steps were taken toward the reform of the civil service by a bill authorizing the President to appoint a board of Civil Service Commissioners to provide for the appointment of applicants for minor offices on the basis of an examination.
During General Grant's first administration a new party arose as the result of a reaction against the extreme centralization of power in the Federal Government due to the exigencies of war. This party was known as the Liberal Republican Party, and numbered among its adherents some of the most prominent names in the old Republican Party, such as Horace Greeley (q.v.), Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, and Carl Schurz. This party nominated, in 1872, Horace Greeley, of New York, for President, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, for Vice-President, on a platform deprecating any further interference by the Government in the local affairs of the South. (See Liberal Republican Party; Republican Party.) This ticket was ratified by the convention of the Democratic Party held in the same year. The Republicans renominated General Grant, with Henry Wilson (q.v.), of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. The Republican ticket received 286 electoral votes, against 66 scattering, Greeley having died before the Electoral College met. Of the popular votes Grant received 3,597,132, Greeley 2,834,125. In this election appeared for the first time the Prohibition Party and a Labor Reform Party, the latter being an expression of a significant movement among workingmen which began during this administration, and led in 1869 to the first attempt in the United States to organize on a permanent basis all kinds of manual labor. The votes of Louisiana and Arkansas and three votes from Georgia were not counted.
A serious difficulty with Spain arose because of the seizure on October 31, 1872, by the Spanish steamer Tornado of the Virginius, a filibustering vessel flying the American flag, and the execution of part of her crew. See Virginius Massacre.
In 1873-74 the party known as ‘Grangers’ or ‘Patrons of Husbandry’ (see Grange) rose into some prominence; an act for the resumption in 1879 of specie payment was passed in January, 1875; and an extensive ‘Whisky Ring’ involving a corrupt association among distillers and Federal officers to defraud the Government of the tax on liquors was exposed in the same year. (See Whisky Ring.) A new coinage act, since denounced by advocates of free silver as the ‘crime of 1873,’ was passed providing for the coinage of gold and of fractional silver currency; an act known as the ‘salary grab’ was passed in 1873; and much local disorder occurred in the Southern States between the so-called ‘carpetbag’ governments and the white citizens. Grant interfering in what many considered a harsh and arbitrary manner. During Grant's second administration occurred the disastrous financial panic of 1873. A movement for the inflation of the paper currency was set on foot, and was checked by President Grant through his veto of the so-called Inflation Bill, which had been passed by Congress. This administration was disturbed by wars with the Modocs and Sioux, the latter of whom overwhelmed General Custer's command in 1876. (See Custer, George A.) In Philadelphia, between May and November, 1876, was held a mammoth exposition to commemorate the centennial of American independence. See Centennial Exhibition.
With Grant's administration of affairs much dissatisfaction was felt throughout the country, owing to corruption on the part of high Government officials. Before the close of his first term there were many signs of reaction against Republican rule, and the organization of the Liberal Republican Party showed the disaffection of a considerable element in the Republican Party itself. By the close of his second term a well-defined and powerful opposition had arisen, based primarily on the President's apparent severity toward the South; on legislative scandals, such as the Crédit Mobilier affair and the ‘salary grab’ scandal in Congress; the Whisky Ring scandal and the impeachment for corruption in distributing patronage of Belknap, Secretary of War, who resigned rather than submit to a trial; and on alleged general administrative demoralization, caused in part at least by the President's appointment, upon the advice of political leaders, of a number of unfit officials. Further discontent was caused by the consequences of the disastrous panic of 1873, for which, as was inevitable, the Administration was held by many in a measure accountable. Many ‘War Democrats,’ moreover, who had lent their support to the Republican Party when the prosecution of the war was the all-absorbing issue, now began to return to their old party affiliations, and to emphasize issues different from those immediately involved in the Republican war policy.
Colorado was admitted as a State, August 1, 1876. In 1876 the Republican candidates were Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, and William A. Wheeler, of New York; the Democratic candidates were Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. On the face of the returns, Tilden and Hendricks seemed to have 184 electoral votes, to 172 for Hayes and Wheeler, with the votes of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and one vote of Oregon in doubt. Charges were made of fraudulent voting in several States; party feeling ran so high as to suggest the possibility of acts of violence to secure control of the Government; and all the attendant circumstances made the struggle one of the most momentous since the foundation of the Government. Hayes and Wheeler were finally declared elected by an Electoral Commission chosen from both Houses of Congress and from the Supreme Court of the United States, whose decision was accepted by all concerned as final and irrevocable. (See Electoral Commission.) As thus finally decided 185 electoral votes were given to Hayes and Wheeler and 184 votes to Tilden and Hendricks.
XXIII. Administration of Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881). Cabinet.—Secretary of State, William M. Evarts, New York, March 12, 1877. Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman, Ohio, March 8, 1877. Secretary of War, George W. McCrary, Iowa, March 12, 1877; Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota, December 12, 1879. Secretary of the Navy, Richard W.Thompson, Indiana, March 12, 1877; Nathan Goff, Jr., West Virginia, January 6, 1881. Secretary of the Interior,
