Evidence discovered later proved that the Democratic managers had tried to buy up the necessary elector. Telegrams were sent out, in cipher, many of them from Tilden's own residence, and signed by his nephew, in connection with this work. On December 2, Colonel Pelton, Tilden's nephew, got word that he could have the Florida electors for two hundred thousand dollars, but he refused to pay so much and the chance was lost.

The electoral colleges met on December 6. Congress had assembled two days before. According to the Constitution, the electors send their votes to the President of the Senate, who opens them in the presence of the two houses of Congress, and then the votes are counted. But the Constitution does not say who shall count the votes. In this particular case, if the Senate counted them, the Republicans would win, because the Senate was Republican. The Democrats had a majority in the House.

THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION

After a good deal of angry discussion, Congress finally agreed to a compromise plan, by which an Electoral Commission should be created, to pass on all returns concerning which the two houses could not agree. This commission was to consist of five Senators, five Representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court. A bill for this purpose was passed and signed. The Senate named two Democrats and three Republicans, the House three Democrats and two Republicans. Four of the Supreme Court justices were named in the law, two of each party. These four were to appoint the fifth, with the understanding that David Davis of Illinois should be the victim. But to his great relief the Illinois legislature, with a Democratic majority, elected him to the United States Senate, so he refused to serve. All the other judges were Republican, so the Commission was composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats.

On February 1, 1877, Congress settled down to the exciting task of counting the votes. There were no difficulties about the returns from the first few states, but when those from Florida were reached, the two houses failed to agree, and according to law they went to the Commission. On February 7, the Commission voted, eight to seven, not to go back of the returns, and because the Republican returns from Florida were duly authenticated by the proper officials, the Commission took them at their face value. As a result, the Repub

licans got Florida. On February 16, the Commission, by a vote of eight to seven, accepted the Republican returns from Louisiana. The Oregon case was decided next, in the same way.

For a time the Democrats were tempted to start a filibuster, and so delay the count until March 4, when the life of that Congress would expire. But certain influential Republican leaders, who happened to know what Hayes would do if elected, promised the Democrats that if the count were completed, Hayes would withdraw the troops from the three states. That would make them solidly Democratic for the next election. With this understanding the count went on, and South Carolina went to the Republicans by the same strict party vote of eight to seven. At four o'clock in the morning, March 2, the count was completed, and Hayes was elected with one hundred eighty-five votes.

If all the electoral votes in dispute could have been thrown out, Tilden would have been elected; but there were Constitutional difficulties which made that impossible. Since they had to be counted, Tilden was as much entitled to all of them as Hayes, and his claim to one of them was certainly better than the Republican claim to them all. In the three southern states the methods resorted to by both sides were so bad that there is no way of deciding the controversy on its merits, for it had no merits. Every argument which justified the acceptance of the Republican votes would have applied equally well to the acceptance of the Democratic returns, except one. The corrupt Republicans had the good fortune to control the state returning boards, while the corrupt Democrats were not so lucky; federal troops had kept them out.

It is not surprising that the Democrats should have accused the Republicans of theft, and they went to work to compile evidence for use in future campaigns. They made out a very damaging case, but again chance wrecked Democratic hopes. During the contest hundreds of cipher telegrams passed between the Democratic headquarters and various local henchmen. Most of these in some way came into the possession of the New York Tribune. For a time nobody could find the key to the code, but at last two ingenious reporters succeeded in working it out. These cipher dispatches revealed so much fraud, and willingness to resort to fraud, among the Democrats that the edge was taken off the weapons which they had prepared to use against the Republicans. Dishonors were even.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE FAR WEST AND THE NEW SOUTH

An eminent American historian has said that the history of the American people is best revealed in their politics. That may be, but unfortunately there have been times when those politics have resembled, not the essence, but the dregs, of our national experience. They certainly had a most unsavory appearance and odor during the two decades immediately following the Civil War. For periods of that sort, it is both pleasant and reassuring to find types of activity outside the political realm in which American character is more properly illustrated. Very likely, too, it was the overwhelming pressure of these other interests which turned the attention of the people away from the politicians, so that they were left to wallow in their corruption without serious interference. During this same period American "captains of industry" were constructing the great industrial and commercial organization which has for evil or for good so completely transformed American life. In any case its very bigness compels wonder, if not admiration. At the same time financiers and railroad builders were completing the links in a national transportation system, thus tying the parts of the country much more closely together. And while all this was going on, the people themselves were filling up the far West, thereby completing the story of expansion which started with the first offshoots from Jamestown, Plymouth, and Boston.

