Republican defeat to Conkling, who had twice prevented the nomination of Blaine in the convention, and who now refused to give his still powerful influence in New York to his ancient enemy. The Independents claimed the credit for the victory, and, having administered a rebuke to the party for adopting an unacceptable candidate, were ready, for the most part, to return to their allegiance. Advocates of tariff reform claimed to have chastised the party for refusing to listen to their plea. Lovers of universal freedom thought the defeat a punishment administered to the Republicans for allowing the Chinese to be excluded.

In a larger view, the Democratic victory of 1884 may be taken as the natural end of a cycle-the unavoidable result of forces working for the previous twenty years. The end of the national Republican régime, inaugurated by the radicals in 1866, was at hand; and a change was taking place as marked as that which characterized the original transition of 1866. No longer could the people be persuaded that secession was in danger of being revived; that the "rebel brigadiers" were planning to seize Congress; or that any one party was essential to the preservation of the Union. It was not so much an acknowledgment that Reconstruction was a failure, as that Reconstruction methods were no longer possible, and that Reconstruction issues were no longer potent. Expediency in matters of finance and currency was to determine political issues in the immediate future.

Former political issues were to be relegated to oblivion with former methods of manufacture, of transportation, of business, in the new industrial

era.

Thousands of young men who voted independently of party in 1884 were too young to remember the war, and too cosmopolitan in their business relations and travel to feel the influence of sectionalism. Added to them were thousands of foreigners, naturalized since 1865, to whom the war issues meant nothing. Blaine was the sole surviving statesman of the old Reconstruction group still in active life; when he withdrew, after a valedictory in which he placed all the blame for his defeat on the suppression of the colored vote in the South, the last word of the old language was spoken; the past was decently interred; and hope turned expectantly towards the new order of things, towards new types of statesmen, new ideals of government, and new activities for conscientious citizenship.

CHAPTER XX

CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES

B

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

IBLIOGRAPHICAL aids in the shape of reference lists and guides, so valuable for earlier periods of American history, are wanting for the decade assigned to this volume. J. N. Larned, Literature of American History (1902), contains under the title, "American Development" (Nos. 2687-2821), notes on occasional volumes bearing on this period; and the Library of Congress has issued lists on the Isthmian Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, TradesUnions, and other subjects. Brookings and Ringwalt, Briefs for Debate (1897), contains topics and references of value; as does Ringwalt, Briefs on Public Questions (1905). See also the "Critical Essay" at the end of J. H. Latané, America the World Power (Am. Nation, XXV.).

GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS

None of the standard historians covers the field of this volume. James Ford Rhodes closes his admirable History of the United States with the contested election of 1876. E. Benjamin Andrews, History of the Last Quarter-Century of the United States, 1870-1895 (2 vols., 1896), enlarged by added chapters to The United States in Our Own Time (1903), covers in a popular way the entire period, although it is hastily written amid other duties, and omits industrial features. Among the popular histories covering this period may be mentioned Woodrow Wilson, History of the American

People (5 vols., 1902), and Edwin Erle Sparks, The United States of America (2 vols., 1904). Of the single volumes, the Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VII., The United States (1903), gives in chaps, xx.-xxii. a scholarly treatment of modern industrial and economic questions. Henry William Elson, History of the United States (1904), (somewhat enlarged edition, 5 vols., 1905), mentions the principal events of this period, although necessarily condensed.

DOCUMENTARY SOURCES

The debates in Congress will be found in the Congressional Record, as the official report is called after 1874. Many important House and Senate documents are cited in the foot-notes on preceding pages of this volume. Others may be found from Ben. Perley Poore, Descriptive Catalogue of Government Publications to 1881; and for later years in the less voluminous but more accurate Tables of and Annotated Index to the Congressional Series of United States Public Documents (1902). Presidential messages are most easily found in Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (10 vols., 1896-1899). Acts of Congress for this decade are in Statutes at Large, Vols. XX. to XXV. Akin to documents is Edward McPherson, Hand-Book of Politics, published biennially after 1872, in which are printed the votes of Congress on important measures, being arranged according to political parties, together with valuable statistical information. The more important acts of Congress may be found in William MacDonald, Select Statutes of the United States, 1861-1898 (1903); and many illustrative sources are reprinted in Albert Bushnell Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, 1845-1897 (4 vols., 1897-1901). On the presidential elections, Edward Stanwood, History of the Presidency (1898), stands supreme. Election statistics and statistics bearing on finance and industries are collected in the various almanacs, of which the American Almanac and the World Almanac enjoy the largest popularity. A

large part of this valuable material also appears annually in the United States Statistical Abstract.

CYCLOPÆDIAS

Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia (new series), 1876, is not to be classed with the usual bureau of general information, but contains year by year well-written articles on prominent events of the year, with occasional historical surveys. James A. Woodburn, American Political History, 1763-1876 (1906), reprints Alexander Johnston's useful articles from John J. Lalor, Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and United States History (3 vols., 1881).

BIOGRAPHIES AND COLLECTED WORKS

Materials of this kind for this period are scanty. John Sherman was connected with most of the events, and his Recollections of Forty Years (1897) gives valuable personal views, although unevenly written. John Bigelow, Life of Samuel J. Tilden (1896), presents the Democratic view of the controversy of 1876. The lives of Hayes by Howells and by Howard are campaign documents. The correspondence and papers of Hayes are in Indianapolis and not accessible. The campaign of Garfield and his death brought out a number of "lives," those of Bundy, Conwell, Ridpath, Stoddart, McCabe, and Mason being of like unimportance. That by James A. Gilmore (1880) is more complete. Fuller, Reminiscences of Garfield (1881), bears little on his public life. The sketches by Stoddart, Lives of Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur (1888), have more merit than the others named above. B. A. Hinsdale, Works of James A. Garfield (1882), is taken largely from his speeches made in Congress. George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years (1902), covers the political aspects of this period, especially the presidential election of 1880. Edward Stanwood, James G. Blaine (American Statesmen Series, 1905), includes very briefly Blaine's candidacy for the presidency and still more