RECONSTRUCTION UNITED STATES OF BOSTON AND NEW YORK 1895 Copyright, 1895, BY EBEN GREENOUGH SCOTT. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. E663 PREFACE. THE term "reconstruction," in American politics, applies more aptly to the revolted states than it does to the federal Union; for the mutilated form of the Union was restored by the mere ascendancy of the northern arms, but it was not until after this had occurred that the eleven states were reconstructed. The period during which the process of renewal was taking place is called, in popular speech, the Reconstruction Period, and it refers, somewhat indefinitely, to the time occupied by the single term of President Johnson and the succeeding two terms of President Grant, — the presidential terms during which the ancient governments of the subdued states were finally subverted, and new ones were erected in their places. I intend to write the political history of the period of reconstruction, but, preliminary to doing so, I have set forth in this book certain things necessary to be known before taking up the subject and pursuing it in the sequence of time. It is a notable thing that, from the very beginning of the Civil War, the federal government never evinced a doubt of ultimate success, and it is significant that, even in moments of |