who had led in battle and, to a less extent, to those who had taken part
in the civil government of the Confederacy. But for the humiliations of
Reconstruction, some of these men might have been discredited, but the
bitter experiences of those years had restored them to popular favor. As
the Federal soldier marched out of the public buildings everywhere, the
Confederate soldier marched in. These men had led in the contest against
the scalawags and the carpetbaggers and many had suffered thereby. Now
they came into their own. In some States the organization of voters was
almost military.

During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction
governments the task of consolidating the white South was measurably
achieved. As some one flippantly put the case, there came to be in many
sections "two kinds of people--Democrats and negroes." It was the
general feeling on the part of the whites that to fail to vote was
shameful, to scratch a ticket was a crime, and to attempt to organize
the negroes was treason to one's race. The "Confederate brigadier"
sounded the rallying cry at every election, and a military record came
to be almost a requisite for political preferment. Men's eyes were
turned to the past, and on every stump were recounted again and again
the horrors of Reconstruction and the valiant deeds of the Confederate
soldiers. What a candidate had done in the past in another field seemed
more important even than his actual qualifications for the office to
which he aspired. A study of the _Congressional Record_ or of lists of
state officers proves the truth of this statement. In 1882, fourteen of
the twenty-two United States Senators from the seceding States had
military records and three had been civil officers of the Confederacy.
Several States had solid delegations of ex-Confederate soldiers in both
houses. When one reads the proceedings of Congress, he finds the names
of Vance and Ransom, Hampton and Butler, Gordon and Wheeler, Harris and