Chapter XIII: The Presidential Election of 1876 and Its Consequences

The Republican National Convention of 1876--The Platform--The Nominees--The National Democratic Convention of 1876--The Platform--The Nominees--The Campaign and the Election--The Count and the Twenty-second Joint Rule--Views in Regard to the Power to Count the Electoral Vote--The Republicans in Advantage in the Count of the Vote--The Electoral Commission Bill--The Passage of the Bill--The Members of the Commission--The Fifth Justice--Justice David Davis--The Counting of the Electoral Vote by Congress--The Double Returns from South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon--The Counsel before the Commission--The Republican Position--The Democratic Position--The Decisions of the Commission--Mr. Hayes Declared President--The Truth in Regard to the Election--Mr. Hayes's Southern Policy--The Result of His Policy--Reconciliation between the North and the South.

[Sidenote: The Republican National Convention of 1876.]

[Sidenote: The platform.]

When the managers of the Republican party met in National nominating convention at Cincinnati, on the 14th of June, 1876, they rightly divined the policy which alone could lead them to victory in the elections of the following autumn. They constructed their platform in such a way as to place the financial issue in the foreground, with the pledges of the party to uphold the public credit, and to place the currency of the country on a coin basis. They also declared the pacification of the South to be a sacred duty, and pledged the {281} party to a thoroughgoing reform of the civil service. Connected therewith were, of course, the usual platitudes about the civil and political liberty and equality of every American citizen and of everybody else.

[Sidenote: The nominees.]

While there was no name before the convention commanding universal popular assent, as had been the case at the second nomination of Lincoln and the two nominations of Grant, still there was one which, in so far as its possessor was known, inspired strong, if not enthusiastic, confidence. It was not pronounced in the first balloting so loudly as that of the brilliant Blaine, or the stolid Morton, or the arrogant Conkling, but, as the voting continued, more and more of the ballots contained it, and at last on the seventh round, it received a majority of the votes. The choice was a wise one. Mr. Hayes had been a good soldier, a valuable member of the National legislature, and an excellent Governor of his native "State," in which office he was serving for a third term at the time of his nomination for the Presidency. He was a man of sound sense, unimpeachable character, generous feeling, pleasing manners, and resolute will. There was a tendency at first on the part of the friends of some of the disappointed aspirants to belittle his qualities, and to represent him as a weak man, and his conciliatory methods were often mistaken for weakness by those who were not his rivals or his enemies, or the friends of his rivals or his enemies; but as history sets his character and his work in their proper perspective they both stand out more and more strongly, and make his Administration appear to be one of the most important in American annals. Especially does it honor him for his earnest, faithful and successful battle for sound money and the maintenance of the public faith, and for his determination to put an end to the support by Federal {282} bayonets of the "carpet-bag," negro "State" governments of the South.

[Sidenote: The National Democratic Convention of 1876.]

[Sidenote: The platform.]

A fortnight after the nomination by the Republican convention of Rutherford B. Hayes for President and William A. Wheeler for Vice-President, the Democratic leaders met at St. Louis for the purpose of issuing the campaign creed of their party and choosing its candidate for the chief magistracy of the Nation. The platform put forward by them was remarkable for its length, its language of fierce vituperation, and its loud calls for reform. Its specific propositions were the reduction of the duties on foreign imports to a revenue basis, and the repeal of the Resumption Act of 1875, on the strange ground that it obstructed the return to specie payments.

[Sidenote: The nominees.]

Their candidate had virtually been determined on before they met. It could be nobody else than the popular Governor of New York, Samuel J. Tilden, shrewd in business, rich, the most successful political manager New York had produced since Van Buren, greatly heralded as the very archpriest of reform, the hope of the young men in politics; but not a statesman in the highest sense of the word, nor a demagogue in the lowest sense of that word--a genuine American politician of the first order. He was nominated on the second ballot, and by a unanimous vote. With him was placed as candidate for the second place the popular Mr. Hendricks of Indiana. It was a strong ticket, and it was generally believed that it would win. Mr. Tilden himself felt sure of the electoral votes of all the Southern "States" and of New York, Indiana, New Jersey and Connecticut.

[Sidenote: The campaign and the election.]

