economic life, also
brought about a new era in political activity and management. The United
States after Appomattox was a very different country from the United
States before Sumter was fired upon. The war was a continental upheaval,
like the Appalachian uplift in our geological history, producing sharp
and profound readjustments.

Despite the fact that in 1864 Lincoln had been elected on a Union ticket
supported by War Democrats, the Republicans claimed the triumphs of
the war as their own. They emerged from the struggle with the enormous
prestige of a party triumphant and with "Saviors of the Union" inscribed
on their banners.

The death of their wise and great leader opened the door to a violent
partizan orgy. President Andrew Johnson could not check the fury of the
radical reconstructionists; and a new political era began in a riot of
dogmatic and insolent dictatorship, which was intensified by the mob of
carpetbaggers, scalawags, and freedmen in the South, and not abated by
the lawless promptings of the Ku-Klux to regain patrician leadership in
the home of secession nor by the baneful resentment of the North. The
soldier was made a political asset. For a generation the "bloody shirt"
was waved before the eyes of the Northern voter; and the evils, both
grotesque and gruesome, of an unnatural reconstruction are not yet
forgotten in the South.

A second opportunity of the politician was found in the rapid economic
expansion that followed the war. The feeling of security in the North
caused by the success of the Union arms buoyed an unbounded optimism
which made it easy to enlist capital in new enterprises, and the
protective tariff and liberal banking law stimulated industry. Exports
of raw material and food products stimulated mining, grazing, and
farming. European capital sought investments in American railroads,
mines, and industrial under-takings. In the decade following the war the
output of pig iron doubled, that of coal multiplied by five, and that
of steel by one hundred. Superior iron and copper, Pennsylvania coal and
oil, Nevada and California gold and silver, all yielded their enormous
values to this new call of enterprise. Inventions and manufactures of
all kinds flourished. During 1850-60 manufacturing establishments
had increased by fourteen per cent. During 1860-70 they increased
seventy-nine per cent.

The Homestead Act of May 20, 1862, opened vast areas of public lands
to a new immigration. The