1871]

The beginnings of reaction

639

the effects of a redundant paper currency, a fluctuating gold premium, and continued issues of government bonds, and it is clear that all the conditions were present for popular recklessness and eventual disaster. During the Reconstruction struggle social excitability found a political outlet in following the Congressional contests; but, as soon as the task of the Republican party seemed finished, the tension relaxed, and popular restlessness showed itself in a tendency to divide on new issues, to revolt against too rigid party dictation, and to hold the controlling Republicans responsible for any public ills which society now had leisure to contemplate. Accordingly reaction appeared sooner or later in every quarter, directed against every feature of the Republican party and its policy; and from this the Opposition, without regard to its own merits or defects, was sure to profit.

The first sign of a turning tide appeared while prosperity was at its height, in the shape of a revolt against the party despotism which stood out plainly the moment the crisis of the Reconstruction struggle had passed. The Republican party under Grant's administration began to show signs of moral relaxation. Habits of disregarding legal and technical difficulties, the neglect of merely negative virtues while the problem of saving the country was still unsolved, and the use of unchecked power, produced their inevitable effects. The Republican politicians regarded public offices as their own perquisites, and exercised their control, as senators and representatives, for partisan and personal considerations. Consequently, the period was marked by frequent cases of corruption and much open cynicism. Of course these tendencies affected the two parties equally; the Democratic Tammany Hall and the Republican customs-house plundered New York city with equal impudence; but the political domination of the Republicans made their shortcomings more prominent. Grant professed himself heartily in favour of the new Civil Service law of 1871; but his conduct as President unfortunately showed little comprehension of the real purpose of public service. Grant was personally honest, but he was a poor judge of men, susceptible to certain kinds of flattery, and extremely dependent for advice in civil matters upon his personal friends. By the end of his term it was common talk that he had fallen completely under the influence of a group of Republican senators of the less elevated type; and this, with his appointments, his amazing behaviour in the San Domingo affair, and his intolerance of opposition, led a great many of the more moderate Republican leaders to dread his re-election as a danger to good government.

On this issue began the first reaction. As usual a faction quarrel gave the impetus. The revolt first appeared in Missouri in 1870, where the Republican party divided, and the anti-Administration wing, by a coalition with the Democrats, carried the State. In 1871 active agitation began against Grant's re-election, which resulted in the calling by the

640

The Greeley campaign

[1872

Missourians of a Liberal National Convention, to meet at Cincinnati in May, 1872. At first the movement seemed extremely promising, owing to the character of the leaders, men like Trumbull of Illinois, Brown of Missouri, Julian of Indiana, Sumner and C. F. Adams of Massachusetts; but, owing to a series of blunders, the Convention nominated Horace Greeley, the eccentric, impulsive editor of the New York Tribune. The candidate and the platform, which demanded acquiescence in the results of Reconstruction while throwing its principal emphasis upon the cry of reform, were both adopted by the Democrats on July 9, 1872; but the coalition was hopeless from the start. The country was at the height of prosperity; Grant's popularity with the masses was unshaken; and Greeley's personal peculiarities rendered him almost absurd as a rival for the war hero. He not only could not draw more than a handful from the Republicans, but could not even command full Democratic support; and the election resulted in an overwhelming Republican victory, Grant carrying all the States but six, and receiving 286 electoral votes out of 360. The only result of the Liberal secession seemed to be the political ruin of a dozen of the ablest Republicans, and the firmer riveting of the hold of a particular party upon the country.

But meanwhile the Republican power was being undermined in a more effective way in the Southern States, the Reconstruction policy being now subjected to a decisive trial in all of these except Virginia, which in its first election was carried by the whites. It is not easy to say precisely what result was expected by the Republicans who bestowed the suffrage upon the negro. The extreme Radicals like Sumner maintained that the mere possession of the vote would raise the negro in all respects to the level of his late master; many others, who agreed with Sumner that the ballot belonged to the freedman by right, were less optimistic, and hoped at the most for a process of gradual political education; but the majority, while willing for party reasons as well as for justice's sake to create a negro electorate, recognised that it was a hazardous experiment, and entertained grave doubts as to its success. None, it may safely be said, foresaw the actual results.

