Chapter I: Preface

A new nation has appeared within the United States since the Civil War, but it has been only accidentally connected with that catastrophe. The Constitution emerged from the confusion of strife and reconstruction substantially unchanged, but the economic development of the United States in the sixties and seventies gave birth to a society that was, by 1885, already national in its activities and necessities. In many ways the history of the United States since the Civil War has to do with the struggle between this national fact and the old legal system that was based upon state autonomy and federalism; and the future depends upon the discovery of a means to readjust the mechanics of government, as well as its content, to the needs of life. This book attempts to narrate the facts of the last half-century and to show them in their relations to the larger truths of national development.

FREDERIC L. PAXSON.

CONTENTS

I. THE CIVIL WAR 1

II. THE WEST AND THE GREENBACKS 20

III. THE RESTORATION OF HOME RULE IN THE SOUTH 39

IV. THE PANIC OF 1873 59

V. THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 75

VI. BUSINESS AND POLITICS 92

VII. THE NEW ISSUES 108

VIII. GROVER CLEVELAND 126

IX. THE LAST OF THE FRONTIER 142

X. NATIONAL BUSINESS 162

XI. THE FARMERS' CAUSE 177

XII. THE NEW SOUTH 192

XIII. POPULISM 208

XIV. FREE SILVER 225

XV. THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION" 244

XVI. THE SPANISH WAR 258

XVII. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 276

XVIII. BIG BUSINESS 293

XIX. THE "MUCK-RAKERS" 309

XX. NEW NATIONALISM 324

INDEX i

MAPS AND CHARTS

THE RAILWAYS OF THE "OLD NORTHWEST" 13

THE WESTERN RAILWAY LAND GRANTS, 1850-1871 23

THE SOLID SOUTH, 1880-1912 53

THE POLITICAL SITUATION AT WASHINGTON, 1869-1917 76, 77

POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION, 1850-1910 120

THE WESTERN RAILROADS AND THE CONTINENTAL FRONTIER, 1870-1890 146, 147

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, 1789-1904 153

THE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION OF 1890 _between 186 and 187_

THE FLOOD OF SILVER, 1861-1911 227

ALASKA, THE PHILIPPINES, AND THE SEAT OF THE SPANISH WAR 259

NORTH AMERICA IN 1915 _between 340 and 341_

THE NEW NATION