in parts of the Carolinas. State registrations
and elections were to be supervised by United States marshals, who could
command the help of the United States military or naval forces.

The Force Act outran popular feeling. It came dangerously near the
practical suspension of state government in the South, and many at the
North, including some Republicans, thought the latter result a greater
evil than even the temporary abeyance of negro suffrage. The "Liberal
Republicans" bolted. In 1872 they nominated Horace Greeley for the
Presidency, and adopted a platform declaring local self-government a
better safeguard for the rights of all citizens than centralized power.
The platform also protested against the supremacy of the military over
the civil power and the suspension of habeas corpus, and favored
universal amnesty to men at the South. Charles Sumner, Stanley Matthews,
Carl Schurz, David A. Wells, and many other prominent Republicans
engaged in the opposition.

Thinking their opportunity had come, the Democrats indorsed the
Liberals' platform and nominees. The Republicans re-nominated Grant by
acclamation, and joined with him on the ticket Henry Wilson, of
Massachusetts.

As the campaign went on, the Greeley movement developed remarkable
strength and remarkable weakness. Speaking for years through the New
York Tribune, Mr. Greeley had won, in a remarkable degree, the respect
and even the affection of the country. His offer to give bail for
Jefferson Davis in his imprisonment, and his stanch advocacy of mercy to
all who had engaged in secession, so soon as they had grounded arms,
made him hosts of friends even in the South, He took the stump himself,
making the tour of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and crowds of
Republicans came to see and hear their former champion.

But the Democrats could not heartily unite in the support of such a
lifelong and bitter opponent of their party. Some supported a third
ticket, while many others did not vote at all. Mr. Greeley, too, an
ardent protectionist, was not popular with the influential free-trade
element among the Liberals themselves. The election resulted in a
sweeping victory for the republican ticket. The Democrats carried but
six States, and those were all in the South. Within a month after the
election, Mr. Greeley died, broken down by over-exertion, family
bereavement, and disappointed ambition.

[1874]

Troubles in the South continued during Grant's second term. Th