaken rural life. Large cities like Boston and New
York sucked in surrounding districts, and so constituted metropolitan
centers with problems new to American life. Such cities as Birmingham,
Kansas City, and Seattle were just appearing in 1880, but their growth
was very rapid; Los Angeles increased ten fold and Minneapolis
thirteen, between 1870 and 1890; Denver, having received ten newcomers
between 1860 and 1870, added 102,000 in the following twenty years.
In the country as a whole the concentration in cities was most marked
in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and east of the
Mississippi; the South remained rural, as before the war. With the
growth of urban population came questions of lighting and water supply,
street railway transportation and municipal government, industry,
education, health and morals.[2]

Immigration, another constant factor in American development,
underwent important changes during the twenty-five years from 1865
to 1890. Greater in prosperous years and smaller during years of
depression, the inward tide reached its climax in 1882, when 789,000
aliens reached the new world. That year, in several respects, was a
turning point in the history of immigration into the United States.
It was in this year that the Chinese were excluded; that immigration
from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia became of sufficient size to be
impressive; and that the first inclusive federal immigration act was
passed. The immigration law of 1882 defined, in general, the policy
which the nation has pursued ever since. It placed a tax of fifty
cents on all incomers to be paid by the ship companies; it forbade the
landing of objectionable persons, such as convicts and lunatics; and
it placed on the owners of vessels the expense of returning immigrants
not permitted to land. All these provisions were amended or developed
in later laws, like that of 1885 forbidding persons or corporations to
prepay the transportation of laborers or to encourage immigration
under contract to perform work. The greater part of the foreign
population settled in the manufacturing and urban North. Put into
simplest terms, the census of 1890 showed that of every hundred aliens
who had come to the United States between 1870 and 1890, thirty-seven
were to be found in the states from Maine to Pennsylvania, four from
Delaware to Texas, forty-seven from Ohio to Kansas and twelve in the
Far West (for the most part Chinese).

Of the great economic interests of the United States, the most
widespread was agriculture. In the Northeast, to be sure, the amount
of improved farm land had been growing steadily less since 1850 and
the people had been turning their energies into other activities. In
the South, on the other hand, agriculture formed the main economic
resource and the twenty-five years following the war were, for the
most part, consumed in recovering from that struggle. Although
conditions varied from place to place, the situation in many portions
of the South was little short of pitiable. Not only were factories,
public buildings and railroads, houses and barns, tools and seeds
destroyed, capital and credit gone, mining at a standstill and banks
ruined, but bands of thieves infested many districts, federal officers
were frequently dishonest and defrauded the people, and the entire
labor system was wiped out at a stroke. The negroes had not been ideal
workmen as slaves; now, as freedmen, they found difficulty in
adjusting themselves to the economic obligations of their new status,
and evinced a tendency to rove about restlessly, instead of settling
down to the stern task of helping to rebuild the shattered South.

It was manifest that the first problem was to revive the agricultural
activities of the old days, and that the main resource must be cotton,
the demand for which in the markets of the North and of Europe was
such as to make it the best "money crop." A labor system was
introduced known as share-farming or cropping. Under this system the
plantation owner who had more property than he could cultivate under
the new conditions let parts of his land to tenants, supplying them
with buildings, tools, seed and perhaps credit at the village store
for the supplies necessary for the year. The tenant, who had neither
money nor credit with which to buy land, furnished the labor, and at
the harvest each received a specified share of the product, commonly a
half. The system had its disadvantages; it kept the farmer always in
debt, and since the only valuable security which the plantation owner
had was the crop--the land being almost unsalable--he insisted on
the cultivation of cotton, which was a safe crop, and avoided
experimentation and diversification. On the other hand, the system
enabled the land owner to take advantage of the labor supply and to
supervise the untutored negro,--and it kept the South alive. In
addition to the large plantations, cultivated by several tenant
farmers, the number of small farms tilled by independent owners or
renters increased. Due to this tendency and to the opening of many
small holdings in the Southwest, the size of the average farm
diminished, so that the small farmer began to replace the plantation
owner as the typical southerner.

Owing to the insistence of land owners upon cotton culture, the South
first caught up with its _ante-bellum_ production in the cultivation
of this staple, for shortly before 1880 the crop exceeded that of
1860. The production of tobacco, the second great southern crop,
sharply shifted after the war from the Atlantic Coast states, except
North Carolina, to the Mississippi region, especially to Kentucky.
Maryland, indeed, never again produced much more than half as great a
crop as she did in 1860, while Virginia did not equal her former
record until the opening of the twentieth century, although the South
as a whole recovered in the late eighties. Rice culture, likewise, did
not recover readily for South Carolina alone produced almost as much
in 1860 as the entire South in 1890, and not until the development of
production in Louisiana after 1890 did the crop assume its former
importance. The production of sugar in Louisiana in 1890 was but
little greater than it had been in 1860, and in the production of
cereals the South did not keep pace with the upper Mississippi Valley
before 1890. On the other hand the rapid growth of Texas was one of
the outstanding features of southern development during the period,
for that state improved an amount of farm land between 1870 and 1890,
roughly equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont,
and Massachusetts. There was observable, moreover, a certain
hopefulness, a certain resiliency of purpose, a pride in the
achievements of the past and in the possibilities of the future. In
these respects the South was a new South by 1890.

Greater than the South as a food-producing area, was the belt of
states from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas and the Dakotas:

    Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
    That's where the West begins.

The increased occupation of the public lands, the growth of population,
improvements in transportation and the greater use of agricultural
machinery, which could be employed to advantage on the large and
relatively level farms, led to developments that were destined to have
an important effect on the history of the nation. Agricultural
machinery, such as the reaper, had been known long before the war, but
the reduction of the labor supply from 1861 to 1865 had compelled
farmers to replace men with machines. A reaper that merely cut the
grain and tossed it aside, gave way at last to one which not only cut
the grain, but gathered it into sheaves and bound the sheaves with
twine. So great was the effect of the harvester upon western
agriculture that William H. Seward declared that it "pushed the
frontier westward at the rate of thirty miles a year."

Due to the facts already mentioned, the number of mid-western farms
increased nearly a million from 1870 to 1890, and the acreage in
improved farm land grew by an amount equivalent to the combined areas
of the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with a
generous margin to spare. The production of corn, wheat, oats and other
cereals became so great as to demand an outlet to the East and to the
markets of the world. Elevators for the storage of grain were
constructed with a capacity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 bushels, and
improvements were made in the methods of loading and unloading the
product. Despite the growth of the agricultural interests of the Middle
West, however, the farmer did not reach prosperity. For twenty years
after 1873 prices fell steadily both in the United States and in other
countries of the world, and the agricultural classes found themselves
receiving a smaller and smaller return for their products. Unrest grew
to distress, and distress to acute depression, while the demands of the
farmers for relief frequently determined the trend of mid-western
politics.[3]

[Illustration:
Relative Prices--1865-1890]

Less general than agriculture, but more characteristic of the period
after the war, was the development of manufacturing. The census of 1870
was faulty and inadequate, but it was sufficiently accurate to indicate
that the manufacturing region was preeminently that north of the
Potomac-Ohio river line and east of the Mississippi. By 1890 it was
apparent that the industrial interests were shifting slightly toward
the West; nevertheless the leading states were those of southern New
England, and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In these states no
fewer than four hundred and forty-seven industries employed more than a
million dollars of capital each. The manufacturing of cotton, woolen
and silk for the rest of the country was done here; foundry products,
iron and steel manufactures, silver and brass goods, refined petroleum,
boots and shoes, paper and books, with a host of other articles, were
sent from this section to every part of the world. All along the line,
from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, capital engaged in manufacturing
doubled between 1880 and 1890, and the number of employees greatly
increased.

