claring federal relations ignored the subject of the new amendments upon which the national Democratic party had been defeated in 1868, and presented common ground on which all the people who were disposed to organize in opposition to Republican rule in this State and in the Union could stand and act together.

The result was the triumph of the party and the election of a Democratic Legislature, a body decidedly hostile in principle and sentiment to Governor Bullock, whose term of office under the new constitution was four years, and who, if he should remain and continue to hold his office, would have to meet and confer with and be subjected to the hostile investigations of an opposing Legis

lature.

Pursuing the narrative of political parties beyond, in the order of time, the civil administration in the State, we reach the final solution of differences between leaders who had stood aloof and been in hostility to each other from the time the reconstruction began; in the attitude and position of national parties; in the Presidential election of 1872, when the Republican party renominated General Grant, and the Democratic party, despairing of success in electing a man of their own party, determined upon the nomination of a man of the Republican party, Horace Greeley of New York. He had been an open enemy to the national Democracy from early life, had been a Whig, and leading journalist of that party while it had an organization; had been an anti-slavery advocate; had early espoused the national Republican organization in opposition to the Democracy; and had boldly advocated the war of subjugation, and the sequences on the races in the South after victory. He had favored all the amendments of the Federal Constitution in addition

to the reconstruction acts of Congress, and maintained the civil and political rights of the liberated negroes of the South.

The Democratic party in the State elections north had found it necessary to acquiesce in all these measures, and stood in harmony with the Republicans as to the binding force of the Constitution as amended, and the laws for its enforcement. The Democratic party of the South, in its hopeless condition of political antagonism to the organic law of the Union, which all public officers were required under oath of office to support, had drifted upon the same common ground with their Northern allies, ignoring the past offensive action and doctrines of Mr. Greeley and his life-long opinions and theory of the constitutional government, and agreeing with him on the present issues and aims of the party; regarding his liberal views toward the South and to all sections of the country, and appreciating his patriotism, sense of justice, and large philanthropy; and in the hope of drawing off from the national Republican party a large and respectable element known as Liberal Republicans, and organizing that element with the national Democratic party, and thus gaining ascendency, he was nominated for the office of President.

Alexander H. Stephens, and Linton Stephens, who died at this juncture, with only a few other Democrats of the State, bitterly and openly opposed the action of the party, and the former continued the opposition and refused his support to Mr. Greeley.

But the leaders and people generally had abated all their active opposition to reconstruction, and to the amendments as parts of the Federal Constitution and of binding force, had abandoned all idea of restricting

suffrage on account of race or color, or withholding from the freed negroes of the State any rights to which they were entitled under the Constitution and laws in force. They had an intensified opposition to the national Republican party; had been exasperated by its course, under General Grant's administration, toward the South, and toward the party while in power in the State under Governor Bullock's administration. They ardently desired to change the national Government from the control of the Republican to that of the national Democratic party; but they despaired of hope in that grand result by an attempt to elect a Democratic President. Such appeared to be the decisive judgment of most of the leading minds of the party north, and such was the action of State organizations north, as to then render the attempt nugatory and hopeless. The next great aim indicated by the

Northern Democrats was to meet the overtures of the more moderate wing of the Republicans, who sympathized with them in suppressing the abuses of the ruling party,in the hands generally of extreme and severe men,—and in the re-establishment of law and order and peace, and protection to the people of the South, white and black, and to the stability of State laws and tribunals. As a choice, it was the object of intense desire to place that class of men in power in lieu of those of whose exactions, oppressions, and abuses they complained.

The consequence was that this State in its party organization glided smoothly into the nomination of Mr. Greeley, the ratification of the platform and policy of the national party that placed him in nomination, and, by her delegates accredited to the national convention of the party, actually participated in the nomination.

There had been, however, a point of radical difference

of opinion and action among the native and original citizens of the State, who had been at variance with the Democrats and acted with the Republicans. Some of them were radicalized in sentiment, feeling, and opinion, hated the Democratic party and its leaders, and became fully identified with the national party. They were few in numbers, but acted in concert with the national party in this State, composed mainly of negroes, and supported General Grant for the second term.

A large portion of them regarded the organization for the support of the Government in the reconstruction of the State, her rehabiliment and restoration to the Union, as having accomplished the object that had separated them from their old party. They had lived to-see the grounds taken by them in 1867—and maintained against great opposition, and in the face of denunciation and abuse, in 1868-occupied openly by the national party to which they had belonged, and by the leaders in official position in the State, and by the men who shaped and controlled the action of the Democratic party in this State; that the party now led by the men who had denounced them by resolutions of the most unequivocal character sustained their action in everything wherein they had differed. This wing of the reconstruction party was led by a few of the best men of the old party, prominent among them being ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown.

The sequence was easy, logical, and natural. They all came together and cordially united in the support of Mr. Greeley, and secured his triumphant success in this State, though of course he was defeated in the Union. They have acted in harmony in State and National elections since that time, and the bitterness that existed between them has in great part passed away.

BRIEF RESUME OF POLITICAL CHANGES.

From 1850 to 1872, a period of only twenty-two years, the changes of political parties were numerous, rapid, and in many respects, marvellous. At and prior to the first period named, the voters of the State, then composed only of white men, as well as the public virtue, patriotism and intelligence, were divided with great equality between the national Democratic and Whig parties. An election with a change of only a few hundred votes often had the effect to shift the majority and predominance from one party to the other in this State. The popularity of leaders or of particular measures, or the want of it, was sufficient to effect a change of political power in the government. This state of parties was a constant guard over the public administration, and to a very large extent a protection to the people against excesses and abuses of power and prerogatives.

At this time, as we have seen, the division arose between the leaders and extended to the people, as to the course this State should pursue on account of alleged and admitted wrongs of the Federal government in the antislavery policy of the compromise measure of that year enacted by Congress, known as the Omnibus Bill, admitting California as a State, with her alleged fraudulently procured, anti-slavery constitution; the suppression of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, alleged to be a violation of the Federal constitution; the purchase, at the price of $3,000,000, of territory of Texas, a slave State, and annexing it to New Mexico, a then being organized territory; the interdiction of slavery north of a certain line in that territory and Utah, and the refusal to provide for its establishment or protection south thereof;