hen
existed. Hence they insisted, successfully, as was then believed, that
the legislation, including the 14th Amendment, should be so framed as
not only to create national citizenship, as distinguished from State
citizenship, but that it should be made the duty of the Federal
Government to protect its own citizens, when necessary, against
domestic violence, to protect its citizens at home as well as when
they are abroad. The closing clause of the 14th Amendment, therefore,
declares that Congress shall have power to enforce the provisions of
the amendment by appropriate legislation.

But Mr. Rhodes says the Congressional plan of Reconstruction was a
failure. The defeat of the Republican party at the North, especially
in 1874, he believes "was due to the failure of the Southern policy of
the Republican party." In speaking of the action of President Hayes,
he says: "Indeed it was the final admission of the Republican party
that their policy of forcing Negro suffrage upon the South was a
failure." Is it true that Reconstruction was a failure? That depends
upon the view one takes of it. Admitting that some of the things
expected of it by many of its friends and supporters were not fully
realized, its failure even to that extent was, in a large measure, one
of the _results_ but not one of the contributory _causes_ of the
Democratic national victory of 1874. On the contrary, that policy was
a grand and brilliant success.

In the first place, when the split between Congress and President
Johnson took place, there was soon developed the fact that the
enfranchisement of the blacks was the only plan which could be adopted
and by which the one advocated by the President could be defeated. It
had been seen and frankly admitted that the war for the preservation
of the Union could not have been brought to a successful conclusion
without putting the musket in the hands of the loyal blacks. The fact
was now made plain that the fruits of the victory that had been won on
the battlefield could not be preserved without putting the ballot in
their hands. Hence, it was done.

Was this a mistake? Mr. Rhodes says it was; but the results prove that
it was not. But for the enfranchisement of the blacks at the South at
the time and in the way it was done the 14th and subsequently the 15th
Amendment to the Federal Constitution never could have been ratified.
The ratification of these two measures alone vindicated the wisdom of
that legislation