He received three hundred thousand more votes than Seymour.  Of the two hundred and ninety-four electoral votes, Grant received two hundred and fifteen.

CHAPTER 43

FROM GRANT TO CLEVELAND, 1869-1889

[Sidenote:  The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870.]

447.  The Fifteenth Amendment.—­In February, 1869, just before Grant’s inauguration, Congress proposed still another amendment, providing that neither the United States nor any state could abridge the rights of citizens of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.  The state legislatures hastened to accept this amendment, and it was declared in force in March, 1870.

[Sidenote:  Progress of reconstruction.]

[Sidenote:  Reunion, 1870.]

448.  End of Reconstruction.—­Three states only were still unreconstructed.  These were Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi.  In 1869 Congress added to the conditions on which they could be readmitted to the Union the acceptance of the Fifteenth Amendment.  Early in 1870 they all complied with the conditions and were readmitted.  The Union was now again complete.  Since 1860 four states had been added to the Union.  These were Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada, and Nebraska.  There were now thirty-seven states in all.

[Sidenote:  The carpetbaggers. McMaster, 439-414.]

[Sidenote:  The Ku-Klux-Klan.]

[Sidenote:  The Force Acts.]

449.  The Southerners and the Negroes.—­The first result of the Congressional plan of reconstruction was to give the control of the Southern states to the freedmen and their white allies.  Some of these white friends of the freedmen were men of character and ability, but most of them were adventurers who came from the North to make their fortunes.  They were called the “carpetbaggers,” because they usually carried their luggage in their hands.  The few Southern whites who befriended the negroes were called “scalawags” by their white neighbors.  Secret societies sprang into being.  The most famous was the Ku-Klux-Klan.  The object of these societies was to terrorize the freedmen and their white friends and to prevent their voting.  This led to the passage of the Force Acts.  These laws provided severe penalties for crimes of intimidation.  They also provided that these cases should be tried in United States courts.  Federal soldiers, stationed in the South, could be used to compel obedience to the law.

[Sidenote:  Relations with Great Britain.]

[Sidenote:  Treaty of Washington, 1871. Source-Book, 355-358.]

[Sidenote:  The Geneva Award.]