studies in American History 
315 
seats in the House.^'^ The Democrats elected a majority of 
the members of the General Assembly and all the state of- 
ficers. 
Sufficient time had now elapsed for the effects of the con- 
gressional policy of reconstruction to become fully evident. 
Never was there a more severe arraignment of the results of 
congressional reconstruction than that of Daniel W. Voorhees, 
of Terre Haute, in a speech entitled the “Plunder of Eleven 
States’’, delivered in the House of Representatives, March 23, 
1872. The corruption and waste of the carpet-bag govern- 
ments were portrayed in blackest terms. One by one the roll 
of states was called and their miseries bared. “Sir”, declared 
the “Tall Sycamore of the Wabash” : 
I challenge the darkest annals of the human race for a parallel to 
the robberies which have been perpetrated on eleven American states. 
Ireland has been made to enrich many a lawless lord lieutenant sent over 
by England to govern that beautiful but unhappy island. The stories 
of her wrongs and pillage have been said and sung in every hamlet 
in the civilized world; yet her contributions to the cause of a wicked 
government have been mere pittances compared to what the South has 
been compelled to make.'*^ 
Not only Democrats in the heat of party strife protested 
against such conditions, but among Republicans there was a 
growing spirit of revolt. Dissatisfaction with Grant and the 
desire for a more enlightened southern policy reached its cli- 
max in the organization of the Liberal Republican party at 
the Cincinnati convention of Liberals meeting May 1, 1872. 
Every district in Indiana was represented at the convention. 
The most prominent Indiana Republican in attendance at Cin- 
cinnati was the one-time radical, George W. Julian, who pre- 
sided over the convention a portion of the time and was the 
choice of many of the delegates for vice-president.^® The 
platform adopted contained a plank demanding the immediate 
and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account 
of the Rebellion.^® 
The state Democratic platform indorsed the Liberal Repub- 
lican principles of the Cincinnati convention. Political rights 
and franchises recently acquired should remain undisturbed. 
All political rights and franchises which had been lost “must 
43 Tribune Almanac for 1871, 47. 
44 Voorhees (ed.), Speeches of Daniel W. Voorhees, 382-414. 
45 Grace Julian Clarke, George W. Julian (Indianapolis, 1923), 348, 349. 
46 Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, 1788-1897 (Boston, 1898), 343. 