THE LAST FRONTIER

In 1865 the settled country reached a line running along the western borders of Minnesota and Iowa, through central Nebraska, and Kansas, down the western boundary of Arkansas, and through the middle of Texas. Beyond this frontier line was a block of open country a thousand miles east and west, and another thousand north and south. In it there were three centers of settlement: Utah, California, and Oregon, with a total population of perhaps a million and a half. Broad stretches were entirely uninhabited, while in others there were more or less uncivilized Indian tribes. By 1890 this same region was

so nearly settled that the census map makers could not draw a frontier line, and the days of the "wild west were practically over. Between 1864 and 1890 seven new states were admitted to the Union: Nevada in 1864, Colorado in 1876, Montana, South and North Dakota in 1889, Idaho and Wyoming in 1890. Utah, which would

have been admitted before had it not been for the practice of polygamy by the Mormon Church, was admitted in 1896. New Mexico were not admitted until 1912.

Arizona and

The first pioneers in this new West were the miners. The big rush to Nevada and Colorado had begun in 1859, and that to the Black Hills in Dakota came shortly after. Prospectors were actively at work in Arizona in 1863, and in Idaho and Montana, by 1869. These early mining camps had a picturesque population, immortalized in the pages of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Social life centered in the saloon, the gambling house, and the dance hall, while the revolver and the noose were substituted for regular judicial process.

After the miners came the cattlemen, eager to take advantage of the free grazing opportunities on the western plains. Herds were pastured without charge on the public land, all over the grass land. The annual "long drive" was one of the picturesque phases of the

life of the cattlemen. Starting from Texas in the spring, when the grass began to dry up, the cowboys drove their herds slowly northward, until they reached the Dakotas or Wyoming. In the fall they would sell some or all of their herds, either to stock new ranches, or for beef, and then go back to start over again. The cowboys were as wild as the miners, and in some of the cattle country, between 1876 and 1886, vigilance committees shot and hanged more men than have been legally executed in any six states ever since.

Mexico a small scale war was carried on between outlaws, under the leadership of "Billy the Kid," and the ranchers.

Farmers followed the cattlemen, and as they increased in numbers the country underwent a rapid change. Settlement on the western lands was stimulated by the passage of the Homestead Act, in 1862. This enabled a pioneer to get a farm for practically nothing, provided he would clear the land and cultivate it. During the latter part of the war, and steadily thereafter, settlers by the thousand moved out into the plains. They fenced off their farms, and so put an end to the free cattle ranges-and incidentally to cheap beef.

As the farms increased in numbers, the Indians were inevitably crowded out of the better lands. The story of their dispossession is one of almost continuous warfare, lasting over a period of several years. Between 1868 and 1882 there were thousands of engagements between Indians and federal troops, and on the whole series of Indian wars after 1865, the United States spent twenty-two million dollars. The story of the wars is not a pleasant one, marked as it is by broken promises, forced removal, official dishonesty, and general injustice. But the contest was inevitable, because there was no way of restricting the movement of the Indians without war, and no possible way of checking the advance of the whites. The last outbreak, which occurred in 1890, marked the end of the Indian menace.

The destruction of the Indian power was due in general to the steady increase in the number of white settlements, and along with that, to the destruction of the buffalo herds. These animals had furnished the Indian with food, clothing, bowstrings, and skins for his tepees. Originally the buffalo had ranged over the whole interior of the country, from the western slopes of the Alleghenies to the Rockies. In 1770 George Washington and some friends shot five in one day in what is now West Virginia. By 1830 those east of the Mississippi had all been killed, but even after the Civil War those in