The nomination of Horace Greeley in 1872 and the overwhelming defeat
that followed left the Democratic party in an abyss of despair. The old
Whig party, after the disaster that overtook it in 1852, had been not
more demoralized. Yet in the general elections of 1874 the Democrats
swept the country, carrying many Northern States and sending a great
majority to the Forty-fourth Congress.
Reconstruction was breaking down of its very weight and rottenness. The
panic of 1873 reacted against the party in power. Dissatisfaction with
Grant, which had not sufficed two years before to displace him, was
growing apace. Favoritism bred corruption, and corruption grew more and
more defiant. Succeeding, scandals cast their shadows before. Chickens
of “carpet-baggery” let loose upon the South were coming home to roost
at the North. There appeared everywhere a noticeable subsidence of the
sectional spirit and a rising tide of the national spirit. Reform was
needed alike in the State governments and the National government, and
the cry for reform proved something other than an idle word. All things
made for Democracy.
[Illustration: From a photograph by W. Kurtz