rear and the radical element came to the front and
assumed charge.

Subsequent to 1872 and prior to 1875 race proscription and social
ostracism had been completely abandoned. A Southern white man could
become a Republican without being socially ostracized. Such a man was no
longer looked upon as a traitor to his people, or false to his race. He
no longer forfeited the respect, confidence, good-will, and favorable
opinion of his friends and neighbors. Bulldozing, criminal assaults and
lynchings were seldom heard of. To the contrary, cordial, friendly and
amicable relations between all classes, all parties, and both races
prevailed everywhere. Fraud, violence, and intimidation at elections
were neither suspected nor charged by anyone, for everyone knew that no
occasion existed for such things. But after the State and Congressional
elections of 1874 there was a complete change of front. The new order of
things was then set aside and the abandoned methods of a few years back
were revived and readopted.

It is no doubt true that very few men at the North who voted the
Republican ticket in 1872 and the Democratic ticket in 1874 were
influenced in changing their votes by anything connected with
Reconstruction. There were other questions at issue, no doubt, that
influenced their action. There had been in 1873, for instance, a
disastrous financial panic. Then there were other things connected with
the National Administration which met with popular disfavor. These were
the reasons, no doubt, that influenced thousands of Republicans to vote
the Democratic ticket merely as an indication of their dissatisfaction
with the National Administration.

But, let their motives and reasons be what they may, the effect was the
same as if they had intended their votes to be accepted and construed as
an endorsement of the platform declarations of the National Democratic
Convention of 1868, at least so far as Reconstruction was concerned.
Democrats claimed, and Republicans could not deny, that so far as the
South was concerned this was the effect of the Congressional elections
of 1874. Desertions from the Republican ranks at the South, in
consequence thereof, became more rapid than had been the accessions
between 1872 and 1875. Thousands who had not taken an open stand, but
who were suspected of being inclined to the Republican party, denied
that there had ever been any justifiable grounds for such suspicions.
Many who had taken an open stand