Grant's enemies declared, moreover, with considerable truth that
the man was a military autocrat, unfit for the highest civil
position in a democracy. His high-handed policy in respect to
Reconstruction in the South evoked opposition from those

Northern Republicans whose critical sense was not entirely
blinded by sectional prejudice and passion. The keener-sighted of
the Northerners began to suspect that Reconstruction in the South
often amounted to little more than the looting of the governments
of the Southern States by the greedy freedmen and the
unscrupulous carpetbaggers, with the troops of the United States
standing by to protect the looters. In 1871, under color of
necessity arising from the intimidation of voters in a few
sections of the South, Congress passed a stringent act,
empowering the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and
to use the military at any time to suppress disturbances or
attempts to intimidate voters. This act, in the hands of
radicals, gave the carpetbag governments of the Southern States
practically unlimited powers. Any citizens who worked against the
existing administrations, however peacefully, might be charged
with intimidation of voters and prosecuted under the new act.
Thus these radical governments were made practically
self-perpetuating. When their corruption, wastefulness, and
inefficiency became evident, many people in the North frankly
condemned them and the Federal Government which continued to
support them.

This dissatisfaction with the Administration on the part of
Republicans and independents came to a head in 1872 in the