relate to matters not under the control of Congress. So within eight years after the initiation of the Congressional plan of Reconstruction, all of the carpetbag and negro State governments, though strongly supported by the Washington administration, gave place to control by the whites; and within another eight-year period, the most important of the Enforcement laws were declared unconstitutional or were repealed, and the Federal control of state affairs ceased to a great extent.

During the twenty years after the overthrow of the Reconstruction rule, the negroes had little political influence except when used by one faction of Democrats against another. The Black Belt continued to decline industrially and the white counties to prosper. Morally and economically there was a separation of the blacks into classes a few made great advance, others little or no progress, and some retrograded. Negro religion and negro education slowly improved; in both, the blacks remained to some extent under Northern direction, the Southern whites being unable to regain influence to any appreciable degree.

The complete ousting of the negro from politics for the time being has been accomplished in several of the Southern states by new constitutions which impose as qualifications for suffrage, long residence, registration, payment of poll tax, and property holding or ability to read. In order to exclude but few whites certain temporary contrivances were used called the "Grandfather," "Understanding," "Old Soldier," and "good character" schemes. Few negroes could comply with these temporary qualifications which have, except in North Carolina, ceased to operate, so that theoretically the races are now equal before the suffrage laws, though most of the blacks are shut out. It seems impossible to get a case before the Supreme

Court in which the fundamental question may be decided. This disfranchising movement, which began in Mississippi in 1890 and was continued in South Carolina 1895, Louisiana 1898, North Carolina 1900, Alabama and Virginia 1901, was caused mainly by the practice of the Republicans in reorganizing the negroes in districts in which the whites were divided and selling their support to one of the factions or trying to elect a negro candidate, and by the custom of the Democratic politicians in the Black Belt to make use of negro votes to keep that section predominant in politics. The elimination of the negro vote has caused the transfer of political power from the whites of the black counties to the whites of the white counties, a situation that prevailed in most of the Southern states before 1861.

REFERENCES

WERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION:

Andrews, Our Own Time, ch. 25, p. 339; Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. 244, 247-249, 272, 297; Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii, p. 648; Dunning, Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 353; Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, ch. 24, p. 797; Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi, ch. 11, p. 410; Herbert, Solid South, pp. 61, 82, 109, 138, 167, 214, 249, 284, 340, 378, 424, 430; Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina, ch. 8, 9; Wilson, Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances, p. 182.

THE ELECTION OF 1876 AND THE BARGAIN WITH THE SOUTH:

Allen, Cham

berlain's Administration, ch. 19-27, p. 507; Andrews, ch. 8, 9; Avary, Dixie after the War, ch. 29; Burgess, ch. 13; Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii, pp. 642, 644, 645; Dunning, p. 362; Gibson, A Political Crime; Haworth, Disputed Presidential Election of 1876; Herbert, pp. 110, 165, 424; Phelps, Louisiana, p. 386; Reynolds, ch. 8, 9; Wilson, p. 187.

NEW SOUTHERN CONSTITUTIONS: Brown, Lower South, ch. 5; Dunning, p. 378; Fleming, p. 800; Page, The Negro, ch. 5; Phelps, p. 398; Political Science Quarterly, March, 1905, and June, 1906. RACE AND LABOR PROBLEMS: American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers; Atlanta University Publications; Avary, ch. 30-32; Cutler, Lynch Law, ch. 5-9; DuBois, Souls of Black Folk; Fleming, pp. 730, 801, 804; Gunby, Negro Education; Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies; Kelsey, Negro Farmer; Montgomery Conference, Race Problems; Murphy, Problems of the Present South; Page, ch. 2-8; Phelps, p. 395; Reed, Brothers' War, ch. 16 and 17; Smith, The Color Line; Talbot, S. C. Armstrong; Thomas, American Negro; Washington, Up From Slavery, and Future of the American Negro.

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I. CONDITIONS IN 1874

"Meet Brute Force with Brute Force"

[1874]

Atlanta (Georgia) News, September 10, 1874, in House Report no. 261, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 767. Editorial. LET there be White Leagues formed in every town, village and hamlet of the South, and let us organize for the great struggle which seems inevitable. If the October elections which are to be held at the North are favorable to the radicals, the time will have arrived for us to prepare for the very worst. The radicalism of the republican party must be met by the radicalism of white men. We have no war to make against the United States Government, but against the republican party our hate must be unquenchable, our war interminable and merciless. Fast fleeting away is the day of wordy protests and idle appeals to the magnanimity of the republican party. By brute force they are endeavoring to force us into acquiescence to their hideous programme. We have submitted long enough to indignities, and it is time to meet brute-force with brute-force. Every Southern State should swarm with White Leagues, and we should stand ready to act the moment Grant signs the civilrights bill. It will not do to wait till radicalism has fettered us to the car of social equality before we make an effort to resist it. The signing of the bill will be a declaration of war against the southern whites. It is our duty to ourselves, it is our duty to our children, it is our duty to the white race whose prowess subdued the wilderness of this continent, whose civilization filled it with cities and towns and villages, whose mind gave it power and grandeur, and whose labor imparted to it prosperity, and whose love made peace and happiness dwell within its homes, to take the gage of battle the moment it is thrown down. If the white democrats of the North are men, they will not stand idly by and see us borne down by northern radicals and half-barbarous negroes. But no matter what they may do, it is time for us to organize. We have been temporizing long enough. Let