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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt:... crises, the inauguration of President Hayes was followed by the withdrawal of the troops from the support of the last radical governments, and the peaceful lapse of the whole South into the control of the whites. With these events of 1877 the first period in the undoing of reconstruction came to an end. The second period, lasting till 1890, presented conditions so different from the first as entirely to transform the methods by which the process was continued. Two, indeed, of the three elements which have been mentioned as summing up reconstruction still characterized the situation: the negroes were precisely equal in rights with the other race, and the Republican party was a powerful organization in the South. As to the third element, the disproportionate political influence of the blacks, a change had been effected, and their power had been so reduced as to correspond much more closely to their general social significance. In the movement against the still enduring features of reconstruction the control of the state governments by the whites was of course a new condition of the utmost importance, but not less vital was the party complexion of the national government. From 1875 to 1889 neither of the great parties was at any one time in effective control of botli the presidency and the two houses of Congress. As a consequence, no partisan legislation could be enacted. Though the state of affairs in the South was for years a party issue of the first magnitude, the legislative deadlock had for its general result a policy of non-interference by the national government, and the whites were left to work out in their own way the ends they had in view. Some time was necessary, however, to overcome the influence of the two bodies of legislation already on the nat...