of the day. Here again it is well to recall the tendencies of
the period. The decade succeeding the war was throughout the country
one of unparalleled political corruption. The Tweed ring, the Credit
Mobilier, and the "salary grab" were only some of the more outstanding
signs of the times. In the South the Negroes were not the real leaders
in corruption; they simply followed the men who they supposed were their
friends. Surely in the face of such facts as these it is not just to fix
upon a people groping to the light the peculiar odium of the corruption
that followed in the wake of the war.

And we shall have to leave it to those better informed than we to say to
just what extent city and state politics in the South have been cleaned
up since the Negro ceased to be a factor. Many of the constitutions
framed by the reconstruction governments were really excellent models,
and the fact that they were overthrown seems to indicate that some other
spoilsmen were abroad. Take North Carolina, for example. In this state
in 1868 the reconstruction government by its new constitution introduced
the township system so favorably known in the North and West. When in
1875 the South regained control, with all the corruption it found as
excellent a form of republican state government as was to be found in
any state in the Union. "Every provision which any state enjoyed for the
protection of public society from its bad members and bad impulses was
either provided or easily procurable under the Constitution of the
state."[1] Yet within a year, in order to annul the power of their
opponents in every county in the state, the new party so amended
the Constitution as to take away from every county the power of
self-government and centralize everything in the legislature. Now was
realized an extent of power over elections and election returns so
great that no party could wholly clear itself of the idea of corrupt
intentions.

[Footnote 1: George W. Cable: _The Southern Struggle for Pure
Government_: An Address. Boston, 1890, included in _The Negro Question_,
New York, 1890.]

At the heart of the whole question of course was race. As a matter of
fact much work of genuine statesmanship was accomplished or attempted by
the reconstruction governments. For one thing the idea of common school
education for all people was now for the first time fully impressed upon
the South. The Charleston _News and Courier_ of July 11, 1876, formally
granted that