Mr. Tilden quietly managed his own campaign, while Mr. Hayes left his political interests in the hands of the {283} very astute chairman of the National committee of the Republican party, Senator Chandler of Michigan. There was not much doubt on the morning following the election, the morning of the 8th November, that the Democrats had triumphed. Almost all of the Republican newspapers conceded it. But the Republican managers knew that they could do what they pleased with the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, through their canvassing boards in these "States," with the power in these boards to throw out the returns from any place where, in their opinion, there had been any violence, intimidation, fraud or bribery exercised or attempted; and when the managers found that they were pretty sure of the electoral votes of all of the Northern Commonwealths, except Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana, they simply added to the one hundred and sixty-six electoral votes of which they were practically sure the nineteen votes of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, of which they were absolutely sure, if needed, and sent out from their head-quarters the positive announcement that Hayes and Wheeler had been elected by a majority of one electoral vote.

[Sidenote: The count and the twenty-second joint rule.]

But the final count of the electoral vote must be in the presence of the two Houses of Congress assembled in one place, and the Democrats were in majority in one of the Houses, and the twenty-second joint rule, as it was called, which had been applied since the count of the electoral vote of 1864 for the ascertainment of the result of the returns to Congress, ordained that the electoral vote of any "State" might be thrown out by either House. If this rule should be considered as still in force, and be applied in the impending count, the Democratic House of Representatives could reject the returns of the {284} Republican authorities in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, and thus secure the election of Mr. Tilden. This rule, however, was not necessarily binding upon this Congress, as it had not been re-enacted by the Houses composing it. That is, either House could lawfully refuse to acquiesce in its further application. The Republicans now repudiated it, although it was their predecessors who had created it.

[Sidenote: Views in regard to the power to count the electoral vote.]

Some of the Republicans now claimed that the Constitution vested the Vice-President, or rather the President of the Senate, with the power to count the electoral votes. The language of the Constitution was, and still is, "the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." No President of the Senate had, however, ever ventured to determine whether a disputed return, in case any such had been received by him, was to be counted, and Mr. Ferry, the President of the Senate, gave his Republican friends to understand that he did not feel like assuming any such responsibility.

[Sidenote: The Republicans in advantage in the count of the vote.]

Nevertheless, the Republicans were in decided advantage. They had the President of the United States to execute by force whatever they might resolve upon, and they had the President of the Senate, whose scruples the Democrats had not discovered, and, of course, they had one House of the Congress, the Senate.

[Sidenote: The Electoral Commission Bill.]

The Democrats felt that they must make an effort to change the situation. They, therefore, quickly seized upon a suggestion made by a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, Mr. G. W. McCrary, and voted a measure in the House for the appointment of {285} members to a joint committee of the two Houses, which committee should immediately report a proposition for counting the electoral votes. This was the 14th of December, 1876. The Senate agreed to this measure on the next day. Three Republicans and four Democrats were appointed by the House, and four Republicans and three Democrats by the Senate, and the committee so constituted reported, on the 18th of January, 1877, the famous Electoral Commission bill.

[Sidenote: The passage of the Bill.]

The essential provisions of the bill were, first, the creation of a Commission composed of five members of the House of Representatives, five members of the Senate, and five Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the members from the House to be chosen by the House, the members from the Senate to be chosen by the Senate, while the Justices of the Supreme Court from the first, third, eighth and ninth circuits were designated in the bill, and they were authorized to select a fifth from among the other members of the Court; second, the fixing of the rule that the electoral vote of any "State" from which only a single return had been received should be counted unless _both_ Houses should decide otherwise, and of the other rule that when more than one return had been received from any "State," the Commission should forthwith decide which return should be counted, and this return should be counted unless _both_ Houses should reject the decision, or order otherwise; and third, the reservation of any right existing under the Constitution and laws to question before the courts of the United States the titles of the persons who should be declared elected President and Vice-President to these respective offices. The bill was subjected to a most thorough discussion in _both_ Houses. It passed the Senate on the 24th of January by a vote of forty-seven to seventeen. Twenty-one {286} Republicans and twenty-six Democrats voted in favor of it, and sixteen Republicans and one Democrat voted against it. It passed the House on the 26th by a vote of one hundred and ninety-one to eighty-six. Thirty-three Republicans and one hundred and fifty-eight Democrats voted for it, and sixty-eight Republicans and eighteen Democrats voted against it. It is certainly fair, therefore, to call it a Democratic measure. The President signed the bill, nevertheless, on the 29th.

