FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT; CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. 343

2

22, 1870.1 It was one thing to adopt amendments, but quite another thing to carry them out. Accordingly Congress, believing that in a great part of the South they were a dead letter, passed one law after another to enforce them. On this ground were passed the Civil Rights Act (1870), designed to apply to the fifteenth amendment; the Election Act (1870), which regulated all the national elections, and also made the manner of the election uniform, and the day of the election the same throughout the country; 2 and the Enforcement Act (1871), or, as it was generally called, the "Force Bill." This bill was somewhat similar to the Sedition Act of 1798 (sect. 166), and was resented by the South and disapproved of by many in the North, even among the Republicans. It divided that party, and ultimately drove many permanently out of its ranks. A large committee was also appointed by Congress to inquire into the condition of the southern states.

He

Grant and Colfax were inaugurated March 4, 1869. Ulysses S. Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, 1822. was educated at West Point, graduating in 1843. He served in the Mexican War, under both Taylor and Scott, with credit. He resigned from the army in 1854, and, after some time, entered his father's leather store at Galena, Illinois, as a clerk. In 1861 he was appointed Colonel of a volunteer regiment, and later Major-General. In 1863 he was appointed Major-General in the regular army; in 1864, Lieutenant-General; and in 1865, General, reaching the highest rank. At the close of his second term as President, he made the tour of the world, and was received everywhere with the greatest distinction. He died July 23, 1885.

1 Appendix III., Constitution.

2 Congress afterwards modified the law in regard to two or three states.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NEW NATION.

REFERENCES.

General. A. W. Young, The American Statesman, pp. 1427-1594; W. Wilson, Division and Reunion (Epochs of American History), pp. 273–287 ; James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, ii. 503–594.

Biographies. See references for preceding chapters, also Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.

Special. — A. Johnston, American Politics, Chap. xxiii.; E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, Chap. xxiii.; E. McPherson's Hand Books of Politics, 1872-1876; Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1872-1892. Indians and Indian Policy: Helen Hunt Jackson, "A Century of Dishonor"; F. A. Walker, The Indian Question;. G. B. Grinnell, The Story of the Indian ; Captain Pratt, Reports of Carlisle School; Twenty-two Years' Work at Hampton; Atlantic Monthly, lxviii. 540, 676; Century Magazine, xxx. 599; xxxviii. 394, 471, 536; xli. 643. Geneva Arbitration: C. Cushing, Treaty of Washington; J. J. Lalor, Cyclopædia, i. 42; ii. 331. N. W. Boundary: W. Barrows, Oregon, pp. 282-319. Fishery Question: C. Isham, The Fishery Question. Chicago Fire: New England Magazine, August, 1892.

369. The Indian Peace Policy. (1869.) One of the pleasantest features of Grant's first administration is the effort which he made to deal justly with the Indians. This was called the "Peace" or or "Quaker Policy." He announced in his first annual message that he had begun "a new policy towards these wards of the nation by giving the management of a few reservations of Indians to members of the Society of Friends," which body had since the days of William Penn taken special interest in the Indians and had lived peaceably

INDIAN PEACE POLICY; ALABAMA CLAIMS. 345

with them. The Society of Friends was to nominate agents to the President, and on his approval they were to be appointed. Very soon other reservations were similarly entrusted to other religious denominations. The President's wish was to treat the Indians justly, and later he recommended “liberal appropriations to carry out the Indian peace policy, not only because it is humane, Christianlike, and economical, but because it is right." The results of this policy, so far as it was carried out, were such as to give great encouragement to its friends. But after years of harsh and unjust treatment by the whites, the Indian was slow to believe in the reality of the change, and, on the other hand, the hordes of Indian contractors, who saw that their pockets would suffer, exerted their great influence to thwart and injure the new policy in every way; many other persons were sceptical and gave it the cold shoulder, and not a few echoed the cruel saying, "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." There is, however, reason to believe that President Grant's action did much to bring the whole question before the country and to interest a large number of citizens everywhere in the cause of the red man, resulting in the establishment of an "Indian Rights Association."

370. Alabama Claims; Geneva Arbitration. (1871.) — Though the United States had from the very first claimed damages from Great Britain for injuries inflicted upon American commerce by the Alabama and other war vessels fitted out in English ports, the British government for a long time declined to entertain the question. At last, after the United States Senate had failed to ratify one treaty, a treaty was negotiated in 1871 at Washington - hence called the Treaty of Washington-between commissioners of both nations, in which it was agreed that all questions about which there was