Although the industrial life of the South belongs, for the most part,
to the years since 1890, the coal and iron deposits of Alabama were
known and utilized before that year, the number of cotton mill spindles
in North Carolina tripled between 1880 and 1890, and cotton expositions
were held in Atlanta in 1881 and New Orleans in 1884. It was in the
eighties, also, that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the Norfolk
and Western led to the exploitation of the coal deposits of Virginia
and West Virginia, especially the famous Pocahontas field.

Some aspects of the growth of manufacturing in the North are well
illustrated in the development of the mineral resources around Lake
Superior. The presence of copper and iron in this region had long been
known, but they had not been utilized until a decade before the Civil
War, and even then the output had been greatly restricted by
insufficient transportation facilities. By the close of the war,
however, a canal had been constructed which allowed the passage of
barges from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and railroads had been laid to
a few important mining centers. The Marquette iron range in northern
Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near
Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,--all
these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development
of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic
expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry
with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established
at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to
transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the
mines. Ore vessels were constructed capable of carrying mammoth
cargoes; docks, railroads and canals were built; and the products of
the mines taken to lake and inland cities. Improvements, meanwhile,
were being continually made in the steel industry, such as the Bessemer
process, by which the impurities were burned out of the iron ore, and
exactly enough carbon introduced into the molten metal to transform it
into steel.

Although the steel industry was established in many places, its most
dramatic growth occurred in those parts of eastern Ohio and western
Pennsylvania that center about the city of Pittsburg. Placed
strategically at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
join to form the Ohio, in the midst of an area rich in coal, petroleum
and natural gas, Pittsburg rapidly became the center of a region in
which the development of manufacturing and the construction of
railroads dwarfed other interests. A large portion of the ore mined in
the Lake Superior fields was carried to the Pittsburg district to be
transformed into steel products of all kinds. Moreover, the fortunes
made by private individuals in the region, and the inflow of alien
laborers to work in the factories and on the railroads raised weighty
social and industrial problems.

Manifestly the extension of agriculture and industry in so large a
country as the United States was dependent upon the corresponding
growth of the means of transportation, both by water and by rail. A
detailed account of the expansion of the railway net, with the
accompanying' implications in the fields of finance and politics, is a
matter for later consideration. Certain of its general features may be
mentioned, however, because they are intimately interwoven with the
economic developments which have just been explained. The concentration
of the population in the cities, of which New York and Chicago were
outstanding examples, was one of these features. From the time of the
first census, the city of New York continued to maintain its position
as the most populous city of the nation. Between 1850 and 1890 it added
a round million to its numbers, containing 1,515,000 persons at the
later date. Moreover it was the center of a thriving and thickly
settled region extending from New Haven on the one side to Philadelphia
on the other--the most densely populated area in America. The
uninterrupted expansion of the city indicated that the reasons for its
growth were constant in their operation. And, in fact, the reasons were
not difficult to find. It was blessed with one of the world's finest
harbors and had access to the interior of the state by way of the
Hudson and Mohawk rivers. These natural advantages had long since been
recognized and had been increased by the construction of the Erie Canal
in 1825 which, with the Great Lakes and the several canals connecting
the Lakes with the Ohio Valley, had given New York an early hold and
almost a monopoly on the trade between the upper Mississippi, the Lakes
and the coast. The city, therefore, became an importing and exporting
center; its shipping interests grew, immigration flowed in, and its
manufacturing establishments soon outstripped those of any other
industrial center; the great printing and publishing, banking and
commercial firms were drawn irresistibly to the most populous city, and
Wall Street became the synonym for the financial center of the nation.

In 1840 Chicago had been an unimportant settlement of 4500 persons, but
by the opening of the war it had grown to twenty-five times that size,
and added 800,000 between 1870 and 1890. It had early become evident
that the city was the natural outlet toward the East for the grain
trade and the slaughtering and meatpacking industry of the upper
Mississippi Valley. Before the late sixties, however, railway
connection was defective, being composed of many short lines rather
than of one continuous road, so that freight had to be loaded and
unloaded many times during its passage to the seaboard. This situation,
which had been merely inconvenient before the war, had become little
short of intolerable during the struggle, because the closing of the
Mississippi had cut off from the Middle West its water outlet toward
the South and had diverted more freight to the railroads. After the
war, Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the Hudson River Railroad,
combined a number of the shorter roads so as to give uninterrupted
communication between Chicago and New York, to tap the trade of the
Mississippi Valley, and to compete with water traffic by way of the
Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. Other railroads saw the possibilities
in the western trade, and the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk, and
the Erie followed the lead of Vanderbilt. A similar development,
although on a smaller scale, accompanied the growth of other northern
cities. The retroactive effects of the roads on the distribution of the
population are too detailed for discussion, but a single example may
typify many. In 1870 the Maine farmer supplied much of the meat
consumed in Boston; by 1895, he was getting his own meat from the West.
He must, therefore, adapt himself to the new conditions if he could,
move to the manufacturing cities as so many of his neighbors did, or
migrate to the West.

Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California
had an important effect on the history of American railway
transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the
project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had
not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862
and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco.
The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern
end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific
Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of
1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the
public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track.
Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of
construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been
overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and
Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and
construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six
years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah,
where the last spike was driven, the engines

    Facing on the single track,
      Half a world behind each back.

During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental
line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was
built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion,
coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened
and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to
result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and
Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been
back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of
its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of
equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of
money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would
come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be
continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was
doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and
Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises
in every corner of the land.

The process of putting capital into fixed form could hardly go on
forever, and several events led to a final crash. In 1871 and 1872
great fires in Chicago and Boston destroyed millions of dollars' worth
of property. Early in 1873 the government investigation of the Credit
Mobilier Company led to widespread distrust of the roads and made
investors conservative about buying bonds. On September 18, 1873, Jay
Cooke and Company found itself unable to continue business and closed
its doors. The failure was a thunderbolt to the financial world.
Indeed, so unbelievable was the news that an energetic policeman
arrested a small newsboy who shouted his "Extra--All about the failure
of Jay Cooke."

If Jay Cooke and Company fell, the sky might fall. People rushed to
withdraw their funds from the banks. Fisk and Hatch opened their doors
for fifteen minutes and received calls for $1,500,000. They closed at
once. The smaller financial institutions followed the bigger ones.
Stocks fell, the Exchange was closed, there was a money famine.
Industrial concerns, dependent on the banks, failed by scores.
Industrial paralysis, with railroad receiverships, laborers out of
employment, riots and their accompaniments, showed how deep-seated had
been the trouble. Not until late in the decade did business recover its
former prosperity.

With the return of more stable conditions the construction of railroads
continued unabated. The Northern Pacific ran near the Canadian line and
connected the upper Mississippi Valley with the coast, carrying in its
trail the manners and customs of the East. Two lines in the South were
extended to the Pacific, so that by the middle eighties four great main
avenues gave passage through a region over which, so recently, the
miner and the trapper had forced a dangerous path.

