There was one great man in the Republican party who might have done a great deal for the colored people of the South, if he had tried, but he did not try; nay, he himself wanted to be President, and did not wish to hurt himself when his own selfish interests were at stake. This man was the Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine. He opposed the Force Bill, and lost no opportunity of opposing President Grant's administration whenever the latter wished to do anything against the late rebels, and in favor of the people. But Mr. Blaine never became President, and it served him right, for he might have proved a bad one, as Andrew Johnson did.
General Rutherford B. Hayes was Governor of Ohio, and in 1876 the Republican party gave him the nomination for the Presidency. The convention met at Cincinnati. The Democrats ran Samuel Jones Tilden as their candidate. By the aid of the shot-gun the South had suppressed the Republican legislatures of the States lately in rebellion, and having gained an inch they went boldly on with the intention of taking a yard. They certainly did expect to carry things their own way, especially if Mr. Tilden could be elected, which appeared very likely at the time. Though really done by means of the shot-gun in several Southern States, it was still pretended that those States had been carried for Tilden and the Democrats, which was a most unblushing falsehood on the very face of it, for although returning officers came up as bold as rats from those very States that had gone Democratic by the aid of the shot-gun, and put in their claims, every child in the land, both North and South, knew where the truth lay. A long wrangle followed over the counting of the electoral votes, and as several Southern States had been carried unlawfully, they were flung out, and General Rutherford B. Hayes was declared duly elected President of the United States, and took his seat on the Fourth of March, 1877. Now arose a wild cry about injustice from all the Democrats of the land that what they called "a great steal" had been done. The rebel South (that cared for no rights but the right of their murderous shot-guns) was exasperated to the last degree. In fact they were ready to fight for what they considered their rights, that is the right to do as they pleased. They had hoped that with the restoration of the Democratic government at that time they would be able to collect their rebel war claims of the National Treasury at Washington, and even get the price of their lost slaves from the same source. They considered that they had a perfect right to all such claims, and that the very rebel soldiers wounded in the war ought to receive pensions the same as those who fought against them for the Union and for freedom. When colored girls called upon those old rebel ladies of Secessia at this time, asking for employment, those female rebels replied, "Oh, we will hire you from your masters or mistresses," thus clearly indicating that they fully expected the restoration of slavery itself!