struct the South. Full responsibility for the way in which these tasks were discharged rests upon the Republican party, for it was in control of the Presidency and the Senate throughout the period and of the House until December, 1875. In the first and second it was notably successful. The soldiers of North and South returned at once to the fields of productive labor. The colossal war establishment was quickly reduced to the requirements of peace. The French withdrew from Mexico. The Alabama Claims were submitted to arbitration. But the reconstruction of the South proved difficult in the extreme. The strain of a prolonged and exhausting war, the upheaval of emancipation, and the utter collapse of the Confederate government, had thrown the elements of social, economic and civil life in the South into almost hopeless disorder. To restore these to normal relations and working was but part of the task; the other and more important part was to apply those methods of reconstruction which would tend to make one nation out of hitherto discordant sections. In his third annual message, Dec. 8th, 1863, Lincoln brought forward the socalled presidential plan of reconstruction. This was rejected on the ground that reconstruction was a congressional rather than an executive function; and on the 4th of July, 1864, Congress passed a bill making Congress instead of the President the chief agent in the work of reconstruction. President Johnson adopted Lincoln's plan, and put it into operation with such vigor that when Congress met in December, 1865, all the States that had seceded were quite or nearly ready to demand the re-admission of their representatives to the House and Senate.

From the standpoint of party the situation was highly critical. The men whom the newly reconstructed States had sent to Washington represented the old South and would naturally join the opposition. Although the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, was assured, and a fortnight later was officially proclaimed, nevertheless the reconstructed legislatures were busy enacting police regulations which, in the opinion of most Republicans, threatened to reenslave the freedmen. With an earnestness like that which the party in earlier days had shown in opposing the extension of slavery, it now resolved to secure full civil rights to the freedmen. Another consideration of great weight in shaping party policy was the need of maintaining the rights of Congress against executive encroachment. Owing to the war and Lincoln's masterful personality, the Presidency had gained in prestige at the expense of Congress. The tendency thus established would be strengthened to a dangerous degree, it was thought, if the President were to take the leading part in reconstructing as well as in saving the Union. There now took place within the party a change of great importance. Hitherto the conservatives, represented by such leaders as Lincoln and Seward, had always won in struggles with the radical elements; but now the tide changed, and the radicals, who were more narrowly national and more strongly partisan, gained control, and ruled the party to the end of the period. This revolution within the Republican party between the years 1865 and 1867 was fostered by a marked recrudescence of sectional feeling in the North, and by the character of the successor of President Lincoln and of the party leaders in Congress. President Johnson, while eminently patriotic and courageous, was tactless and imprudent to the last degree. Mr. Sumner, the leader of the Senate, was not conciliatory in manner, and while incapable of revengeful feeling seemed more considerate of the freedman than of the Southern white. Thaddeus Stevens, whose influence over the House of Representatives was stronger than that of Sumner over the Senate, regarded the South as "a conquered province," and his personal feelings towards the ruling class of the South were harshly vindictive. The policy adopted by the Republican majority in each house of Congress was to refuse admission to the men chosen by the state that had been reconstructed under the presidential plan, until a joint committee of both houses should investigate conditions in the South. In this rebuff there was distinct intimation of a purpose to set aside altogether the reconstruction work of the President. Congress proceeded at once to enact measures to continue and extend the earlier temporary provision for helpless freedmen whom emancipation had set adrift, and to give them full civil rights. By passing the Fourteenth Amendment in June 1866 Congress committed itself to the policy of securing the civil rights of the negro by constitutional guarantee. Each of these acts was vetoed by the President, between whom and Congress political disagreement ripened soon into bitter enmity. As the quarrel developed Congress ignored the recommendations of the President, repassed by the requisite majority and without due consideration of his objections each measure that he vetoed, took from him his power to remove subordinates which had been exercised by his predecessors, deprived him of his constitutional rights as commander-in-chief of the army, and finally in 1868 undertook to drive him from office by impeachment.

