Restoration Of Home Rule
The radical program of reconstruction ended after ten years in failure rather because of a change in public opinion in the North than because of the resistance of the Southern whites. The North of 1877, indeed, was not the North of 1867. A more tolerant attitude toward the South developed as the North passed through its own period of misgovernment when all the large cities were subject to "ring rule" and corruption, as in New York under "Boss" Tweed and in the District of Columbia under "Boss" Shepherd. The Federal civil service was discredited by the scandals connected with the Sanborn contracts, the Whisky Ring, and the Star Routes, while some leaders in Congress were under a cloud from the "Salary Grab" and Credit Mobilier disclosures.*

* See "The Boss and the Machine", by Samuel P. Orth in "The Chronicles of America").


The marvelous material development of the North and West also drew attention away from sectional controversies. Settlers poured into the plains beyond the Mississippi and the valleys of the Far West; new industries sprang up; unsuspected mineral wealth was discovered; railroads were built. Not only bankers but taxpaying voters took an interest in the financial readjustments of the time. Many thousand people followed the discussions over the funding and refunding of the national debt, the retirement of the greenbacks, and the proposed lowering of tariff duties. Yet the Black Friday episode of 1869, when Jay Gould and James Fisk cornered the visible supply of gold, and the panic of 1873 were indications of unsound financial conditions.