nse that its votes were
recorded almost automatically for the Democratic ticket.

[Illustration: THE SOLID SOUTH 1880-1912

Within the shaded area every electoral vote was cast for the Democratic
presidential candidate between 1880 and 1892; since 1892 the heavily
shaded area has continued solidly Democratic, while the border States
have occasionally cast Republican votes.]

Force and fraud played a large part in the restoration of white control,
but it could not have been effective without some connivance from the
North. Before 1872 the keenness of Northern radicalism was blunted.
Thoughtful Republicans began to examine their work and criticize it. "We
can never reconstruct the South," wrote Lowell, "except through its own
leading men, nor ever hope to have them on our side till we make it for
their interest and compatible with their honor to be so." A social order
which needed the constant support of troops lost the confidence of
political independents. These, as the presidential campaign of 1872 drew
near, openly expressed their hostility to reconstruction as carried out
by Grant, and threatened to prevent his reelection.

The first term of Grant ended unsatisfactorily. His appointments to
office were marked by favoritism and incapacity. He appointed the only
really inferior man who has ever represented the United States in
London,--one who thought it not incompatible with his high office to
publish a treatise on draw-poker, and to appear as bellwether in a
mining prospectus. Grant's personal intimates included shifty
financiers. Corruption and misgovernment at the South were held against
him, though Congress was properly to blame for them. Only in his stand
for honest finance, his effort to improve the Indian service, and his
conclusion of the disputes with Great Britain, could his supporters take
great pride.

The settlement with England was his greatest achievement. Since the
summer of 1862, when the Alabama had evaded the British officials and
had gone to sea, the American Minister in London had continued to press
for damages. The Alabama claims were based on the assertion that the law
of neutrals required Great Britain to prevent any hostile vessel from
starting, in her waters, upon a cruise against the United States. In the
face of official rebuff and popular sneers Charles Francis Adams
formulated the claims. His successor, Reverdy Johnson, reached a sort of
settlement which the Senate declined to ratify,