The fact that it was often necessary, in building the railroads across
the plains, to detail half the working force to protect the remainder
against the Indians, calls attention to one unmistakable result of the
conquest of the Far West. The construction of the railroads spelled the
doom of the wild Indian. Far back in 1834 the government had adopted
the policy of setting aside large tracts of land west of the
Mississippi for the use of the Indian tribes. Most of the savages had
been stationed in an immense area between southern Minnesota and Texas,
while other smaller reservations had been scattered over most of the
states west of the river. On the whole, the government had dealt with
the Indians in tribes, not as individuals. The rapid inflow of
population to the fertile lands, together with the rush of prospectors
to newly discovered supplies of gold and silver, caused increasing
demands from the Indians for protection, and from the whites for the
extinguishment of Indian land titles.

The classical illustration of this tendency is found in the case of the
Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The discovery of gold in the region of
the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation, aroused agitation for the
removal of the tribe to make way for settlers and miners. But the
execution of the scheme was not so simple as its conception. The
removal of the Sioux necessitated the transfer of the Poncas, a
peaceful tribe which lay immediately east. The latter, not unnaturally,
objected, quarrels arose and eventually the Poncas were practically
broken to pieces. The Sioux, not satisfied, attempted to regain the
Black Hills, fought the famous Sioux War of 1876, led by Sitting Bull,
but were crushed and forced to give up the unequal contest.

It would not be worth while to enter into the details of the numerous
Indian conflicts after the Civil War. It is enough to notice that
stirring accounts of them may be read in the memoirs of such soldiers
as Custer, Sheridan and Miles, and that they cost millions of dollars
and hundreds of lives. Finally it became evident that the attempt to
deal with the Indians in tribes was a failure and it was determined to
break up the tribal holdings of land so as to give each individual a
small piece for his private property, and to open the remainder to
settlement by the whites. In pursuance of such a policy, the Dawes Act
of 1887 provided for the allotment of a quarter-section to each head of
a family, with the proviso that the owner should not sell the land
within twenty-five years. This was intended to protect the Indian from
shrewd "land-sharks." Citizenship was given with the ownership of the
land, in the hope that a sort of assimilation might gradually take
place, and earnest attempts were made to provide education for the
red-man. Not all these hopes were realized, however, and the later
Burke Act, 1906, attempted further protection.

While the Indian was being restricted to a small part of the great
region west of the Mississippi, there was being enacted on the plains
one of the most picturesque of all American dramas. Beyond the settled
parts of the states just west of the "Father of Waters," bounded north
and south by Canada and the Rio Grande, and extending west to the Rocky
Mountain foot-hills, lay a huge empire of rolling territory. It was
grass-covered, but lacked sufficient rainfall to make it fertile, so
that it was considered, as part of it had early been called, "the great
American desert."

Cattle turned loose long before by Spanish ranchers down in the
Southwest had multiplied, spread out over the plains, and run
wild--wild as Texas steers. A combination of circumstances disclosed
the fact that these cattle could be improved by breeding, corraled and
driven north over the "Long Trail," to be slaughtered in Omaha, Kansas
City, St. Louis and Chicago for the people of eastern cities. The
round-up, when the cattle were collected; the drive, under command of
the boss and his cow-boys,

    loose in the unfenced blue riding the sunset rounds;

the great ranches in the North, where the herds were fattened for the
market;--all this formed the background of an attractive romance.
Obviously, however, the drive was dependent on great stretches of open
country, with free grazing and free access to water, and it is also
manifest that these conditions could not long endure in the face of
constant westward migration. Homesteaders followed the railroads out
across the plains, and the cheapening of wire fence led to the
enclosure of great farms including the best grazing lands and the water
supply. By 1890, therefore, the great drives were a tale that is told.
The less romantic packing business remained, however; ranches supplied
the cattle, the railroads transported them, and improvements in
refrigerating and canning made possible another development in domestic
and foreign trade.

In addition to the expansion of the several economic interests of the
various sections of the country, inventions and improvements were
taking place which affected the general problems of production and
distribution. Improvements in machinery saved forty to eighty per cent.
of the time and labor demanded in the production of important
manufactured goods. Cheapened steel affected all kinds of industry. The
development of steam-power and the beginnings of the practical use of
electricity for power and light multiplied the effectiveness of human
hands or added to human comfort. Cheaper and quicker transportation
almost revolutionized the distribution of economic goods. The increased
use of the telegraph and cable shortened distances and brought together
producers and consumers that had in earlier times been weeks of travel
apart.

The necessarily statistical character of an account of economic
development should not obscure the meaning of its details. Increased
population, with its horde of incoming aliens, created a demand for
standing room, necessitated westward expansion, and made the West more
than ever a new country with new problems. The growth of agriculture
enlarged a class that had not hitherto been as influential as it was
destined to be, and brought into politics the economic needs of the
farmer. Manufacturing brought great wealth into the hands of a few,
created an increasing demand for protective tariffs and gave rise to
strikes and other industrial problems. The concentration of especial
interests in especial sections made likely the emergence of sectional
antagonisms. Back of tariff and finance, therefore, back of
transportation and labor, of new political parties and revolts in the
old ones, of the great strikes and the increasing importance of some of
the sections, lay the economic foundations of the new era.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

No thorough study of the economic history of the United States after
the Civil War has yet been made. E.L. Bogart, _Economic History of the
United States_ (1907), and various later editions, is the best single
volume; E.E. Sparks, _National Development_ (1907), is useful. On the
South, consult articles by St. G.L. Sioussat, in _History Teachers'
Magazine_ (Sept., Oct., 1916); P.A. Bruce, _Rise of the New South_
(1905); J.C. Ballagh (ed.), _South in the Building of the Nation_
(1909), vol. VI; M.B. Hammond, _Cotton Industry_ (1897). R.P. Porter,
_West from the Census of 1880_ (1882), is a useful compendium. The
Plains in the day of the cowboy are well described in Emerson Hough,
_Passing of the Frontier_ (1918); Emerson Hough, _Story of the Cowboy_
(1898); F.L. Paxson, _Last American Frontier_ (1910); and F.L. Paxson,
"The Cow Country," in _American Historical Review_, Oct., 1916. N.A.
Miles, _Serving the Republic_ (1911), contains reminiscences of Indian
conflicts. On the Far West, in addition to Porter, Hough and Paxson,
Katharine Coman, _Economic Beginnings of the Far West_ (2 vols., 1912);
H.K. White, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1898); L.H. Haney, _Congressional
History of Railways_ (2 vols., 1908-1910); S.E. White, _The
Forty-Niners_ (1918).

There is also an abundance of useful illustrative fiction, such as:
Bret Harte, _Luck of Roaring Camp_, and other stories (Far West);
Edward Eggleston, _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (Indiana); W.D. Howells,
_Rise of Silas Lapham_ (New England); G.W. Cable, _Old Creole Days_
(New Orleans); C.E. Craddock, _In the Tennessee Mountains_; F.H.
Smith, _Colonel Carter_ (Virginia); Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled
Roads_ and _Son of the Middle Border_ (Middle West); P.L. Ford, _Hon.
Peter Sterling_ (New York); S.E. White, _Gold_ (California); and
_Riverman_ (Lake Superior lumber); John Hay, _Breadwinners_ (industrial).