[Sidenote: The members of the Commission.]

The Senate immediately chose Messrs. Edmunds, Frelinghuysen and Morton, Republicans, and Messrs. Bayard and Thurman, Democrats, to represent it upon the Commission, and the House chose Messrs. Garfield and Hoar, Republicans, and Messrs. Abbott, Hunton and Payne, Democrats. The Justices of the Supreme Court designated by the bill as members of the Commission were Messrs. Clifford, Strong, Miller and Field. Strong and Miller were understood to be Republicans, and Clifford and Field Democrats. Upon these four the duty was imposed to select the fifth Justice.

[Sidenote: The fifth Justice.]

Since without the fifth Justice the Commission would consist of seven Republicans and seven Democrats, it was evident that this Justice would be the umpire in every question of disputed returns which the two Houses could not themselves settle by concurrent agreement. The responsibility which this Justice would have to bear would be one of the most onerous and solemn duties ever imposed upon any mortal. It could be no less than the making of a President, and it might be the determination of the question whether there should be another civil war. It was not a responsibility to be courted, but no man upon whom it might fall could, with honor, refuse to accept it.

It was the general feeling throughout the {287} discussion of the bill that the man who would be chosen was Judge David Davis. He had been a Republican and a close personal friend of Lincoln, but had latterly inclined toward the Democracy, and, it was thought, had favored the election of Mr. Tilden. He was regarded as the man of least political prejudice among a set of men of very little political prejudice. The Democrats, however, were entirely willing to risk their cause in his hands, because they believed it was strong enough on its merits to convince any unprejudiced mind, and there is little question that the Republicans were afraid to risk their cause in his hands, because they knew that they must win on every point or lose altogether, and they hesitated to take such desperate chances unless whatever political prejudice might exist in the mind of the umpire should be on their side.

[Sidenote: Justice David Davis.]

But to the apparent surprise of everybody and to the consternation of the Democrats, Justice Davis was chosen by the Illinois legislature, on the 25th of January, the day after the bill passed the Senate, and the day before it passed the House, United States Senator, and a few days after the bill passed the House, he accepted the position, which act involved his resignation at an early day of his judicial office; and as he was now to leave the bench and go into the political branch of the Government, as a Democratic Senator, elected by the Democrats of the Illinois legislature, there appeared to him an evident impropriety in his acting on the Commission as a representative of the unpolitical branch of the Government, and especially as that member upon whom the weightiest responsibility would fall, and who would, therefore, be expected to act with greatest political impartiality, and with an eye single to public justice. Whether Justice Davis sought this election to the senatorship at this juncture or not, {288} in order to escape the great responsibility that was about to fall upon him, we do not know. He was not a particularly brave man. He was a big, fat man, a good liver, and loved his ease. Ordinarily men will not exchange the high and life-long office of a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for a seat in the Senate. Unless he had his eye upon the Presidency of the United States, it would be very hard to explain his action in exchanging his high judicial position for the senatorship on any other ground than his desire to escape the terrible responsibility of deciding whether Tilden or Hayes should be President. It is even more difficult to account for the action of the Democrats in the legislature of Illinois. They certainly did not intend to harm the chances of Mr. Tilden by this act. The Republicans might have invented such a scheme for disposing of the Justice, but for Democrats to have been concerned in any such movement is incredible. It is probable that it was simply a blunder on their part. They did not appreciate the incompatibility between the position of a Democratic Senator-elect and membership on the Electoral Commission as a judicial representative. They thought that as the Justice would not take his seat in the Senate until after the 4th of March he would remain a member of the Supreme Court until then, and as such would be fully qualified for the place on the Commission. The legislature at Springfield had no such delicate and discriminating sense of official proprieties as obtained in Washington, and throughout the more fastidious East.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives learned of the election of Justice Davis to the Senate on the morning of the day they were to vote on the passage of the Electoral Commission bill. Even they did not fully realize that it meant that the Justice {289} would not serve on the Commission. Moreover, they had gone to such lengths with the bill that it was too late to turn back. So far as is known the Justice did not inform them or anybody else of his intention to accept the senatorship, or of his scruples about being a member of the Commission, until after the bill became law. When he did do so, the correctness of his position was so clear that the four Justices named in the Act immediately selected Justice Joseph P. Bradley as the fifth judicial member of the Commission. Bradley was a Republican, as were the other three members of the court, Waite, Hunt and Swayne. That is, after Justice Davis was disposed of there remained only Republicans to choose from, and Bradley being regarded as the least partisan, and the most learned in the law, was selected. He fully realized the vast responsibility which had been thus unexpectedly thrust upon him, but he accepted it bravely and without flinching, and discharged it with honor and success.

