bags made from an old piece of carpet. Because of the numerous restrictions placed upon those Southerners who had fought for the Confederacy, these men were able to gain control of state governments. Even people in the North recognized them as being a generally unsavory lot without principles, and the general consensus was that they were fleecing Southerners and the federal government as well. As the carpetbagger state governments were meeting with more and more public disapproval, the tide of public opinion toward African-American suffrage was changing.14The American Missionary Association, which had been a leader in the movement toward black civil rights up to this time, declared that black suffrage had turned out to be a failure. The New England Freedmans Aid Society was dissolved as of 1874.15To be sure, the Republicans had not given up on civil rights entirely. They still had some control in the Senate; they still had the Presidency with some Southern states still in control of Republican administrations. When possible, the Grant administration still had federal troops stationed in the South to protect fragile Reconstruction governments as late as 1875. In 1875, the party platform of the Republicans attested that the complete protection of all citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican Party is sacredly pledged.16When the votes were counted in 1875, Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate had the majority of the popular vote. However, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, had a victory in the Electoral College by a single vote. The situation was as potentially explosive as a keg of dynamite. Many believed that another civil war was in the making, and more people expected violence in 1877, then they did in 1861. A commission was set up to work out a solution.17By a vote of 8-7, the commission awarded the election to Hayes. The Democrats had control of the House of Representatives...
