aign in New York. Although
both parties denounced corruption in the repair of the Erie Canal, the
people seemed more concerned in a return of good times and in a better
understanding between the North and South. The financial depression of
the year before had not disappeared, and an issue of greenbacks in
payment of the 5-20 bonds, it was argued, would overcome the policy
of contraction which had enhanced the face value of debts and
decreased the price of property. Pendleton's tour through Maine
emphasised this phase of the financial question, and while Democrats
talked of "The same currency for ploughboy and bondholder,"
Republicans insisted upon "The best currency for both ploughboy and
bondholder."

The campaign in Maine, however, satisfied Republicans that the
Southern question, forced into greater prominence by recent acts of
violence, had become a more important issue than the financial
problem. In Saint Mary's parish, Louisiana, a Republican sheriff and
judge were shot, editors and printers run out of the county, and their
newspaper offices destroyed. But no arrests followed. In Arkansas a
Republican deputy sheriff was tied to a negro and both killed with one
shot. In South Carolina a colored State senator, standing on the
platform of a street car, suffered the death penalty, his executioners
publicly boasting of their act. In Georgia negro members of the
Legislature were expelled. Indeed, from every Southern State came
reports of violence and murder. These stories were accentuated by the
Camilla riot in Georgia, which occurred on September 19. With banners
and music three hundred Republicans, mostly negroes, were marching to
Camilla to hold a mass meeting. Two-thirds of them carried arms.
Before reaching the town the sheriff endeavoured to persuade them to
lay aside their guns and revolvers, and upon their refusal a riot
ensued, in which eight or nine negroes were killed and twenty or
thirty wounded. As usual their assailants escaped arrest and injury.
General Meade, commander of the department, reported that "the authors
of this outrage were civil officers who, under the guise of enforcing
the law and suppressing disorder, had permitted a wanton sacrifice of
life and blood."[1193]

[Footnote 1193: Report of the Secretary of War, 1868, p. 81.]

The mere recital of these incidents aroused Northern feeling. It was
the old story--murder without arrests or investigation. The
knowledge, too, that it was in part t