[Sidenote: The counting of the electoral vote by Congress.]

The Houses of Congress, and also the Electoral Commission, met on the 1st day of February to count the electoral vote. The Democrats still felt sure of success, since they would win the election, if successful upon a single point, while the Republicans, to be successful, must win upon every point. On the other hand, the hopes of the Republicans had been raised by gaining the majority of the Commission.

[Sidenote: The double returns from South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon.]

When the returns were opened by the President of the Senate two sets of returns were found from each of the four "States," Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon. In the case of Florida the electors voting for Hayes and Wheeler sent with their votes the certification of the "State" Canvassing Board and of the Governor to their election. The case of South Carolina was the same. {290} In the case of Louisiana the electors voting for Hayes and Wheeler sent with their votes the certification of Governor Kellogg and of the "State" Canvassing Board acting with him to their election, and the electors voting for Tilden and Hendricks sent the certification of John McEnery, claiming to be Governor, and the Canvassing Board acting with him, to their election.

The Oregon case was more complicated. The three Republican electors received the highest number of votes, as reported by the Secretary of State, who by the laws of Oregon was the "State" canvassing officer, to the Governor. But one of them, Watts, held the office of postmaster in a small place at the time of his election, and the Constitution of the United States provides that "no Senator or Representative, or person holding any office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector." The Democratic Governor of Oregon decided in his own mind that Watts was not eligible, and made out his certification to include, beside the two Republican electors who were eligible, one Cronin, the Democrat receiving the highest number of votes for elector, although the number received by him was a minority of all the votes cast for the electoral tickets. This certificate was attested by the Secretary of State, and was given to Cronin. When the day for the meeting of the electors came around Cronin presented himself holding the Governor's certificate, the only certificate which had been issued to the electors by Governor Grover. But in spite of the fact that he had this technical advantage, the two Republican electors, whose names were included in the Governor's certificate, refused to act with him, and he refused to let them have the certificate to attach to their return of the electoral vote to the President of the Senate of the United States unless they should so act. Both parties persisted {291} in their refusals. Whereupon Cronin selected one J. N. Y. Miller and one John Parker to fill up the electoral college of Oregon and these three cast two electoral votes for Hayes and Wheeler and one for Tilden and Hendricks, and, after attaching the Governor's certification to the record of their vote in due form, sent this return to the President of the Senate of the United States, as required by the Constitution. At the same time the two Republican electors, Odell and Cartwright, met to cast the electoral vote of the Commonwealth. Watts was also present. He had resigned his office of postmaster, and now he resigned his position as elector. The other two accepted his resignation, and immediately chose him an elector. The three then cast the electoral vote of the Commonwealth for Hayes and Wheeler. As we have seen, they did not have the certification of their election by the Governor to attach to their votes, as required by the law of the United States, but they procured from the Secretary of State a certified copy of the canvass of the votes for the electors, which showed the election of the three Republican candidates, and sent this, and also a copy of their proceedings in accepting the resignation of Watts, and then electing him an elector, along with their report of the vote of the electors for President and Vice-President, to the President of the Senate.

[Sidenote: The counsel before the Commission.]

Both the Republicans and the Democrats were represented by most able counsel before the Electoral Commission. William M. Evarts, Stanley Matthews, E. W. Stoughton, and Samuel Shellabarger were pitted against a formidable array both as to ability and numbers on the other side, Judge J. S. Black, Matthew H. Carpenter, Charles O'Conor, J. A. Campbell, Lyman Trumbull, Ashbel Green, Montgomery Blair, George Hoadly, William C. Whitney, R. T. Merrick and A. P. Morse.

{292} [Sidenote: The Republican position.]

