Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/378

362 termed the "presidential reconstruction;" that they endured with great patience and calm judgment, the dark days of congressional reconstruction, and while protesting against what seemed to them undue harshness in the legislation of Congress, they bode their time, till the corrupt negro governments established during the reconstruction period, virtually fell of their own weight and impracticability; that so soon as the white people of the South again came into possession of their State governments, their prosperity began to dawn ; that they devoted their time and energies to the preservation of that local self-government, rescued from ignorance and corruption, but not considered finally established; that they began to repeal all bad laws, and to work for the restoration of their waste places resulting from four years of dreadful war and twelve years of bad negro government, and that during all this period the people of the South conscientiously tried to perform their full duty as citizens of the United States. Their delicate surroundings under the peculiar circumstances, did not admit of undue demonstration of national feeling, but whenever an opportunity was offered them, they gave unmistakable signs of that love of country and true patriotism which was their heritage from revolutionary forefathers.

President Cleveland was the first great official who trusted the people of the South frankly, and gave typical Southerners cabinet positions, appointing them also on the supreme bench and as embassadors to foreign courts and to other federal appointments. His administration evoked intense satisfaction among the citizens of the South, as it enabled them to show the sincerity of their avowed good feeling toward the restored Union. The death of General Grant, in 1885, who had always been generous to the Confederates in war; the dedication of Chickamauga park, and of the Confederate monument in the city of Chicago to the Confederate dead, brought forth displays of patriotism toward the general govern-