was an able and popular man, who for years was a member of Congress from Maine and was chosen Speaker of the House. He belonged to what was called the "stalwart " wing of the Republican party — the wing that was still talking about "reconstruction," the "colored vote," and the "rebels." Though a remarkably adroit politician, Blaine made many enemies by sharp personal attacks on other public men.

The Democrats declared that the government needed to be reformed, and Blaine was charged by some Republicans with using his office to enrich himself. The "Mugwumps," a group of Republicans chiefly from Massachusetts and New York, refused to support Blaine and voted for Cleveland. In New York the election was again close (§ 323), so that the Democratic plurality was only 1100 in a total vote of about 1,200,000. However, that carried 36 electoral votes, which with those of Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, and the solid South elected Grover Cleveland President. He was duly inaugurated in March, 1885.

325. Summary. This chapter narrates - This chapter narrates the political events, elections, and controversies during the four Republican administrations from 1869 to 1885. The most striking events in the period are the struggle between the Republican and Democratic parties every four years to get possession of the national government.

President Grant was an upright and vigorous man who tried to improve the government but could not seem to cut loose from bad friends. It was a time of many frauds in government, such as the Whisky Ring and the Tweed Ring in the city of New York.

Reconstruction broke down. The southern whites, when left to themselves, took back their old leaders and elected Democrats. The negro vote was much lessened by the action of secret societies, especially the Ku-Klux Klan, and no act of Congress could stop the movement.

Grant was reëlected in 1872; but the Civil War spirit was dying out and the Democrats gained ground. The farmers' organizations and the Greenbackers were organizing third parties.

REFERENCES AND QUESTIONS

405

In 1876 the Democrats almost elected Samuel J. Tilden, but by the decision of an Electoral Commission (1877) Hayes of Ohio was seated as President. He recalled the troops from the South.

The greenback controversy was settled by the resumption of specie payments in 1879. Just at this time a new trouble arose because the government no longer allowed free coinage of silver at 16 to 1. It was settled for a time by the Bland Act of 1878.

General Garfield of Ohio was elected President by the Republicans in 1880, but was assassinated early in his term. Under his successor, Chester A. Arthur, a bill was passed for reforming the civil service. In the election of 1884 a Democrat, Grover Cleveland, was chosen President, after 24 years of Republican administration.

REFERENCES

Maps. Dunning, Reconstruction. Sparks, Nat. Development.

Histories. Bassett, Un. States, 626-719. Beard, Contemporary Hist., 1-4, 50-54, 90-132. Dunning, Reconstruction. Elson, Side Lights, II. chs. ix-xii. - Fish, Dev. of Am. Nation., 420–464. - Hart, Monroe Doctrine, ch. xi. Haworth, Reconstruction and Union, 43-119. Paxson, New Nation, 49–133. — Sparks, Nat. Development, chs. vi-xii, xvii, xix. - Wilson, Division and Reunion, §§ 134-141, 151.

Sources. Caldwell and Persinger, Source Hist., §§ 478-483. Hart, Contemporaries, IV. §§ 156-161, 168-177; Source Book, §§ 132-137.James, Readings, §§ 94-98. — Johnston, Am. Orations, IV. 238-269, 296-328, 367-420. — MacDonald, Select Statutes, 85-109.

Side Lights and Stories. Burnett, Through One Administration. Clemens (Mark Twain), Gilded Age. Cullom, Fifty Years. - Sherman, Recollections.

Pictures. Andrews, Last Quarter Century. Harper's Weekly.— Mentor, serial nos. 77, 85. toons). Scribner's. Wilson, Am. People, V.

QUESTIONS

- Frank Leslie's Weekly. Paine, Thos. Nast (Car

(8314) 1. What kind of man was President Grant? 2. What did Grant do to improve the civil service? 3. Was Grant a successful President? 4 (For an essay). Good points about Ulysses S. Grant.

(§ 315) 5. What troubles arose in the national government? 6. What was the Tweed Ring and how was it defeated?

(§ 316) 7. How did the South treat the reconstruction governments? 8. What was the Ku-Klux Klan? 9. How did reconstruction work out? (8317) 10. What was the result of the election of 1872? 11. What was the "solid South"? 12. Why were cities important in politics? 13. How were politics affected by memories of the Civil War? by the constitutional amendments? 14. What were the principal "third parties"?

