es and wondered what affliction was coming next. The colored
legislators adjourned pell-mell to attend the circus; hundreds of
thousands of dollars were stolen, and extravagance, corruption, and
debauchery ran riot. As a public man remarked, one general
conflagration, sweeping from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico, could
not have wrought more devastation in the South than the few years of
carpet-bag governments.

Yet all such evils are sure to right themselves, sooner or later. The
means are apt to be violent and revolutionary, and sometimes breed crime
of itself. It was not in the nature of things that the whites should
remain passive and meek under this unspeakable misrule. They united for
self-protection. One of the bands thus formed was the Ku-Klux, which in
time committed so many crimes in terrorizing the negroes that they were
suppressed by the stern arm of the military; a revolt of the best people
took place, and soon after 1870 the blight of carpet-bag government
disappeared from the South.

TRUE RECONCILIATION.

Despite the turbulence and angry feeling, the work of reconciliation
went on of itself. Northern capital entered the promising fields of the
South; former Union and Confederate leaders, as well as privates,
respected one another, as brave men always do, and became warm friends.
While many of the former went South, hundreds of the latter made their
homes in the North, where they were welcomed and assisted in the
struggle to "get upon their feet." This fraternal mingling of former
soldiers and the friendly exchange of visits between Union and
Confederate posts brought about true reconciliation, despite the
wrangles of politicians.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1868.

Before, however, this was fully accomplished, the presidential election
of 1868 took place. The most popular hero in this country, as in others,
is the military one, and the great value of General Grant's services in
the war for the Union made it clear, long before the assembling of the
nominating convention, that he would be the candidate of the Republican
party. He was unanimously named, with Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the nominee for
Vice-President. The Democrats placed in nomination Horatio Seymour, of
New York, and General Francis P. Blair, of Missouri. The result in
November was as follows: Republican ticket, 214 electoral votes;
Democratic, 80. The election was a striking proof o