Judging from the experience of the twelve States where the experiment was tried, it is not too much to say that the Southern Republican party showed neither the ability nor the will to govern well. The negroes formed the voting body, and the more intelligent among their number commonly held office; but the real control was in the hands of white residents of Northern origin, the "carpet-baggers," and of a few Southern whites or "scalawags." Some of these were men of character and honest intentions, but few were of a high order of ability, and very many were adventurers pure and simple. One and all were imbued with an intense partisanship which shrank from nothing that would advance the cause of the Republican or Radical organisation. It was impossible for such a party to provide competent officials; there were not enough educated

1868-71] "Carpet-baggers" and "Ku Klux Klan"

641

men among them to fill the positions; and the result was in very many localities to place civil, judicial, and local offices in the hands of corrupt whites or illiterate negroes.

The characteristic of this régime, stated briefly, was misgovernment of every degree, from simple inefficiency and extravagance to appalling corruption and tyranny. Offices were multiplied, and salaries doubled and trebled; government printing was lavishly granted for building up a party press in every county; bonds were issued in aid of railroads. which were never built, or in behalf of other schemes resting on thin air. Embezzlement by corrupt whites and blacks was wide-spread; and in South Carolina, where public morals reached their lowest depth of degradation, the members of the legislature and the executive officials helped themselves freely from the public treasury. Bribery in legislation was common; and the administration of justice was frequently a scandal. Courts were partisan, and governors facile. It was hard to convict a Republican offender; and, if convicted, he was almost certain to be pardoned. Taxation mounted enormously; for, since it fell, of course, not on the former slaves but on the whites, property was absolutely divorced from government. It cost "carpet-baggers" nothing to squander money which was furnished by their political opponents. To crown all, the personal character of very many negro and white Republican officials was notoriously immoral.

This condition of things, it is needless to say, was regarded by Southern whites as the destruction of human civilisation. Original Secessionists and Unionists alike were immediately welded into a party with one absorbing purpose to put an end to "carpet-bag" rule. Overmatched at first in point of numbers, they were driven by their anger and disgust at negro supremacy into expedients which their knowledge of negro weaknesses suggested; and the years 1866 to 1871 saw the rise of the "Ku Klux Klan," a secret society of disguised nightriders, who terrified, whipped, and finally began to murder negro leaders and "carpet-baggers." Open race-conflicts, too, were frequent; and after every brawl or shooting affray the report of negroes killed and wounded showed the deadly purpose of the former slaveholders. The State governments in vain retorted by passing severe laws, and arming a "loyal," that is negro, militia. Every election became a fight for life, the Democrats trying to intimidate the negroes, the "carpet-baggers" using every means in their power to retain control, throwing out votes, cancelling returns, and ejecting Democratic claimants. In the years after 1868 the whole South seemed to be in anarchy, the lower elements on both sides exhibiting the worst passions of humanity. Murder, violence, and a consuming race-hatred seemed pitted against utterly unscrupulous misgovernment and tyranny.

In such circumstances the Republicans controlling Congress and the executive could not fail to intervene. Congressional investigating

C. M. H. VII.

41

642

Breakdown of "Carpet-bag" governments [1870–7

committees held inquests and collected testimony of such a character as to lead the majority to pass, in May, 1870, an "Enforcement Act,” whereby any conspiracy to deprive the negroes of rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment was made punishable by Federal process. This not proving successful, a second Act, known as the " Ku Klux Act," still more drastic in its effect, was passed in April, 1871; and in 1875 a Supplementary Civil Rights Act was added, which aimed at enforcing full social equality for negroes in theatres, hotels, and public conveyances. At the same time, by Acts of 1871 and 1872, all Federal elections were placed under the control of Federal authorities; and under these Acts hundreds of arrests were made and convictions secured. The President, on his part, used troops freely to aid the struggling "carpet-bag" governments; and scenes repellent to all but extreme partisans frequently took place, when Federal troops, at the word of a Republican governor, broke up legislatures claiming to be legally constituted, or ejected State officials. In Louisiana, especially, these interventions became habitual; but Grant grew weary of the "annual autumnal outbreaks," and occasionally in his second term refused aid. Under the "Ku Klux Act," Grant also proclaimed martial law for a while in part of South Carolina.