The Republicans took their stand at the outset upon the principle that Congress could not go behind the returns of the "State" Canvassing Board or officer, in counting the electoral vote from any "State." They contended that in the election of the President and Vice-President, the Constitution had separated the procedure into two distinct parts, and had assigned the first part to the control of the several "States" exclusively, and the second part to the control of Congress exclusively; that up to the completion of the election of the electors the exclusive control of the "States" respectively extended, but that all control after that point had been reached was in Congress, and that Congress had no power whatever, under the Constitution, to revise, interfere with, or examine into, that part assigned by the Constitution to the "States" respectively, and, on the other hand, that Congress was bound to disregard any act of the "States," or of any of the officers or agents of the "States," in that part assigned exclusively by the Constitution to its own control. There is no question that this was all sound constitutional law and that the Democrats would have to abandon entirely their old "States'" rights doctrine and go over to the most extreme nationalism in order to combat it.

[Sidenote: The Democratic position.]

It did not appear to them necessary to do this in order to win their case. One single electoral vote from any one of the four "States," from which double returns had been received, would elect Tilden and Hendricks. It did not seem to them that the line between the powers of the "States" and those of Congress over the election of the President and Vice-President could under the existing facts be drawn anywhere without giving them at least this one vote. If the returns as certified to by the Governors and the "State" canvassing officer, officers, or boards, of these four {293} "States" should be received and counted they would have this one vote from Oregon. If, on the other hand, the popular vote for the electors as it came into the hands of the "State" canvassing officers or boards was to be received and counted, then they would have the electoral votes of at least Louisiana, Florida, or South Carolina, and perhaps of all of them. But the Republicans contended that the line between "State" control and Congressional control was to be drawn between the Governor's certification and the report of the "State" canvassing officer, officers, or board to the Governor of the result of the vote for the electors. The certification issued by the Governor, they held, was ordered by Congressional law and was under Congressional control, even when the "State" canvassing officer, officers, or board should join with the Governor in the certification of the persons chosen electors. The report of the vote for the electors by the "State" canvassing officer, officers, or board to the Governor was thus the final act under "State" control, was the final act in the election of the electors. This was unquestionably sound constitutional law. But it would give all the electoral votes from all four of the "States," from which double returns had been received, to Hayes and Wheeler, and would elect them by one vote.

[Sidenote: The decisions of the Commission.]

The view of the counsel for the Republican candidates prevailed with a majority of the Commission. By a majority of a single vote the Commission gave all the electoral votes of the four "States" from which double returns had been received to Hayes and Wheeler, and since the decisions of the Commission were final unless negatived by both Houses of Congress, and the Republican Senate, of course, sustained the decisions of the Commission, there was nothing for the Democrats to do but submit or have recourse to violence. Threats were freely expressed of having {294} Mr. Tilden take the oath of office, and then conducting him, under the support of a large armed body, to the White House and installing him there. But it was observed that the Southern Democrats did not participate in these menacing declarations, and it was soon learned that Mr. Tilden himself would not lend himself to any such desperate movement. Moreover, the existing President had, with his usual promptness and decision, prepared himself to meet all exigencies, and had let it be known that he would uphold the decisions to which Congress and its Commission might come by any power necessary to accomplish the result.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hayes declared President.]

In the early morning of March 2d, the count was completed, and Hayes and Wheeler were proclaimed by the presiding officer of the Senate, Mr. Ferry, elected President and Vice-President of the United States by a majority of one electoral vote. The popular vote for the electors was about eight millions three hundred thousand. Of this vast number the Tilden electors had received the majority by about two hundred and fifty thousand, according to the Republican count, and by about three hundred thousand, according to the Democratic count. It must be remembered, however, that it is quite possible for the candidate of one party to receive a popular majority throughout the whole country, and the candidate of the other to receive a majority of the electoral votes, simply because the popular vote is counted, in electing the electors, by "States" and not in the aggregate.

[Sidenote: The truth in regard to the election.]

The truth in regard to the whole transaction of the election probably is that the Democrats did in some places in the South intimidate voters; that the Republican "State" canvassing officers, making this a justification, or an excuse, did throw out votes that ought to have been counted; and that the existing law of {295} elections, administered by Republicans, was capable of being so interpreted as to give legal warrant to all that was done by them. A perfectly fair election in the "States" of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina, with the law of suffrage then obtaining, would probably have resulted in a popular majority for the Republican candidates for electors. Accepting the law of suffrage as then existing for the basis of our reasoning, it will have to be conceded that the Republicans were in the right both morally and legally, and that the title of Hayes and Wheeler to the offices of President and Vice-President was entirely sound and unimpeachable. They were inaugurated on the 5th day of March, 1877, without any attempt at resistance or disturbance from any quarter.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hayes's Southern policy.]

