national banking, national currency, a protective tariff, by the extension of its functions in a multitude of ways, the national government was making the nation a unit, and approval of this general policy made the North tolerant of many things. It required, indeed, the distress of a great financial upheaval to break the hold the Republican party had obtained over the North and, through the North, over the nation.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Fleming, W. L., Documentary History of Reconstruction, con- Sources. tains material gathered from many sources, illustrating conditions in the South. For Congress: Johnston, A., Representative American Orations, IV, 129-188. Macdonald, A., Select Documents, nos. 44-95, 99. McPherson, E. M., History of Reconstruction. The Sherman letters (edited by R. S. Thorndike), ch. VIII. U. S. Doc. Report of Committee on Reconstruction, 1866. For an intimate view of the administration, see Diary of Gideon Welles. The more important Supreme Court cases are the following: Texas v. White (1868): 7 Wallace, 700. Slaughter House Cases (1872): 16 Wallace, 36, 273, 746.

accounts.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, vols. V-VII, is Historical uniformly valuable, and excels the majority of the special studies in their own field. Garner, J. W., Reconstruction in Mississippi, Executive chs. II-IV. McCarthy, C. H., Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. plan of reRhodes, United States, VI, 1-50. Scott, E. G., Reconstruction during the Civil War.

construction.

recon

struction.

Burgess, J. W., Reconstruction and the Constitution. Cam- Congressional bridge Modern History, VII, 622-644. Dunning, W. A., Essays on Reconstruction, chs. II-IV. Garner, J. W., Reconstruction in Mississippi, chs. V-XI. McCall, S. W., Stevens, chs. XIII, XV, XVI.

Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, ch. XIV. Chadsey, C. F., Struggle between President Johnson and Congress (Columbia Univ. Studies in History, VIII, no. 1). De Witt, C. M., The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Dunning, W. A., Essays on Reconstruction, ch. IV. Fish, C. R., Civil Service and the Patronage,

Struggle

between Congress and the executive.

Conditions
in the South.

ch. IX. Hart, A. B., Chase, ch. XIII. Salmon, L. P., History of the Appointing Power, ch. II.

F. Bancroft, Seward, II, chs. XL, XLII. Adams, C. F., Adams, ch. XIX. Rhodes, United States, VII, 74-173. Burton, T. E., Sherman, 172-226. For account of reconstruction under Grant: Fleming, W. S., Reconstruction in Alabama.

CHAPTER XXV

RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETED

ECONOMICALLY the histories of North and South during Divergent policies in the reconstruction period were as different as those of two the South. separate countries. The features of southern activity were, first, the readjustment of agriculture to the conditions of free labor; secondly, the rise of new industries. The distinctive characteristic of southern agriculture had been the plantation system. This was based on compulsory labor and the use of capital. Cultivation was by the large field system, and the slaves worked in gangs under the direct supervision of an overseer. Many northerners wished to break up this system directly by the enforcement of the confiscation act, and the distribution of the land in small holdings among the negroes. This policy failed of adoption, and the land, with the exception of a negligible amount, was left in the hands of its former owners or restored to them. The planters, who continued throughout this generation to be the governing class politically in the South, wished to preserve the plantation system as it had been. Circumstances, however, forced a gradual modification.

system.

Realizing the difficulty of dealing with free negro labor, Decay of the the planters endeavored constantly to attract foreign im- plantation migration. The foreigners landing in the United States, however, found little to attract them in the southern offers of employment, when the northern mills were offering higher wages, and the West could furnish them with individual farms at low rates. The disturbance of public order, the unwelcoming social condition in the South, the absence of

Negro labor.

Small farms.

direct steamship communication with Europe, and the fact that the southern immigration campaign was poorly organized, all combined to turn away the foreigner. The South had to depend on its own population to an extent rare in American history. The white population was remarkably stable, although there was some movement to scantily populated districts, as southwestern Georgia, northeastern Mississippi, and the trans-Mississippi states. The negroes were moved more easily than before the war, when the planter had to pay a considerable sum for each laborer he secured. There was, therefore, a tendency for them to concentrate in those districts best suited to them.

Forced to use the negroes, the planters started in 1865 by borrowing what they could from northern bankers, and engaged their former slaves for money wages. This system proved unsatisfactory, for the negroes felt no responsibility and could not be coerced. The crop was in most districts a failure, and in spite of the high price of cotton most planters found themselves worse off at the end than at the beginning of the year. In 1866 a very large number resorted to the share system, promising the negro a certain proportion of the net proceeds of the crop. This was more successful, for it gave the negro a personal interest in the crop. The negro, however, was anxious to escape from the gang system and from supervision. In 1868 and 1869 many plantations were divided up, and each negro family was given a separate holding to work for itself, paying a share of the crop and subject only to a general guidance. Thus certain features of the plantation system were very generally abandoned.

In the meantime a further development was taking place. Poor crops, the heavy taxes of the negro governments, discouragement, and other reasons led many planters to offer their lands, or portions of them, for sale at reasonable prices. Thus the poor whites, who had lost little during the war, found it possible to buy small farms in the cotton

belt. The cultivation of the land in individual holdings, moreover, removed the social stigma which formerly had prevented white men from working in the cotton fields with the negroes, and many whites took up such holdings on the share system. Soon many whites began to pay a fixed rent in coin or produce, instead of dividing the crop, and became practically independent. The negroes, too, as soon as they could afford to buy the necessary farm stock, began to rent instead of share, and it was not long before many of them bought farms. The progress toward the rented or owned farm was hastened by the negro's dislike of supervision and by laws which allowed merchants to lend goods to tenants on crop liens, thus enabling the latter to start out with little or no capital. The result of these changes was twofold. Poor whites began to break down the monopoly of cotton culture which had been held by capitalists employing negro labor, and over a large area small farms independently run began to take the place of the plantations.

Undoubtedly the net efficiency of negro labor was de- Results. creased by the withdrawal of coercion and supervision. This was to some extent offset by the entry of whites into cotton growing, and by the extension of cotton growing into new regions, as a result of the use of fertilizers. It was not, however, until about 1880 that southern agricultural production reached the ante bellum totals. Under the new conditions, however, the enterprising and deserving, whether black or white, were given opportunities previously denied. Of those who still ran plantations somewhat different qualities were required than before the war, and harder work. A greater proportion of the proceeds, moreover, went to labor. Gradually the old planter class lost its grip of the cotton industry. Many of its members went into professional life, tried their fortunes in the North, or vegetated on unsuccessful plantations. Southern agricultural society became more diversified, but to a great extent the class which had played