SPECULATION AND FAILURES. 557 at once shipped from San Francisco to the Eastern markets. It is said that this project had been broached. by Asa Whitney, of New York, the great car-wheel manufacturer, in 1846. Surveys were made under authority of the War Department, in 1853, and in 1862 and 1864, Congress made such grants for the purpose that its success was insured. September 24th of the same year is known as "Black Friday," for on that day a panic occurred in the financial circles from which the country did not recover for months. Two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fiske Jr., entered upon a plan to gain possession of the fifteen million of gold then in the hands of the sub-treasury, to advance the price and sell out at the advance. They actually succeeded in raising the price from 1.38 to 1.60, when, on the twenty-fourth of September, a despatch arrived from Washington announcing that Secretary Boutwell ordered the sale of four million from the sub-treasury. In the intensest excitement the price fell twenty per cent in as many minutes, and the stringency was relaxed at the expense of the speculators, who, in spite of the fact, managed to win a large sum. Many failures ensued. completion of The fifteenth The year 1870 was marked by the the re-organization of the South. amendment was ratified by Virginia in 1869, and by Mississippi and Texas in 1870, and the representatives from those States took their seats in the councils of the nation those of Virginia, January 24; those of Mississippi, February 23; and those of Texas, March 30. On the date last mentioned, President Grant announced by proclamation the incorpora tion of the fifteenth amendment in the Constitution. The year 1871 opened with another peace measure, for on the twenty-fifth of February there met at Washington the joint high commission composed of five statesmen representing each country, to settle claims against England for the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver's Island and the continent, and for the depredations of the Confederate cruisers built in England, in contravention of her profession of neutrality. The commission agreed to leave the claims. to be determined by the Emperor of Germany, and the "Alabama claims," as they were called, (from the chief of the privateers,) to a court, one member of which should be appointed by the President, the Queen of England, the King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil. The court met at Geneva, Switzerland, December 15, 1871, and after an adjournment, decided, September 14, 1872, that England should pay the United States fifteen million and a half in gold to be distributed by the government. In 1867 the Governor of Tennessee, William G. Brownlow, called upon the United States military to suppress violent demonstrations in that State that had been traced to an organization known as the "Ku-klux Klan." It appears that at the close of the war a number of secret political societies were formed in the Southern States, the objects of which were to offset, as was claimed by the people of the section, the acts of certain other societies formed through the agency of intriguers from the North, who were exciting the negro population to acts of violence, and endangering their homes and social relations. It has been reported FIRES IN CHICAGO AND BOSTON. 559 that five hundred thousand members united the Kuklux Klan, of whom forty thousand were in Tennessee. Congress ordered an investigation in April, 1871, and the result was published in twelve volumes. The organization died out afterwards, partly because the relation of the North and South were becoming more harmonious, and the passions engendered by war were growing weaker. On the evening of October 8th, 1871, a fire broke out in Chicago which spread with great rapidity and burned through the next day, sweeping away the greater portion of the populous city, and laying bare a space of twentyone hundred square acres. The good feelings of the whole country went out to the devastated city, and millions of dollars were contributed to help the sufferers. A year later the city of Boston was visited by a conflagration second only to that of Chicago, which destroyed the best portion of the city, causing a loss of seventy-five mil lion dollars and interrupting trade to a great extent. In both cases the process of recuperation was rapid, and new buildings of elegance and cost rose on the |