For other references to economic aspects of the period, see chapters
IX, XI, XIV.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] The ratio was 151,912 but, by a provision of the Constitution,
states are given a representative even if they do not contain the
requisite number.

[2] The most important advances in municipal street railway
transportation were made between 1875 and 1890. In 1876 New York began
the construction of an overhead or elevated railway on which trains
were drawn by small locomotives. The first electric street railways
were operated in Richmond, Va., and in Baltimore. Electric street
lighting was introduced in San Francisco in 1879.

[3] Hamlin Garland, _Main Travelled Roads_, portrays the hardships of
western farm life.




CHAPTER IV


POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE NEW ISSUES

Powerful as economic forces were from 1865 to 1890, they did not alone
determine the direction of American progress during those years.
Different individuals and different sections of the country reacted
differently to the same economic facts; a formula that explained a
phenomenon satisfactorily to one group, carried no conviction to
another; political parties built up their platforms on economic
self-interest, and yet they sometimes had their ideals; theories that
seemed to explain economic development were found to be inadequate and
were replaced by others; and practices that had earlier been regarded
with indifference began to offend the public sense of good taste or
morals or justice, and gave way to more enlightened standards. Some
understanding is necessary, therefore, of the more common theories,
ideals, creeds and practices, because they supplemented the economic
foundations that underlay American progress for a quarter century after
the war.

Since the Republican party was almost continuously in power during this
period, its composition, spirit and ideals were fundamental in
political history. Throughout the North, and especially in the
Northeast, the intellectual and prosperous classes, the capitalists and
manufacturers, were more likely to be found in the Republican party
than among the Democrats. In fact such party leaders as Senator George
F. Hoar went so far as to assert that the organization comprised the
manufacturers and skilled laborers of the East, the soldiers, the
church members, the clergymen, the school-teachers, the reformers and
the men who were doing the great work of temperance, education and
philanthropy. The history of the party, also, was no small factor in
its successes. Many northerners had cast their first ballot in the
fifties, with all the zeal of crusaders; they looked back upon the
beginnings of Republicanism as they might have remembered the origin of
a sacred faith; they thought of their party as the body which had
abolished slavery and restored the Union; and they treasured the names
of its Lincoln, its Seward, its Sumner and Grant and Sherman. The
Republican party, wrote Edward MacPherson in 1888, in a history of the
organization, is

    both in the purity of its doctrines, the beneficent sweep of its
    measures, in its courage, its steadfastness, its fidelity, in its
    achievements and in its example, the most resplendent political
    organization the world has ever seen.

Senator Hoar declared that no party in history, not even that which
inaugurated the Constitution, had ever accomplished so much in so short
a time. It had been formed, he said, to prevent the extension of
slavery into the territories, but the "providence of God imposed upon
it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe,
liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise,
unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the
Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable
sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty
torrent of Niagara."

During the generation after the war the recollection of the struggle
was fresh in men's minds and its influence was a force in party
councils. The Democrats were looked upon as having sympathized with the
"rebellion" and having been the party of disunion. In campaign after
campaign the people were warned not to admit to power the party which
had been "traitor" to the Union. Roscoe Conkling, the most influential
politician in New York, declared in 1877 that the Democrats wished to
regain power in order to use the funds in the United States Treasury to
repay Confederate war debts and to provide pensions for southern
soldiers. As late even as 1888 the nation was urged to recollect that
the Democratic party had been the "mainstay and support of the
Rebellion," while the Republicans were the "party that served the
Nation."

At a later time it was pointed out that the party had not been founded
solely on idealism; that the adherence of Pennsylvania to the party,
for example, was due at least in a measure to Republican advocacy of a
protective tariff; that Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, two of
the leading members of Lincoln's cabinet had been Democrats; and that
Lincoln's second election and the successful outcome of the war had
been due partly to the support of his political opponents. As time went
on, also, some of the leaders of the Republican party declared that its
original ideals had become obscured in more practical considerations.
They felt that abuses had grown up which had been little noticed
because of the necessity of keeping in power that party which they
regarded as the only patriotic one. They asserted that many of the
managers had become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain
the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement
of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years
after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that
drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture
which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism
synonymous terms.

These Republicans, however, who took the more critical attitude toward
their party formed the core of the "Mugwump" or Independent movement.
Their philosophy was simple. They believed that there ought to be a
political element which was not rigidly controlled by the discipline of
party organization, which would act upon its own judgment for the
public interest, and which should be a reminder to both parties that
neither could venture upon mischievous policies without endangering its
control over the machinery of government. Theoretically, at least, the
Independent believed that it was more important that government be well
administered than that it be administered by one set of men or another.
The weakness of this group, aside from its small size, was its
impatience and impracticability. By nature the Independent was an
individualist, forming his own opinion and holding it with tenacity. In
such a body there could not be long-continued cooperation or singleness
of purpose; each new problem caused new decisions resulting in the
break-up of the group and the formation of new alignments. The
Independent group, therefore, varied in strength from campaign to
campaign. To the typical party worker, who looked upon politics as a
warfare for the spoils of office, the Independent was variously
denounced as a deserter, a traitor, an apostate and a guerilla
deploying between the lines and foraging now on one side and now on the
other. To the party wheel-horse, independent voting seemed
impracticable, and the atmosphere of reform too "highly scented."

The Democrats, laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for
disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time
during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they
could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive
achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud";
they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded
class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, corrupt and
extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses,
and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at
the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to
be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and
administration. They felt that they in particular represented
government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In
conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and
Jackson they professed faith in the capacity of the plain people. They
advocated frugality and economy in government expenditure and looked
with alarm on any extension of federal power that invaded the
traditional domain of local activity.

The intensification of party spirit and party loyalty, which was so
typical of the times, "delivered the citizen more effectually, bound
hand and foot, into the power of the party embodied in its
Organization." The organization, meanwhile, was being improved and
strengthened. Its permanent National Committee which had existed from
_ante-bellum_ days, was supplemented in both parties immediately after
the war by the congressional committee, whose mission it was to carry
the elections for the House of Representatives. Increased attention was
paid to state and local organizations. Party conventions in states and
counties chose delegates to national conventions and nominated
candidates for office. State, county and town committees raised money,
employed speakers, distributed literature, formed torch-light companies
to march in party processions and, most important of all, got out the
voters on election day. By such means the National Committee was
enabled to keep in close touch with the rank and file of the party, and
so complete did the organization become that it deserved and won the
name, "the machine."

The master-spirit of the machine was usually the "Boss," a professional
politician who generally did not himself hold elective office or show
concern in constructive programs of legislation or in the public
welfare. Instead, his interests lay in winning elections; dividing the
offices among the party workers; distributing profitable contracts for
public work; procuring the passage of legislation desired by industrial
or railroad companies, or blocking measures objected to by them. A
vivid picture of the activities of the boss in New York, drawn by Elihu
Root, will serve to portray conditions in many states and cities from
1865 to 1890:

    From the days of Fenton, and Conkling, and Arthur, and Cornell,
    and Platt, from the days of David B. Hill, down to the present
    time, the government of the state has presented two different lines
    of activity, one of the constitutional and statutory officers of
    the state, and the other of the party leaders,--they call them
    party bosses. They call the system--I do not coin the phrase, I
    adopt it because it carries its own meaning--the system they call
    "invisible government." For I do not remember how many years, Mr.
    Conkling was the supreme ruler in this state; the governor did not
    count, the legislatures did not count; comptrollers and secretaries
    of state and what not, did not count. It was what Mr. Conkling
    said; and in a great outburst of public rage he was pulled down.

