It is no doubt true that very few men at the North who voted the Republican ticket in 1872 and the Democratic ticket in 1874 were influenced in changing their votes by anything connected with Reconstruction.  There were other questions at issue, no doubt, that influenced their action.  There had been in 1873, for instance, a disastrous financial panic.  Then there were other things connected with the National Administration which met with popular disfavor.  These were the reasons, no doubt, that influenced thousands of Republicans to vote the Democratic ticket merely as an indication of their dissatisfaction with the National Administration.

But, let their motives and reasons be what they may, the effect was the same as if they had intended their votes to be accepted and construed as an endorsement of the platform declarations of the National Democratic Convention of 1868, at least so far as Reconstruction was concerned.  Democrats claimed, and Republicans could not deny, that so far as the South was concerned this was the effect of the Congressional elections of 1874.  Desertions from the Republican ranks at the South, in consequence thereof, became more rapid than had been the accessions between 1872 and 1875.  Thousands who had not taken an open stand, but who were suspected of being inclined to the Republican party, denied that there had ever been any justifiable grounds for such suspicions.  Many who had taken an open stand on that side returned to the fold of the Democracy in sackcloth and ashes,—­upon bended knees, pleading for mercy, forgiveness and for charitable forbearance.  They had seen a new light; and they were ready to confess that they had made a grave mistake, but, since their motives were good and their intentions were honest, they hoped that they would not be rashly treated nor harshly judged.

The prospects for the gratification and realization of the ambition of white men in that section had been completely reversed.  The conviction became a settled fact that the Democratic party was the only channel through which it would be possible in the future for anyone to secure political distinction or receive official recognition,—­hence the return to the ranks of that party of thousands of white men who had left it.  All of them were eventually received, though some were kept on the anxious seat and held as probationers for a long time.

It soon developed that all that was left of the once promising and flourishing Republican party at the South was the true, faithful, loyal, and sincere colored men,—­who remained Republican from necessity as well as from choice,—­and a few white men, who were Republicans from principle and conviction, and who were willing to incur the odium, run the risks, take the chances, and pay the penalty that every white Republican who had the courage of his convictions must then pay.  This was a sad and serious disappointment to the colored men who were just about to realize