AMERICAN POLITICAL ISSUES, 1865-1918. Reconstruction.— The predomi nating question that presented itself for settle ment in the years immediately succeeding the Civil War was Reconstruction, or the conditions under which the seceded States should be re admitted into the Union. Reconstruction was not officially complete until 1870, when Georgia, the last State to be restored to the Union, was readmitted; scarcely any other question was considered during the administration of Presi dent Johnson. But although, technically, the Southern States were restored to self-govern ment, and the two administrations of General Grant saw vigorous military force employed to control the complexities of an anomalous situa tion, it was not until the middle of President Hayes' administration, or 13 years after the war closed, that an end was finally put to Federal interference in the local concerns of the Southern States. See • UNITED RECONSTRUCTION IN THE.
Rise of New Parties.— During the first ad ministration of President Grant steps were taken toward the reform of the civil service, March 1871. It was about this time that the Prohibitionists first put a national ticket in the field, and this period was noted also for the appearance of organized labor in the arena'of national politics by the formation of a Labor Reform party. A Liberal Republican party was also formed, and the decadence of old issues and use of new ones was graphically indicated by the fact that there were five party tickets in the field in the election of 1872. The formation of this Liberal Republican party, which chose Horace Greeley as its standard bearer, should receive further notice, for it dominated political formations and alignments, down to 1892. It took with it many of the great abolition leaders of the old Republican party—men like Sumner and Phillips who claimed that the old party no longer stood for the principles from which it had gained its strength and life. These men were the prede cessors of the later Independents and Mug wumps. These recalcitrants were met halfway by the Democratic party, that made haste to drop the old Doughface and Copperhead issues and catch-words, and nominated their bitterest foe because he seemed to impersonate the Re publican revolt. The immediate result was defeat, but it led to the Tilden victory (or near victory, according to the point of view) in 1876 and. the election of Cleveland in 1884, and defi nitely committed the Democratic party to an attitude that faced the future instead of the past.
The " Grangers " and the Money Ques The seething process was still going on, for from 1872 the genesis of at least two new issues appeared; one was the °Granger° move ment, which, though primarily organized to pro mote co-operative buying and selling and secur ing laws favorable to the farming classes, be came the seed, which flowered later, of at tempts, not always well advised, to curb rail roads and trusts and prevent discrimination in rates and prices. Another great issue to assume large importance at this time was that of na tional finances. Occasioned by the terrible panic of 1873, and by a supposed public demand that gold should be used only to pay the interest on the national debt, a party was organized in 1874 which took part in the three following national elections, and, under the name of the Greenback-Labor party, polled more than a million votes in the congressional elections of 1878; and in that year silver was made legal tender and given limited coinage. But in 1874 President Grant vetoed the 'In flation Bill° which would have added $44,000,000 to the currency; and on 7 Jan. 1879, in Presi dent Hayes' administration, specie payments were resumed after a suspension of 17 years, and greenbacks have ever since been payable in gold on demand.
The Civil The assassination of President Garfield led to a radical reform in the civil service. The vicious system taken over by Jackson from that of New York— classic in Marcy's sentence, the victors belong the had become so deeply rooted that perhaps nothing less than the martyrdom of a President could have effected a change in public policy at this period. But on 1 Jan. 1883, the (Pendleton Bill° provided a constitu tional, practical and effective measure for the remedy of the abuse known as the sys tem.° Many States have enacted laws along the same lines, and the classified lists of those subject to civil service examinations have been increased by the executive orders of successive Presidents, until, on 30 June 1915, of 476,363 officers and employees of the Federal civil serv ice 292,296 held positions subject to competitive examinations under civil service rules; and the practice of levying assessments for partisan purposes has long since been discountenanced by law.