During the counting of the electoral vote it was suspected that the friends of Mr. Hayes were giving some assurances to the Southerners in Congress in regard to what the policy of his Administration would be concerning the "State" governments in the South. The unwillingness of the Southern Democrats to join with their party associates of the North in any revolutionary projects was attributed partly to this. While there is no evidence that Mr. Hayes ever pledged himself to the Southerners in regard to anything, still it is probably true that his views concerning the unwisdom of the employment of the military power of the United States in upholding the negro-Republican "State" governments in the South were imparted to them by his friends. At any rate, he announced in his inaugural address that he considered the re-establishment of local self-government in these "States" to be one of the prime objects of his Administration, and he speedily withdrew the support of the military power of the United States from the three {296} negro-Republican "State" governments, and left them to their own resources.

[Sidenote: The result of his policy.]

The result was that, although the Republican candidates for Governor and for the members of the legislature in these three "States" received about the same vote as the Republican presidential electors, and in January of 1877 actually assumed power, the Democratic candidates ousted them from the offices, and in sufficient number from the legislative seats, and established at last Democratic white rule in all the "States" of the South. In Florida the Republican, M. L. Stearns, gave way to the Democrat, George F. Drew, in the gubernatorial office; in South Carolina D. H. Chamberlain gave way to Wade Hampton, and in Louisiana, S. B. Packard gave way to Francis T. Nicholls.

Order and peace were quickly established everywhere, and the plundered and impoverished South could at last take hope and feel courage to make a new effort to recover some degree of prosperity and some measure of domestic content. For ten years the dark night of domination by the negro and adventurer had rested upon the unhappy section, until it had been reduced to the very abomination of desolation. Broken in health and fortune, sick at heart, conscious of the terrible degradation which had been imposed upon them, and politically ostracized, the better part of the white population of the South had staggered and groped through the hideous experiences of this period, and such of them as had not perished during the awful passage had now at last been relieved of the frightful scourge, and half dazed, as if just recovering from a terrible nightmare, found themselves again in the places of power and responsibility. But they brought with them, as their dominant passion, undying hatred of the Republican party as the author of all their woes, and as their {297} dominant policy, the stern and unbending resolve to stand together as one man against every movement which had even the slightest tendency toward a restoration of the hated conditions from which they had escaped. No sane mind can wonder at "the solid South," or at the Democratic South. Life, property, happiness, honor, civilization, everything which makes existence endurable demanded that the decent white men of the South should stand shoulder to shoulder in defending their families, their homes and their communities from any return of the vile plague under which they had suffered so long and so cruelly; and human instinct determined that this should be done in connection with that party which was hostile to the Republican party. The differences which lead to a fair fight and the wounds which are received in it are easily healed, but indignities heaped upon a fallen foe create a bitterness of heart that lasts so long as life endures.

[Sidenote: Reconciliation between the North and the South.]

Slavery was a great wrong, and secession was an error and a terrible blunder, but Reconstruction was a punishment so far in excess of the crime that it extinguished every sense of culpability upon the part of those whom it was sought to convict and convert. More than a quarter of a century has now passed since the blunder-crime of Reconstruction played its baleful part in alienating the two sections of the country. Until four years ago little progress had been made in reconciling them. It is said now that the recent war with Spain, in which men from the North and men from the South marched under the same banner to battle and to victory, has buried the hatchet forever between them. But they had done this many times before, and yet it did not prevent the attempt to destroy the Union. It cannot be in this alone that the South feels increased security against the doctrines and the {298} policies and interferences of the Republican party with regard to the negro question, the great question which has made and kept the South solidly Democratic. It is something far more significant and substantial than this. It is to some the pleasing, though to others startling, fact, that the Republican party, in its work of imposing the sovereignty of the United States upon eight millions of Asiatics, has changed its views in regard to the political relation of races and has at last virtually accepted the ideas of the South upon that subject. The white men of the South need now have no further fear that the Republican party, or Republican Administrations, will ever again give themselves over to the vain imagination of the political equality of man. It is this change of mind and heart on the part of the North in regard to this vital question of Southern "State" polity which has caused the now much-talked-of reconciliation.

{299}