gro
governments began a fresh existence.

In 1872 Gen. Grant carried the Southern States again, meeting with but
little resistance. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina there
were Negro lieutenant-governors. The Negroes were learning rapidly the
lesson of rotation in office, and demanded recognition. Alabama,
Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, were
represented, in part, by Negroes in the National House of
Representatives, and Mississippi in the Senate as well. Both branches
of the Legislatures of all the Southern States contained Negro
members; while many of the most important and lucrative offices in
the States were held by Negroes.

The wine cup, the gaming-table, and the parlors of strange women
charmed many of these men to the neglect of important public duties.
The bonded indebtedness of these States began to increase, the State
paper to depreciate, the burden of taxation to grow intolerable, bad
laws to find their way into the statute-books, interest in education
and industry to decline, the farm Negroes to grow idle and gravitate
to the infectious skirts of large cities, and the whole South went
from bad to worse.

The hand of revenge reached for the shot-gun, and before its deadly
presence white leaders were intimidated, driven out, or destroyed.
Before 1875 came, the white element in the Republican party at the
South was reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Thus abandoned,
the Negro needed the presence of the United States army while he
voted, held office, and drew his salary. But even the army lacked the
power to inject life into the collapsed governments at the South.

The mistake of reconstruction was twofold: on the part of the Federal
Government, in committing the destinies of the Southern States to
hands so feeble; and on the part of the South, in that its best men,
instead of taking a lively interest in rebuilding the governments they
had torn down, allowed them to be constructed with untempered mortar.
Neither the South nor the Government could say: "Thou canst not say I
did it: shake not thy gory locks at me." Both were culpable, and both
have suffered the pangs of remorse.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] I am preparing a History of the Reconstruction of the Late
Confederate States, 1865-1880. Hence I shall not enter into a thorough
treatment of the subject in this work. It will follow this work, and
comprise two volumes.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RESULTS OF