    Then Mr. Platt ruled the state; for nigh upon twenty years he ruled
    it. It was not the governor; it was not the legislature; it was not
    any elected officers; it was Mr. Platt. And the capitol was not
    here (in Albany); it was at 49 Broadway; with Mr. Platt and his
    lieutenants. It makes no difference what name you give, whether you
    call it Fenton or Conkling or Cornell or Arthur or Platt, or by the
    names of men now living. The ruler of the state during the greater
    part of the forty years of my acquaintance with the state
    government has not been any man authorized by the constitution or
    by the law.[1]

Under such conditions, corruption was naturally a commonplace in
politics. In the campaigns, the party managers were too often men to
whom "nothing was dreadful but defeat." At every Presidential election,
immense sums of money were poured into the most important doubtful
states--Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana. Twenty to
seventy-five dollars was said to have been the price of a vote in
Indiana in 1880; and ten to fifteen per cent. of the vote in
Connecticut was thought to be purchasable. In New York ballot-box
stuffing and repeating were the rule in sections of the city. Employers
exerted a less crude but equally efficacious pressure upon their
employees to vote "right." Municipal government also was often
characterized by that extreme of corruption which called out the scorn
of writers on public affairs. The New York _Times_ complained in 1877
that the government of the city was no more a popular government than
Turkish rule in Bulgaria, and that if the Tammany leaders did not
collect revenue with the horse-whip and sabre, it was because the forms
of law afforded a means that was pleasanter, easier and quite as
effective.

Federal officials, it must be admitted, did not set a high standard for
local officers to follow. During Grant's administration five judges of
a United States Court were driven from office by threats of
impeachment; members of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House
of Representatives sold their privilege of selecting young men to be
educated at West Point; and candidates for even the highest offices in
the gift of the nation were sometimes men whose political past would
not bear the light of day. More difficult to overcome was the lack of a
decent sense of propriety among many public officers. Members of the
Senate practiced before the Supreme Court, the justices of which they
had an important share in appointing; senators and representatives
traded in the securities of railroads which were seeking favors at the
hands of Congress; and even in the most critical circles, corrupt
practices were condoned on the ground that all the most reputable
people were more or less engaged in similar activities. Most difficult
of all to understand was the unfaltering support accorded by men of the
utmost integrity to party leaders whose evil character was known on all
sides. Men who would not themselves be guilty of dishonest acts and who
vehemently condemned such deeds among their political opponents, failed
to make any energetic protest within their own ranks for fear that they
might bring about a party split and thus give the "enemy" a victory.

The political practices which prevailed after 1865 for at least a
quarter of a century were notoriously bad. Yet the student of the
period must be sensitive to higher aspirations and better practices
among many of the politicians, and among the rank and file of the
people. George F. Hoar, John Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover
Cleveland and many others were incorruptible. The exposure of
scandalous actions on the part of certain high officials blasted their
careers, indicating that the body of the people would not condone
dishonesty, and the parties found it advisable to accept the
resignations of some of their more notorious campaign managers.
Moreover, the American people of all classes were a political people,
with a capacity for political organization and activity, and with a
passion for change. The cruder forms of corruption were successfully
combated, and the popular, as well as the official sense of good taste
and propriety gradually reached higher levels.

Another fundamental political consideration after the Civil War was the
gradual reduction of the power of the executive department. During the
war the authority exercised by President Lincoln had risen to great
heights, partly because of his personal characteristics and partly
because the exigencies of the times demanded quick executive action.
After the conflict was past, however, the legislative body naturally
reasserted itself. Moreover, the quarrel between President Johnson and
Congress, as has been shown, took the form of a contest for control
over appointments to office and especially over appointments to the
cabinet. The resulting impeachment, although it did not result in
conviction, brought about a distinct shrinkage in executive prestige.
Grant was so inexperienced in politics and so naive in his judgments of
his associates that he fell completely into the power of the machine
and failed to revive the former importance and independence of his
office.

The ascendancy which thus slipped out of the hands of the executive was
seized by the Senate, where it remained for a long period, despite
efforts on the part of the president and the House of Representatives
to prevent it. So remarkable and continuous a domination is not to be
explained by a single formula. The long term of the members of the
Senate, the traditional high reputation of the body and the undoubted
ability of many of its members assisted in upholding its prestige. Its
small size as compared with the House of Representatives gave it
greater flexibility. Furthermore, certain Senate practices were
instrumental in giving that body its primacy. Under the provisions of
the Constitution the Senate has power to ratify or reject the
nominations of the executive to many important positions within his
gift, and by the close of reconstruction it had acquired a firm control
over such appointments. "Senatorial courtesy" bade every member,
regardless of party, to concur with the decision of the senators from
any state with regard to the appointments in which they were
interested. When, therefore, the executive wished to change conditions
in a given office he must have the acquiescence of the senators from
the state in which the change was to occur. If he did not, the entire
body would rally to the support of their colleagues and refuse to
confirm the objectionable nominations. With such a weapon the Senate
was usually able to force the executive into submission, or at least to
make reforms extremely difficult. In Senator Hoar's suggestive words,
senators went to the White House to give advice, not to receive it.

In connection with revenue legislation the Senate seized the leadership
by means of an evasion of the Constitution. According to the terms of
that document, all bills for raising revenue must originate in the
House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose amendments.
Relying upon this power the Senate constantly revised measures to the
extent of changing their character completely and even of grafting part
or all of one proposal upon the title of another. In one case, early in
the period, the Senate "amended" a House bill of four lines which
repealed the tariff on tea and coffee; the "amendment" consisted of
twenty pages, containing a general revision of customs duties and
internal revenue taxes. At a later time the Senate Finance Committee
drew up a tariff bill even before Congress had assembled.

The primacy of the Senate quickly led to recognition of the value of
seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to
control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared,
for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland
were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of
powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to
their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who
were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the
foundation of the complaint that the Senate was a millionaires' club.
And so, too, it came about that much of state politics revolved about
the choice of members for the upper house, for senators were elected by
the state legislatures until long after 1890. The power of the House of
Representatives, in contrast with the Senate, was relatively small
except during the single session 1889-1891, when Thomas B. Reed was in
control, although individual members sometimes wielded considerable
influence.

Somewhat comparable to the shift in the center of power from one
federal authority to another, was the change which took place in the
relative strength of the state and national governments. This transfer
was most clearly seen in the decisions of the Supreme Court in cases
involving the Fourteenth Amendment.

