They naturally became Republicans after the War and furnished some of the votes which made Reconstruction possible.

With these may be classed the few Northern men who remained in the South after the downfall of the Reconstruction governments.
There was another class of people in the South, some of whom had been rabid secessionists and whose Republicanism had no other foundation than a desire for the loaves and fishes.

The salaries attached to some of the Federal offices seemed enormous at that time and, before the prohibition wave swept the South, there were in the revenue service thousands of minor appointments for the faithful.

These deputy marshals, "storekeepers and gaugers," and petty postmasters attempted to keep up a local organization.

The collectors of internal revenue, United States marshals, other officers of the Federal courts, and the postmasters in the larger towns controlled these men and therefore the state organizations.