This was the situation during the winter of 1871-72, when the approaching Presidential election brought the country face to face with a most extraordinary state of affairs.

The South was in irons.

The North was growing restive.

Thinking people everywhere felt that conditions so anomalous to our institutions could not and should not endure.
II Johnson had made a bungling attempt to carry out the policies of Lincoln and had gone down in the strife.

The Democratic Party had reached the ebb tide of its disastrous fortunes.
It seemed the merest reactionary.