AUTHOR'S PREFACE HE work of reconstructing the political stand THE ing of certain southern states, impaired by attempted secession, was wellnigh completed by 1877. In the decade following, the foundations were unconsciously laid for the national edifice which is the glory of the present age. Old precedents were gone, new industrial conditions were confronted, new routes of commerce were discovered, and new political policies were worked out. Modern accumulation of wealth and modern combinations of labor here found a beginning. The national credit, impaired by depreciated paper issues, was restored by the resumption of specie payments. Increased Asiatic immigration to California caused the first barriers to be erected against the admission of a foreign people; and conditions in Utah demanded federal regulation of a social question, thus establishing a new precedent. Many of the limitations through constitutional interpretation, which had been a hinderance to congressional action, disappeared after the final arbitration of war; thenceforth expediency and the general good were to be the criteria of action. The result of the Civil War produced among other nations a renewed confidence in the perpetuity of the United States and inaugurated at home the active foreign policy characteristic of the present day. The "peace policy" of Grant towards the American Indians was fully developed and a beginning made of the final task of converting tribal nomads into self-supporting individuals. Above all, the political conception which saw in a party a vast machine warranted in using its control of both national and state governments in order to perpetuate itself and to benefit its members, was weakened by the final collapse of the reconstruction contrivances and by the activity of the civil service reformers. In this decade, therefore, may be sought not only the beginnings of modern industrial and economic triumphs, but also a quickening of the higher sentiment which regards public service as a public trust and civic duty as akin to religious obligation. In 1884 the awakening brought about the election of a "reform president" for the first time in half a century, and appropriately rounded out the decade. EDWIN ERLE SPARKS. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT THE CHAPTER I THE NEW SPIRIT OF '76 (1876-1877) HE one hundredth anniversary of the birth of American independence came opportunely to mark an epoch in American history. The material damage wrought by the Civil War was wellnigh repaired by time and industry. The discord in the hearts of the people was disappearing, as the policy of restoring the Union by force was gradually abandoned. How the specific problems of reconstruction were met has been described in a preceding volume of this series. How the beneficent policy of President Hayes eradicated the last evils of reconstruction and hastened a true reunion is to be told in later chapters of this volume. But there was a reconstruction going on in a larger sense; a reconstruction of industries, an adjustment of new sources of supply to new processes of manufacture, a co-ordination of means of transportation Dunning, Reconstruction (Am. Nation, XXII.). 1 |