Previous to 1868, when the Amendment became part of the Constitution,
comparatively little state legislation relating to private property had
been reviewed by the Court. Ever since the establishment of the federal
government, cases involving the constitutionality of state legislation
had been appealed to United States Courts when they had been objected
to as running counter to the clauses of the Constitution forbidding
states to enact bills of attainder, _ex post facto_ laws, or laws
impairing the obligation of contracts. Their number, however, had been
relatively small, and normally the acts of state legislatures had not
been reviewed by federal courts; or in other words the tendency had
been to preserve the individuality and strength of the several states.
After the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments placed
additional prohibitions on the states, and the decisions of the Supreme
Court determined the meaning and extent of the added provisions. The
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was especially important.
Most significant was the interpretation of Section 1, which reads as
follows:

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
    to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
    and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
    enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities
    of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
    person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
    nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
    of the laws.

So vague and inclusive were these phrases that many important questions
immediately sprang from them. What were the privileges and immunities
of the citizen? Did those of the citizen of the United States differ
from those of the citizen of a state? Was a corporation a person? What
was liberty? What was due process of law? Hitherto the protection of
life, liberty and property had rested, in the main, upon the individual
states, and cases involving these subjects had been decided by state
courts. Were the state courts to be superseded, in relation to these
vital subjects, by the United States Supreme Court?

It has already been shown that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment
was the protection of the recently freed negro. The Thirteenth
Amendment had forbidden slavery, but the southern states had passed
apprentice and vagrancy laws which reduced the negro to a condition
closely resembling slavery in certain of its aspects. The Fourteenth
Amendment was designed to remedy such a condition by forbidding the
states to abridge the privileges of citizens, or to deprive persons of
life, liberty or property. Were the very vague phrases of the Amendment
merely in keeping with the vagueness of many of the other grants of
power in the Constitution, or were they designedly expressed in such a
way as to accomplish something more than the protection of the
freedman?

The first decision of the Supreme Court involving the Amendment was
that given in the Slaughter House Cases in 1873, which did not concern
the negro in any way. In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana had given a
corporation in that state the exclusive right to slaughter cattle
within a large area, and had forbidden other persons to construct
slaughter-houses within the limits of this region, but the corporation
was to allow any other persons to use its buildings and equipment,
charging fixed fees for the privilege. Cases were brought before the
courts to determine whether the law violated that part of the
Fourteenth Amendment which forbids a state to pass laws abridging the
privileges of citizens and taking away their property without due
process of law. By a vote of five to four the Court upheld the
constitutionality of the statute.

The majority held that the purpose of the Amendment was primarily the
protection of the negro. This purpose, the Court thought, lay at the
foundation of all three of the war amendments and without it no one of
them would ever have been suggested. The majority did not believe that
the Congress which passed the amendments or the state legislatures
which ratified them intended to transfer the protection of the great
body of civil rights from the states to the federal government. Neither
did they think that due process of law had been interfered with by the
Louisiana legislation. In reply to the objection that the
slaughter-house law violated the clause, "nor shall any State deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,"
the majority declared:

    We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
    way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
    of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this
    provision.

In brief, then, the majority was inclined to preserve the balance
between the states and the national government very much as it had
been. It believed that the amendments should be applied mainly if not
wholly to the fortunes of the freedman and that judicial review of such
legislation as that in Louisiana concerning the slaughter of cattle
should end in the state courts.

For a time the interpretation of the Court remained that given by the
majority in this decision. When western state legislatures passed laws
regulating the rates which railroads and certain other corporations
might legally charge for their services, the Court at first showed an
inclination to allow the states a free hand. Regulation of this sort,
it was held, did not deprive the citizen or the corporation of property
without due process of law.

There were indications, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Court was
undergoing a change as time elapsed. An interesting prelude to the
change was an argument by Roscoe Conkling in San Mateo County _v._
Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1882. Conkling was acting as
attorney for the railroad and was attempting to show that the roads
were protected, by the Fourteenth Amendment, from state laws which
taxed their property unduly. Conkling argued that the Amendment had not
been designed merely for the protection of the freedman, and in order
to substantiate his contention, he produced a manuscript copy of the
journal of the Congressional committee that had drawn up the proposals
which later became the Fourteenth Amendment. He had himself been a
member of the committee. The journal, it should be noticed, had never
hitherto been utilized in public.

Conkling stated that at the time when the Amendment was being drafted,
individuals and companies were appealing for congressional protection
against state taxation laws, and that it had been the purpose of the
committee to frame an amendment which should protect whites as well as
blacks and operate in behalf of corporations as well as individuals. In
other words, Conkling was making the interesting contention that his
committee had had a far wider and deeper purpose in mind in phrasing
the Amendment than had been commonly understood and that the demand for
the protection of the negro from harsh southern legislation had been
utilized to answer the request of business for federal assistance. The
safety of the negro was put to the fore; the purpose of the committee
to strengthen the legal position of the corporations was kept behind
the doors of the committee-room; and the phrases of the Amendment had
been designedly made general in order to accomplish both purposes. The
sequel appeared four years later, in 1886, when the case Santa Clara
County _v._ Southern Pacific Railroad brought the question before the
Court. At this time Mr. Chief Justice Waite announced the opinion of
himself and his colleagues that a corporation was a "person" within the
meaning of the Amendment and thus entitled to its protection.

Later decisions, such as that of 1889 in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
Paul Railway Company _v._ Minnesota, left no doubt of the fact that the
Court had come to look upon the Fourteenth Amendment as much more than
a protective device for the negro. The full meaning of the change,
however, did not appear until after 1890, and is a matter for later
consideration. In brief, then, before 1890, the Supreme Court was
content in the main to avoid the review of state legislation concerning
the ownership and control of private property, a practice which lodged
great powers in the state courts and legislatures. By that year,
however, it was manifest that the Court had undergone a complete change
and that it had adopted a theory which would greatly enlarge the
functions of the federal courts, at the expense of the states. The
medium through which the change came was the Fourteenth Amendment.

The demand on the part of business men for protection from state
legislation, which Roscoe Conkling described in the San Mateo case,
arose from their belief in the economic doctrine of _laissez faire_.
Believers in this theory looked upon legislation which regulated
business as a species of meddling or interference. The individual, they
thought, should be allowed to do very much as he pleased, entering into
whatever business he wished, and buying and selling where and how and
at what prices suited his interests, stimulated and controlled by
competition, but without direction or restriction by the government. It
was believed that the amazing success of the American business pioneer
was proof of the wisdom of the _laissez faire_ philosophy. The economic
giant and hero was the self-made man.

Economic abuses, according to the _laissez faire_ philosophy, would
normally be corrected by economic law, chiefly through competition. If,
for illustration, any industry demanded greater returns for its
products than proved to be just in the long run, unattached capital
would be attracted into that line of production, competition would
ensue, prices would be again lowered and justice would result. Every
business man would exert himself to discover that employment which
would bring greatest return for the capital which he had at his
command. He would therefore choose such an industry and so direct it as
to make his product of the greatest value possible. Hence although he
sought his own interests, he would in fact promote the interest of the
public.

Indeed the philosopher of _laissez faire_ was sincerely convinced that
his system ultimately benefited society as a whole. Andrew Carnegie, an
iron and steel manufacturer, presented this thesis in an article in the
_North American Review_ in 1889. The reign of individualism, he held,
was the order of the day, was inevitable and desirable. Under it the
poorer classes were better off than they had ever been in the world's
history. "We start then," he said, "with a condition of affairs under
which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably
gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist,
the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good." Let the man of
ability, he advised, accumulate a large fortune and then discharge his
duty to the public through philanthropic enterprises, such as the
foundation of libraries. Society would be more highly benefited in this
way than by allowing the millions to circulate in small sums through
the hands of the masses. Statistical studies of the distribution of
wealth seemed to justify Carnegie's judgment that the existing tendency
was for wealth to settle into the hands of the few. In 1893 it was
estimated that three one-hundredths of one per cent. of the people
owned twenty per cent. of the nation's wealth.

