496. Grant and Colfax Elected (1868). The question of reconstruction and the quarrel between the President and Congress made the campaign of 1868 exciting. The issues between the two parties had grown mostly out of the war.

The Republicans favored paying United States bonds in coin, supported the plan of reconstruction offered by Congress, and nominated General Grant and Schuyler Colfax.

The Democrats called for the complete pardon of all engaged in the rebellion, and for the taxation of government bonds; opposed land grants to railroads, and nominated Horatio Seymour of New York and Francis P. Blair of Missouri.

The Republicans won by two hundred and fourteen electoral votes to eighty. Three of the seceded states, however, had not voted because they were not yet reconstructed.

497. The Carpetbaggers (1868-1870). By June, 1868, the Carolinas, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana were back in the Union. But the four remaining seceded states hesitated.

Many of the Southern states fell into the hands of the new negro voters, led by dishonest Northern politicians called "Carpetbaggers." This name was given in contempt because it was said they carried all their property in carpetbags. They were aided by a few Southern white men called "Scalawags." The Carpetbaggers had hastened south to become rich by persuading the negroes to elect them to office. They easily made their ignorant followers believe that the Southern white men wished to put them back into slavery, and that their only hope was to vote for the Republicans.

498. Negro Rule in the South. In most of the reconstructed states a majority of the members of the

legislature were, at one time, negroes. They were a strange body of men to make laws for states so injured by war. Some were intelligent because they had been trusted servants of their masters, while others were ignorant, having spent their lives toiling in cotton and rice fields. Some were well dressed, but many wore second-hand clothes, "glossy and threadbare." A few were clad in the coarse dress of field hands. All were ignorant of public business.

How changed the scene to the old planters who, in the same halls, had heard the voices of Hayne and Calhoun, or of Toombs and Stephens! Now if a white member rose to speak, he must address a former slave sitting in the Speaker's chair. If he offered a resolution, he must hear it read to the legislature by the negro clerk. If he served on an important committee, its chairman and a majority of its members were negroes.

While the legislature was debating a bill to raise or to spend money, the greatest excitement would occur. Though the Speaker pounded his desk to keep order, many persons would be on their feet trying to speak at the same time. The noise of loud talking, and even laughing, went right on. Some members leaned back with their feet on the desks, smoking cigars or eating peanuts, while those who were to profit by the bill were busy trying to buy votes for it.

499. Results of Carpetbag and Negro Rule. No such extravagance and corruption had ever been seen in the Southern states. Millions were wasted and millions were stolen. The Carpetbaggers grew rich, but the people had to pay the bills.

The results were bad in the extreme: (1) The negro proved himself unfit as yet to govern, and made it harder for some to believe that he would ever learn so difficult a lesson. (2) This taste of public life made

many negroes unwilling to go back to common occupations. (3) The states burdened by debt were unable to encourage industry and free schools, the two things the South most needed. (4) Worst of all was the race hatred aroused. The Southern white people had suffered most because they owned most of the property. Stung by the overbearing conduct of the negro and his leaders, they therefore resolved to keep the black man from controlling southern affairs.

500. Kuklux Klan (1868-1871). This result was accomplished by a secret society, the Kuklux Klan or Invisible Empire, which arose in Tennessee and spread over the South. Its strange symbols, hideous dress, and midnight visits of ghostly horsemen were for the purpose of preventing negro domination.

The movements of the Klan were mysterious. At dead of night, loud knocks would be heard at the door of a negro cabin, and terrible visitors, wrapped like ghosts in winding sheets, would appear before the eyes of the frightened blacks. They seemed to the superstitious negroes to be the spirits of the dead Confederates, returning to avenge their unhappy fate. If the bolder negroes and their white leaders gave no heed to the warnings of the Kuklux, they were whipped, driven away, and in some instances murdered. This violence aroused great indignation and led to measures to put an end to the Kuklux.

501. The Fifteenth Amendment (1869); The Force Bills (1870-1871). To give the negro greater protection, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, which declares that the right to vote shall never be taken away from any citizen "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas were compelled to vote for this amendment before being fully restored to the Union..

1 Amendments, Article XV.

Congress went still further in its efforts to protect the freedman in the use of his new rights. In the spring of 1870, and again a year later, the Republican majority, against much opposition, passed the famous "Force Bills," providing fines and imprisonment for any one who even tried to prevent the negro from voting or to keep his vote from being counted.

In spite of these laws the trouble continued in parts of the reconstructed states, and President Grant sent troops to preserve order. He hesitated to do this, for ill-feeling between the two sections was thus kept alive. Finally, in 1872, Congress passed an Amnesty Act, granting a larger number of ex-Confederates the right to vote and hold office, which brought about a better state of feeling between the North and South.

NEW POLITICAL PROBLEMS

FOREIGN RELATIONS

502. France and Mexico. During the war some very important questions arose with foreign nations, which had to wait for peace before being settled. One of these questions grew out of the fact that the republic of Mexico was deeply in debt to several European nations. This gave France an excuse for sending an army to Mexico (1862). Once there, her army overthrew the republic, set up a monarchy, and put Maximilian of Austria on the throne.

This invasion was a direct violation of the Monroe Doctrine (§ 340), but although the United States protested, her hands were tied. As soon as peace came, however, Sheridan was sent with a veteran army to Texas to watch affairs in Mexico. The French forces were at once withdrawn, and the Mexicans, renewing the fight, overthrew the monarchy and captured and shot Maximilian.

503. The Purchase of Alaska from Russia. In 1867 the area of the United States was greatly extended by the purchase of Alaska from Russia, for the sum of seven million two hundred thousand dollars. Although Alaska contained more than five hundred and seventy thousand square miles, it was generally believed at the time that Secretary Seward paid more than it was worth. The purchase, however, showed the vigor and strength of the nation, notwithstanding the long war, and removed

another European nation from the American continent, thus making easier the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. (See map above.)

504. Our Claims Against England. Another question arising out of the war was whether England ought to pay the United States for damages to our trade and commerce done by Confederate war vessels, especially the "Alabama," which had been fitted out in English ports ($474). England finally agreed to submit the question to arbitration.

On the Board of Commissioners, besides an American and an Englishman, sat a commissioner from Switzerland, one from Italy, and a third from Brazil. Their