But, though these measures succeeded in curbing the open outrages, they failed in effecting their main purpose. In spite of troops, Federal election laws, and the unscrupulous defence of the "carpet-baggers," the negro governments broke down one after another. The weaker race could not hold its own in such a contest; faction quarrels weakened the Republican organisations; and in the end the whites triumphed. Tennessee turned Democratic in 1869; West Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina in 1870; Georgia in 1871; Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas, after a hard struggle, in 1874; Mississippi, after a desperate campaign, in 1875; and only Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina remained Republican in the election of 1876. These three played a decisive part in the presidential struggle of that year, as will be shown later; but, upon the withdrawal of troops from them in 1877, the Republican governments collapsed, and all three passed into the hands of the whites. In each State the overthrow of the "carpet-baggers was followed by reforms in administration, reduction of expenses and taxation, and, in many cases, by new State constitutions and the repudiation of fraudulent debt. During the same period, in spite of Federal election laws, the number of Republicans in Congress from the reconstructed States ran rapidly down from 20 senators and 40 representatives in 1869 to two senators and four representatives in 1877. The ruin of Republican Reconstruction as a party policy was complete within ten years after its establishment.

Meanwhile financial reconstruction had been endangered by a sudden industrial crisis, which, with its subsequent years of hard times, wrecked at a blow the Republican financial prestige. The panic of 1873 came as

1873-9]

Silver and specie resumption

643

the inevitable result of an abnormal industrial expansion; banks and speculative railways fell together; and prices dropped until, for a time, all industry seemed to be at a standstill. For some years there were no signs of reviving prosperity; and a great cry for relief went up, which took the form of a demand for currency inflation, both parties being affected. The result was an epoch of exceedingly confused financial legislation, during which the Republican policy barely escaped destruction. In 1874, Secretary Richardson, on his own motion, reissued "greenbacks"; and Congress, in a panic, passed the so-called "Inflation Act," increasing the circulation of legal tenders and national bank-notes. This Grant fortunately vetoed; and a year later the same Congress, in a saner mood, passed an Act for the resumption of specie payments in 1879 which tended to restore the party's credit. But immediately a new danger appeared in a movement for free silver coinage, also inspired by inflationist sentiment; since the silver dollar, demonetised in 1873 as overvalued and obsolete, had suddenly fallen in value, owing partly to the demonetisation of silver by Germany in 1873, but still more to the enormous silver production following the opening of the rich Nevada mines. Repeated attempts were made in the Congresses of 1875 and 1877 to repeal the Resumption Act and enact free-coinage bills; and, although the Senate blocked the first of these, it did not succeed in preventing the second. In 1878 the Bland-Allison Act was passed, by which the coinage of from two to four million dollars of silver per month was made obligatory. Congress at the same moment by resolution declared all bonds to be payable in silver.

In spite of this action, Secretary Sherman managed with great skill, during the years 1877 and 1878, to pave the way for resumption, and, in spite of the outcries of silver men and inflationists, succeeded in selling bonds and accumulating a reserve. On January 1, 1879, he actually resumed specie payment. He was doubtless much aided by a combination of good crops and heavy agricultural exports; but the credit none the less belonged to him and his party, although at the moment of resumption they had helped to damage the measure by the injection of silver into the government currency. The years 1872-9 were financially perilous; but, largely owing to fortune, the reaction failed to carry the day. Specie resumption marks its end.

The reaction against Republican official errors, which failed so completely in the Greeley campaign, returned again with redoubled force in Grant's second term. It was a time of absorption in things material and domestic. In foreign affairs the years 1872-8 were marked by stagnation, a few commercial, extradition, and naturalisation treaties being the only evidences of diplomatic activity. Cabinet ministers and Congressmen alike were swept along in the current of the new industrial materialism to such an extent that an epidemic of scandals broke out between 1872 and 1876. The "Crédit Mobilier," a