Although the _laissez faire_ theory was dominant later even than 1890,
it was apparent before that time that its sway was being challenged.
The adherents of _laissez faire_ themselves did not desire to have the
doctrine applied fully and evenly. They demanded government protection
for their enterprises through the medium of high protective import
tariffs, and they sought subsidies and grants of public land for the
railroads. Naturally it was not long before the classes whose desires
conflicted with the manufacturing and railroad interests began in their
turn to seek aid from the government. The people of the Middle West,
for example, were not content to allow the railroad companies to
control their affairs and establish their rates without let or
hindrance from the state legislatures. The factory system in the
Northeast, likewise, raised questions which were directed toward the
foundations of _laissez faire_. Under the factory regime employers
found it advantageous to open their doors to women and children and to
keep them at machines for long, hard days which unfitted the women for
domestic duties and for raising families, and which stunted the
children in body and mind. Out of these circumstances arose a demand
for restrictions on the freedom of employers to fix the conditions
under which their employees worked.

Opposition to an industrial system based upon _laissez faire_ would
have been even greater during the seventies and eighties if it had not
been for two sources of national wealth--the public lands and the
supplies of lumber, ore, coal and similar gifts of nature. When the
supply of land in the West was substantially unlimited, a sufficient
part of the population could relieve its economic distresses by
migrating, as multitudes did. Such huge stores of natural wealth were
being discovered that there seemed to be no end to them. But in the
late eighties when the best public lands were nearly exhausted and the
need of more careful husbanding of the national resources became
apparent to far-sighted men, advanced thinkers began to question the
validity of an economic theory which allowed quite so much freedom to
individuals. For the time, however, such questions did not arise in the
minds of the masses.

As the _laissez faire_ doctrine underlay the problem of the relation
between government and industry, so the quantity theory of money was
fundamental in the monetary question. According to the quantity theory,
money is like any other commodity in that its value rises and falls
with variations in the supply and demand for it. Suppose, for example,
that a given community is entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
It possesses precisely enough pieces of money to satisfy the needs of
its people. Suddenly the number of pieces is doubled. The supply is
twice as great as business requires. If no new elements enter into the
situation, the value of each piece becomes half as great as before, its
purchasing power is cut in two and prices double.[2]

A bushel of potatoes that formerly sold for a dollar now sells at two
dollars. A farmer who has mortgaged his farm for $1,000 and who relies
upon his sales of potatoes to pay off his debt is highly benefited by
the change, while the creditor is correspondingly harmed. The debtor is
obliged to raise only half as many potatoes; the creditor receives
money that buys half the commodities that could have been purchased
with his money at the time of the loan.

On the other hand, suppose the number of pieces of money is instantly
halved and all other factors continue unchanged. There is now twice as
great a demand for each piece, it becomes more desirable and will
purchase more goods. Prices, that is to say, go down. Dollar potatoes
now sell for fifty cents. The debtor farmer must grow twice as many
potatoes as he had contemplated; the creditor finds that he receives
money that has doubled in purchasing power.

It has already been said that the quarter century after the war was, in
the main, a period of falling prices. The farmer found the size of his
mortgage, as measured in bushels of wheat and potatoes, growing
steadily and relentlessly greater. The creditor received a return which
purchased larger and larger quantities of commodities. The debtor class
was mainly in the West; the creditors, mainly in the East. The
westerners desired a larger quantity of money which would, as they
believed, send prices upward; the East, depending upon similar
reasoning, desired a contraction in supply. The former were called
inflationists; the latter, contractionists. Much of the monetary
history of the country after the Civil War was concerned with the
attempt of the inflationists to expand the supply of currency, and the
contractionists to prevent inflation.

The intellectual background of the twenty-five years after the war, so
far as it can be considered at this point, was to be found mainly in
the development of education and the growth of the newspaper and
periodical. Before the Civil War, except in the South, the old-time
district school had given way, in most states, to graded elementary
schools, supported by taxation. After the war the southern states made
heroic efforts to revive education, in which they were aided by such
northern benefactions as the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000
established in 1867. In the northern states the schools were greatly
improved, free text-books became the rule, the free public high-schools
replaced the former private academies, and normal schools for the
training of teachers were established. The period was also marked by
the foundation of scores of colleges and especially of the great state
universities. The Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, had provided for a grant
to each state of 30,000 acres of public land for every senator and
representative in Congress to which the state was entitled. The land
was to be used to promote education in the agricultural and mechanic
arts, and in the natural sciences. The advantages of the law were
quickly seen, and between 1865 and 1890 seventeen state universities
were started, most of them in the Middle and Far West. Many of these
underwent a phenomenal growth and had a great influence on the states
in which they were established.

The newspaper press was also undergoing a transformation in the quarter
century after the war. The great expansion of the numbers and influence
of American newspapers before and during that struggle had been due to
the ability of individuals. James Gordon Bennett had founded the New
York _Herald_, for example, in 1835, and from then on the _Herald_ had
been "Bennett's paper." Similarly the _Tribune_ had represented Horace
Greeley and the _Times_, Henry J. Raymond. The effect of the war was to
develop technical resources in gathering news, to necessitate a larger
scale of expenditure and a wider range of information, and to make a
given issue the work of many men instead of one. Raymond died in 1869,
Greeley and Bennett in 1872; and although the _Sun_ was the embodiment
of Charles A. Dana until his death in 1897, the _Nation_ and the
_Evening Post_ of Edwin L. Godkin until 1899, nevertheless the tendency
was away from the newspaper which reflected an individual and toward
that which represented a group; away from the editorial which expressed
the views of a well-known writer, to the editorial page which combined
the labors of many anonymous contributors. The financial basis of the
newspaper also underwent a transition. As advertising became more and
more general, the revenues of newspapers tended to depend more on the
favor of the advertiser than upon the subscriber, giving the former a
powerful although indirect influence on editorial policies.

The influence of the press in politics was rapidly growing. A larger
number of newspapers became sufficiently independent to attack abuses
in both parties. The New York _Times_ and Thomas Nast's cartoons in
_Harper's Weekly_ were most important factors in the overthrow of the
Tweed Ring in New York City, and in the elections of 1884 and later,
newspapers exerted an unusual power. Press associations in New York and
the West led the way to the Associated Press, with its wide-spread
cooperative resources for gathering news.

As important as the character of the press, was the amount and
distribution of its circulation. Between 1870 and 1890 the number of
newspapers published and the aggregate circulation increased almost
exactly threefold--about five times as fast as the population was
growing. In the latter year the entire circulation for the country was
over four and a half billion copies, of which about sixty per cent.
were dailies. So great had been the growth of the press during the
seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of
the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search
that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the
Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have
been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which
the entire country was educated in the tariff and other important
issues.

