lican press of the country, and in the party in Congress as
well as the opposition, the battle over these measures was hot. The
administration organ in Washington gave big type and prominent display
to the paragraph: "The passage of the bill"--the Force bill--"is
required to preserve to the Republican party the electoral vote of the
Southern States." The President's personal influence was used to its
limits. Butler's unscrupulous tactics were all employed. But the weight,
if not the numbers, of the House Republicans, rose in opposition. Forty
of them, including Garfield, Dawes, the Hoars, Hawley, Hale, Pierce,
Poland, and Kasson, joined with the Democrats under the able leadership
of Samuel J. Randall. In the House, brains and conscience were beaten by
patronage; the bill went through. But it went no further,--in spite of
Morton and Conkling the Senate served again the useful function of
obstruction. The Arkansas bill was beaten in the House. Only the Civil
Rights bill became a law. Independence among Republicans had saved the
party from its most dangerous leadership.

It was perhaps this result, following the reverse of 1874, that
disinclined Grant to further interference in the South, and held his
hand when Governor Ames asked aid in Mississippi. The Louisiana business
had so shown the risks of Federal intervention in local affairs, that
even the best friends of the freedmen began to recognize that the
States were most safely left to themselves. But the sectional fires were
not left to die unfanned. When the new Congress met, 1875-6, the
Democrats showed themselves conservative enough. They chose two
excellent Northern men as speakers: Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and
upon his death Randall, of Pennsylvania; and they showed themselves
chiefly concerned to probe administrative abuses, which, in truth,
needed heroic surgery. But for these prosaic matters Blaine, now leader
of the opposition, substituted a far more lively tune, when a bill for
universal amnesty at the South was brought before the House. There was
no serious Republican opposition, but Blaine saw his opportunity,--he
moved that sole exception be made of Jefferson Davis, and on that text
he roused Northern passion by the story of Andersonville, goaded to
exasperation the "Confederate brigadiers" among his listeners, and made
himself most conspicuous for the time among the Republican leaders. He
eclipsed the foremost of the Grant clique, Morton and Conkling,