In 1867 Congress, under the control of the radical wing of the Republican party, set aside nearly all reconstructive work that had been accomplished previously and put into execution a plan of its own, under which the Southern States were reconstructed anew and admitted to Congress between the years 1867 and 1870. Inevitable consequences of the congressional plan of reconstruction were: first, the erection of state governments that were inefficient, corrupt, ruinously wasteful and shamefully oppressive; second, the extreme demoralization of the freedmen suddenly transformed from slaves into rulers of their former masters; third, the demoralization, in many cases also extreme, of the great body of the Southern whites by the expedients to which they resorted in order to escape from the rule of the freedman, led by the Carpet-bagger, his Northern, and the Scalawag, his Southern, white ally; fourth, the alienation of the white and colored races in the South, - an alienation which was to each a source of immeasurable evils; fifth, the speedy overthrow on the withdrawal of military support of the governments set up under the congressional plan, and the creation of a South "solid" in resentful opposition to the North and the Republican party. And sixth, as the outcome of all these results, an unfortunate delay in reuniting North and South. The Republican party suffered during this period a moral decline, seen in the frequent efforts to gain party advantage by kindling anew the earlier sectional animosities, a growing arrogance, the increasing weight of the partisan and spoilsman in party management, and the widespread corruption that came to light in the scandals of the second administration of President Grant. The mismanaged Liberal Republican movement of 1870-1872 was a reaction against this moral decline and a protest against the Southern policy of the party and its support of the spoils system. The service of the Liberal Republicans consisted mainly in the aid they gave to the reform of the Republican party and in the influence they exerted to induce the Democratic party to accept the results of the war.

But despite the warnings it received, the prestige it had gained during the war and the popularity of President Grant, the Republican party lost ground steadily during the second half of the period. In the election of 1874 the Democratic party gained control of the House of Representatives; and in the election of 1876 came within a hair's breadth of winning the Presidency.

ELECTION OF MR. HAYES TO THAT OF

MR. MCKINLEY, 1876-1896

During these twenty years the subsidence of old and the rise of new issues led to a reconstruction of the party system, which, although less radical than that of 1840 to 1860, brought into existence several new parties and changed in important respects the character and policies of those already in the field. From the standpoint of party history the chief interest of these twenty years lies in the answer to the question, How did the discredited Republican party secure in 1896 a new and prolonged lease of power? The task was not easy. The reconstruction policy of the party had alienated many Northern supporters and had made the South solidly Democratic. The prevalence of the spoils system and the scandals of the second administration of General Grant had hurt the prestige of the party as a guardian of public morals and of the national honor. What gave the Republicans a fighting chance were: its record down to the close of the Civil War; its proven aptitude for the tasks of government; and the growth among the people of a more vital national feeling which turned instinctively to the party that had saved the nation. Despite these substantial advantages over their Democratic rivals the Republicans lost the presidential election of 1884 and 1892, and the entire Democratic party - some Republicans agreeing

has always held that a just decision of the contested election of 1876 would have seated Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic candidate, instead of Mr. Hayes. In the Senate the Republicans were in a majority during fourteen years. In the House, whose members are chosen by popular vote, these figures were reversed, the Democrats having control during fourteen years. In each of five successive presidential elections, those of 1876, 1880, 1884, 1888, and 1892, the Democratic popular vote was larger than the Republican. Marked features of the party situation were the apparent similarity for a time of the principles of the two great parties, the influence on their policy exerted by the stronger minor parties, and the rise of the Mugwumps, not strictly a party, who claimed the right to vote for the best candidate independently of party and were in the main of Republican origin.

Of the issues of the period one, the reform of the civil service, was served by both of the great parties with imperfect fidelity. Each of the Republican presidents, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur and Harrison, gave it efficient and steadfast support; and so did Cleveland, the Democratic President, although under stronger pressure from party hunger. The same was true in the case of the more important question of foreign policy and, to a degree in its early stage, of the question of silver coinage. It was not so with the treatment of the South. President Hayes withdrew the national troops from South Carolina and Louisiana and thus brought to an end federal military interference with State governments. For this course a consid