CHAPTER II 



THE RISING SPIRIT OF UNREST 



THE decade of the seventies witnessed the subsid- 

 ence, if not the solution, of a problem which had 

 vexed American history for half a century the 

 reconciliation of two incompatible social and eco- 

 nomic systems, the North and the South. It wit- 

 nessed at the same time the rise of another great 

 problem, even yet unsolved the preservation of 

 equality of opportunity, of democracy, economic as 

 well as political, in the face of the rising power and 

 influence of great accumulations and combinations 

 of wealth. Almost before the battle smoke of the 

 Civil War had rolled away, dissatisfaction with 

 prevailing conditions both political and economic 

 began to show itself. 



The close of the war naturally found the Repub- 

 lican or Union party in control throughout the 

 North. Branded with the opprobrium of having 



opposed the conduct of the war, the Democratic 



j'i 



