Page:Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction.djvu/213

Rh Texas reached a like stage in the process of re-organization. The next step required by the Reconstruction Acts was the submission of each draft constitution to the registered voters of the state for ratification. For the purposes of this election the qualification of voters and the authority of the commanders were the same as in the previous election. The contest throughout the South assumed a distinctly fiercer form during this second canvass. Race and class animosity had been whetted by the discussions centering about the conventions; the provisions of the new constitutions afforded definite issues on which party organizations, hitherto inchoate, were molded into efficiency; and the bearing of the results of the elections on national issues and on the outcome of the approaching Presidential canvass brought into play influences from without that in no way tended to allay the bitterness within the states.

Party lines, so far as they were drawn at all in the rebel states under the Presidential regime, followed ante-bellum prejudices. Though very energetic efforts were made in 1865-66 by the leaders of the National Republican Party to extend their organization throughout the South, the results were not satisfactory. Few Southern whites ventured to identify themselves with a name of such evil