By this time the carpet-baggers had swarmed into the sorely harried region like so many locusts. They secured the support of the ignorant blacks, by falsehood and misrepresentations, controlled the State Legislatures, and had themselves elected to Congress. Enormous debts were piled up, and negroes, who could not write their names, exultingly made laws for their former masters, who remained in sullen silence at their homes and wondered what affliction was coming next. The colored legislators adjourned pell-mell to attend the circus; hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen, and extravagance, corruption, and debauchery ran riot. As a public man remarked, one general conflagration, sweeping from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico, could not have wrought more devastation in the South than the few years of carpet-bag governments.
Yet all such evils are sure to right themselves, sooner or later. The means are apt to be violent and revolutionary, and sometimes breed crime of itself. It was not in the nature of things that the whites should remain passive and meek under this unspeakable misrule. They united for self-protection. One of the bands thus formed was the Ku-Klux, which in time committed so many crimes in terrorizing the negroes that they were suppressed by the stern arm of the military; a revolt of the best people took place, and soon after 1870 the blight of carpet-bag government disappeared from the South.
TRUE RECONCILIATION.
Despite the turbulence and angry feeling, the work of reconciliation went on of itself. Northern capital entered the promising fields of the South; former Union and Confederate leaders, as well as privates, respected one another, as brave men always do, and became warm friends. While many of the former went South, hundreds of the latter made their homes in the North, where they were welcomed and assisted in the struggle to "get upon their feet." This fraternal mingling of former soldiers and the friendly exchange of visits between Union and Confederate posts brought about true reconciliation, despite the wrangles of politicians.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1868.
Before, however, this was fully accomplished, the presidential election of 1868 took place. The most popular hero in this country, as in others, is the military one, and the great value of General Grant's services in the war for the Union made it clear, long before the assembling of the nominating convention, that he would be the candidate of the Republican party. He was unanimously named, with Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the nominee for Vice-President. The Democrats placed in nomination Horatio Seymour, of New York, and General Francis P. Blair, of Missouri. The result in November was as follows: Republican ticket, 214 electoral votes; Democratic, 80. The election was a striking proof of the popularity of the great soldier.
Andrew Johnson was hopeful of a nomination from the Democrats, but his name was scarcely mentioned. He lived in retirement for a number of years, but was elected United States senator in 1875, and he died at his home July 31st of that year.
THE EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENT.
