Ex-Senator Key, a Democrat from Tennessee, was the man.

When I informed Senator Alcorn of that fact the manifestation of surprise, disappointment, and disgust with which he received it can better be imagined than described.
This was not due so much to the fact that some other one than himself had been selected, but to the fact that the fortunate man was a Southern Democrat.

For the first time the Senator became convinced that southern Republicans had been made the subjects of barter and trade in the shuffle for the Presidency, and that the sacrifice of southern Republicans was the price that had to be paid for the peaceable inauguration of Mr.Hayes.This, in Senator Alcorn's opinion, meant that the Republican party in the reconstructed States of the South was a thing of the past.

There was no hope for it in the future.
"It would have been far better," said the Senator, "not only for the Republican party at the South but for the country at large, to have allowed the Democrats to inaugurate Tilden, and to have taken charge of the Government, than to have purchased Republican victory at such a fearful cost.

What inducement can a southern white man now have for becoming a Republican?
Under the present state of things he will be hated at home, and despised abroad.