(§ 318) 15. How was the United States interested in Cuba? 16 (For an essay). Scenes in Cuba. 17. How was slavery ended in America? 18. Why was Santo Domingo not annexed?

(§ 319) 19. What were the issues of the election of 1876? 20. What was the dispute over the election? 21. How was it settled in 1877? 22. What kind of President was Hayes?

(§ 320) 23. Why was the currency of the country inconvenient? 24. Why was paper money popular? 25. How were specie payments resumed? (§ 321) 26. What was bimetallism? 27. What was the "16-to-1" ratio? 28. What was free coinage? 29. Why did silver coinage cease in 1873? 30. Why did silver miners desire free coinage of silver? 31. Why did the silver men and gold men clash?

(§ 322) 32. Why was free silver popular? 33. What was the Bland Act? 34. How did the silver question end?

(§ 323) 35. What was the result of the election of 1880? 36. How did Arthur become President? 37. What was the Pendleton Civil Service Act? 38. How has civil service reform affected states and cities?

(§ 324) 39. Who were the candidates in the election of 1884? 40. Who was chosen President?

CHAPTER XXX

THE NEW SOUTH (1869-1885)

326. Poverty of the South (1865-1890). — One plain result of the Civil War was that the seceding states and parts of the border states were ruined (§§ 291, 295). Large amounts of property had been destroyed by the armies on both sides. The four cotton crops raised from 1861 to 1864 could not be shipped during the war because of the blockade; and as the Union armies advanced, the cotton on their line of march was seized. Some landed estates were confiscated or sold for taxes by the federal government; and Charleston, Richmond, and other cities suffered from terrible fires.

When the war ended, business was in confusion in the South. The specie, stocks of goods, and other savings had disappeared. The railroads were worn out. For a time there was no currency, for both Confederate and state paper notes were worthless. The state governments were heavily in debt; but their most dreadful loss was that of nearly 300,000 of their most vigorous men in the war.

Nevertheless the South had two great assets: a country rich in natural resources, and a people who had the courage to react from the losses of the war. Good land abounded, especially the rich black cotton lands of the lower South. Corn could be raised anywhere for food; cotton would pay for flour and salt meats from the North. The southerners speedily found a market for the valuable red and yellow pine which stretched in a broad belt from North Carolina to Arkansas. Underneath the mountains were enormous stores of coal and iron, which as yet had hardly been touched. On the coast lay beds of phosphate rock, which would enrich the cotton fields. In Louisiana and Texas were great deposits of salt and oil. With laborers and a new business organization there would

soon be plenty of cotton, tobacco, corn, vegetables, pig iron, and lumber, to use and to sell.

327. Negro Problem (1865-1885). — The first necessity for the South was labor. The old farmers who worked their own land returned to their farms; but the only supply of laborers for wages was the former slaves. Contrary to expectation few of the negroes went north, because most of them wanted to work on plantations. Many of the former owners, or their sons, were dead. How could the negroes be supported? There were no savings; and the field hands, unless they could draw pay every month, would starve. Somebody must come forward to find the means to furnish them with food while the crops were growing, or else the work must stop. Many plantations changed hands; some were cut up into small farms which were bought by former poor whites, who thus raised themselves above the conditions of the period before the war (§ 196).

The freedmen were employed on the plantations on various terms and conditions: (1) The " wage hands" received money wages and bought their own supplies so did the masons, blacksmiths, and carpenters in the cities. (2) Part of the negroes were "furnished"; that is, were allowed a certain amount each month in purchases at the plantation store. (3) A large number were "share hands"; that is, they worked a small tract on a plantation and got advances of supplies till the crop was sold. Then the planter figured up the amount produced and allowed to the workers from one third to two thirds of the proceeds, according to the previous bargain.

Hundreds of thousands of freedmen somehow got it into their minds that the United States government was going to give each family "40 acres and a mule." Though land was very cheap, few negroes had money, and not many knew how to save enough to pay for land. On the other hand, most white landowners would rather have the negroes work for them than sell them land and see them work for themselves. Still, many freedmen bought land, especially along the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia.