The reëlection of Grant in 1872 was almost automatic. No new issue had forced itself into politics to stir up the old party fires or light new ones. The old issues had begun to lose their force. Men ceased to respond when told that the Union was in danger; they questioned or ignored the statement. Many of them contradicted it and voted for Greeley in 1872, but they were impelled to this by repulsion from Republican practice rather than by attraction to Democratic promise. Yet, on the whole, the habit of voting the Union or Republican ticket retained its hold on so many in the North that Grant's second term was insured, and it was even possible that a Republican successor might profit by the same political inertia.
The second term (1873-77) added no strength to Grant or to his party. Throughout its course, administrative scandals continued to come to light, striking at times dangerously near the President, but failing to injure him other than in his repute for judgment. The period was one of financial depression and discouragement. The best intellect of the United States was directed into business, the professions, and educational administration. Politics was generally left to the men who had already controlled it, and these were the men who had risen into prominence in the period of the Civil War.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION AT WASHINGTON, 1869-1917
Showing the party in control of the national government in each Congress
[During only three of the ten Congresses between 1875 and 1895 did either party control the national government. The Democrats were in possession only once, in the 53d Congress. The Republicans controlled the 47th Congress by manipulation of senators, and the 51st by Reed's drastic rules. Most of the partisan legislation of twenty years was enacted during these three Congresses.]
A new and not a better type was brought into American politics by the Civil War. Notwithstanding the bad manners and excesses of ante-bellum politics, the leaders had been men of defined policy, only occasionally reaching high office through trickery or personal appeal. Now came the presence of an intense issue which smoothed out other differences, magnified a single policy,—the saving of the Union,—and gave opportunity to a new type of intense, patriotic, narrow mind. Men of this type dominated in the reconstruction days. As the sixties advanced, their number was recruited by men who had won prominence and popularity on the battlefield, who used military fame as a step into politics, and who came into public life with qualifications adapted to an issue that was closed.