The expansion of the press is well exemplified by the use of the
telegraph in the spread of information. When Lincoln was nominated for
the presidency in 1860, a single telegraph operator was able to send
out all the press matter supplied to him. In 1892 at the Democratic
convention, the Western Union Telegraph Company had one hundred
operators in the hall. Mechanical invention, meanwhile, was able to
keep pace with the demand for news. The first Hoe press of 1847 had
been so improved by 1871 that it printed ten to twelve thousand
eight-page papers in an hour, and twenty-five years later the capacity
had been increased between six and sevenfold.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Nearly all material on party history is so partisan that it should be
read with critical scepticism: Francis Curtis, _The Republican Party,
1854-1904_ (2 vols., 1904); J.D. Long, _Republican Party_ (1888); for
the Independent attitude, consult _Harper's Weekly_ during the campaign
of 1884. As the Republicans were in power most of the time from
1865-1913, there is more biographical and autobiographical material
about Republicans than about Democratic leaders. Local studies of
political conditions and the social structure of the parties are almost
entirely lacking. On the personal side, the following are essential:
G.F. Parker, _Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland_ (1892); T.E.
Burton, _John Sherman_ (1906); J.B. Foraker, _Notes of a Busy Life_ (2
vols., 1916), throws light on the ideals and practices of a politician;
G.F. Hoar, _Autobiography of Seventy Years_ (2 vols., 1903), gives the
New England Republican point of view; Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of
E.L. Godkin_ (2 vols., 1907); G.F. Parker, _Recollections of Grover
Cleveland_ (1909), is useful, but sketchy, there being as yet no
thorough biography of Cleveland; T.C. Platt, _Autobiography_ (1910),
interestingly portrays the philosophy of a machine politician, but
should be read with care; John Sherman, _Recollections of Forty Years
in House, Senate and Cabinet_ (2 vols., 1895); Edward Stanwood, _James
G. Blaine_ (1905), is highly favorable to Blaine; W.M. Stewart,
_Reminiscences_ (1908), is interesting, partisan and unreliable. For a
general estimate of the autobiographical material of the period,
consult _History Teachers' Magazine_ (later the _Historical Outlook_),
"Recent American History Through the Actors' Eyes," March, 1916.

Jesse Macy, _Party Organisation and Machinery_ (1904); M.G.
Ostrogorski, _Democracy and Political Parties_ (2 vols., 1902), gives a
keen and pessimistic account of American political practices in vol.
II; J.A. Woodburn, _Political Parties and Party Problems in the United
States_ (1903, and later editions) gives a succinct account in good
temper.

For the Fourteenth Amendment: C.G. Haines, _American Doctrine of
Judicial Supremacy_ (1914); C.W. Collins, _The Fourteenth Amendment and
the States_ (1912), is a careful study, which is critical of the
prevailing later interpretation of the Amendment. The Slaughter House
case, giving the earlier interpretation is in J.W. Wallace, _Cases
argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court_ (Supreme Court Reports), XVI,
36.

L.H. Haney, _History of Economic Thought_ (1911), on _laissez faire_;
J.L. Laughlin, _Principles of Money_ (1903); and Irving Fisher, _Why is
the Dollar Shrinking_ (1914), present two sides of the quantity theory
of money.

Most useful on the development of education are F.P. Graves, _A History
of Education in Modern Times_ (1913); and E.G. Dexter, _History of
Education in the United States_ (1904).

The growth of newspapers is described in _The Bookman_, XIV, 567-584,
XV, 26-44; see also Rollo Ogden, _Life and Letters of Godkin_, already
mentioned; G.H. Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_
(1920); J.M. Lee, _History of American Journalism_ (1917). The effects
of education and the press on American social, economic and political
life have not been subjected to thorough study.

       *       *       *       *       *

[1] _Addresses on Government and Citizenship_, 202.

[2] In practice, new elements do enter into the situation so that the
theory requires much qualification. Cf. Taussig, _Principles of
Economics_ (1915), I, ch. 18.




CHAPTER V


THE NEW ISSUES

Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been
described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of
national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper
relation between the government and the railroads and industrial
enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes;
the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the
resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the
financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil
service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the
war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question
almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems.
Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public
interest focus long enough to effect results.

The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since
the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war
a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the
conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an
internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had
been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country
had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the
internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force
at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon
products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon
manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements
and a large number of smaller sources of income.

The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the
tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation
for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint
the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful
conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that
anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators
to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a
conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the
country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the
protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long
discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and
moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient.
It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which
surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note
that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue
legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared
well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of
the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to
capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines,
agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial
expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production
of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities,
especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the
tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business
interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The
brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the
taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers
and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with
the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.

After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to
many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the
House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of
1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his
colleagues:

    At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
    insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
    raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
    imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
    manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
    protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
    increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
    cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
    proper amount of revenue.

Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of
the West and especially in those sections not committed to
wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of
"tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of
economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the
revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted
from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his
reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in
favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and
included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace
White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of _The Nation_, and many
others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent
Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.

In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an
amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than
a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but
according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in
order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was
impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were
able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit
management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the
duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties
on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and
some other commodities in 1870.

The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its
advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist
leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight
concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the
campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the
industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible
opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where
they remained for nearly a decade.

The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of
both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately
following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in
their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform.
Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced
between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction
of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there
was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and
at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870,
the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected
manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve
results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the
reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the
main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men
made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the
country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been
considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and
a national problem.

The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply
defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats
seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their
party traditions, their support in the South--ordinarily a strong,
low-tariff section--and because they were out of power when high tariffs
were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some
prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall
of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of
another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In
1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous
enough for a complete platform. The party stood for

    a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
    under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
    protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
    impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
    promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
    country.

In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support
Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party
denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality
and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in
fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress,
however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was
supplied by the Democrats.

The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was
the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform
element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken
to avoid any definite statement of principles--doubtless on account of
the well-known differences in the party--and for many years there was
no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet
it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in
the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders
gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground
and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs
had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with
the sanctity of party accomplishments.

Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range
for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation
in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from
June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and
one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate
disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget
and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to
the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under
revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely,
one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six
times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the
major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses
had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.

The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention
was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were
disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their
reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue
by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In
succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the
scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.

The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was
composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five
different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods
of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high
rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the
government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest
charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest
account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as
secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this
transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of
fourteen million dollars effected.

Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the
principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the
field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no
stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later
loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either
gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition
that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about
the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the
bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary,
although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin.
The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea,"
gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been
explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated
the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed
with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it--Horatio Seymour,
the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic
platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express
contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as
"repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith"
according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the
government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet
the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and
gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the
remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor
classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on
being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out
their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the
payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.

The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce
any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed
during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars
and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts.
Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The
greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained
in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about
seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.

Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the
greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of
February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four
hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which
were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name
came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were
legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties
and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled
creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the
two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with
these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the
Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be
allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely
done away with; and whether the government should resume specie
payments--that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of
the latter.

The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In
1870, in Hepburn _v._ Griswold, the point at issue was whether the
greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted
before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P.
Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote
of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender
for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when
the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench
which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases
involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox _v._
Lee, and Parker _v._ Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871,
over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn _v._ Griswold and held by a vote of
five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to
contracts made either before or after its passage.

The second question relating to the greenbacks was th

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