for this break was the alleged violation of the original agreement by the agents of Napoleon III.

MAXIMILIAN

By the summer of 1863 French troops, heavily reinforced, occupied Mexico City. Then the French summoned a carefully picked convention of prominent clericals, which announced that Mexico desired a monarchy, with a Catholic emperor for a sovereign. An aspirant for the post was found in Maximilian of Austria, the brother of Francis Joseph. The Mexican people were not consulted as to their preferences in the matter, but they rarely had been in previous overturns. Hitherto one Mexican faction after another had fought its way into possession of the government, regardless of the popular will. These transitory governments had been interested primarily in getting hold of the public treasury, with the hope of borrowing on Mexican credit. Maximilian was installed by a faction, as his predecessors had been, but in this particular case the faction derived its sole strength from Napoleon III.

The scheming adventurer based all his hopes for the success of his Hapsburg puppet on the ultimate victory of the Confederates in the American war. Napoleon knew that the United States could risk no opposition at the time, and if the war came out as he hoped, his experiment might be profitable. Seward refused to recognize the new "empire," and warned Napoleon that he might be storing up trouble for himself.

Maximilian first appeared on the Mexican stage in the rôle of playemperor in 1864, and the presence of 35,000 French troops inspired fear, if not respect. Juarez in the meantime kept up a constant guerilla fighting, although he was unable to cause any serious disturbance.

At the close of the American war Seward prepared to force Napoleon and his tool out of Mexico, and no diplomat ever held more strategic positions from which to maneuver. There was the federal army of a million veterans, amply able to annihilate any force that Napoleon could possibly send across the Atlantic. Furthermore, Seward knew that Napoleon had bungled his European policy in the most ridiculous fashion. The French had been watching Prussia with ill-concealed alarm, and when Bismarck prepared to move against Austria in 1866, Napoleon needed to be on his guard; it might

be his turn next. Seward informed Napoleon that the French troops could no longer be tolerated in Mexico. The Emperor agreed to take them out, if the United States would recognize Maximilian. Seward refused. Napoleon then, in 1866, agreed to withdraw them all by the following year, and he did so. When Francis Joseph hinted at Austrian support for his brother, Seward silenced him by a plain threat of war.

When the French troops left, Maximilian might have saved his life by going with them, but he felt that he owed something to his associates and supporters. His decision to remain put him at the mercy of Juarez, and on June 19, 1867, he was shot.

This attempt to establish a French protectorate over Mexico was the first definite challenge to the Monroe Doctrine which the United States had been called upon to face. The episode attracted widespread attention, and protests against the project were registered in newspapers, party platforms, and in congressional resolutions. Fortunately the test happened to come at a time when the United States was able, if necessary, to resort to vigorous action, and when European complications compelled Napoleon III to display more common sense than usual in his foreign policy. Because of the seriousness of the principle at stake, the country was justified in its feeling of elation at Seward's victory, even though Napoleon III as an antagonist was too contemptible for consideration. For once at least the prospect of a renewal of European control over Latin America had been decisively ruined.

CHAPTER XLVII

RECONSTRUCTION

If the defeat of the Confederate armies had been the only task which the attempt at secession had brought upon the Union, the country might well have considered its troubles on that score at an end in 1865. But the war created more problems than it settled. At first the North had looked upon it as necessary in order to preserve the Union; slavery was to be left untouched, at least in the states. But with the adoption of the policy of freeing the slaves, not only the whole purpose of the war, but the whole problem of reconstruction afterward, was profoundly altered. The war had prevented the establishment of the Confederacy as a going concern; whether it saved the Union or not is an open question. Because of the tremendous increase in federal power, at the expense of the states, it appeared to many that a new union had been created, based upon a very different principle.

The slaves were free; and their freedom thrust upon the country the almost unsolvable problem of the negro. The government after the war had to deal, not only with the relatively simple task of restoring the connection between the Southern states and the central government, but with the infinitely harder one of working out a satisfactory arrangement under which whites and blacks could live side. by side with a reasonable degree of satisfaction. At the present time that ideal is as far from realization as it was in 1865.

RECONSTRUCTION IN THE NORTH

For the Northern states reconstruction was a simple matter. The state governments had been only slightly affected by the great struggle so it was easy for them to resume their normal course. Their economic life had been changed for the better, if the widespread prosperity may be taken as a criterion, so it was easy for business to go on as usual when the contest came to an end. Even the task of demobilizing the great army of a million men was carried through easily and comfortably, by December 1865, with no apparent dis

CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH

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location of industry. In sections where a military rêgime had temporarily superseded civil authority, it was not hard to reestablish the ordinary machinery of peace. As for the financial problem, that involved a drastic decrease both in taxation and in expenditure, a process which the ordinary tax-payer would find distinctly pleasing. All this was relatively simple, calling for the exercise of no extraordinary powers of statesmanship.

In the border states, where the war had divided families, and where the federal government had stepped in with drastic regulations, the task was more difficult. There was more to be done in restoring civil authority, and in removing military rule. And the border states, like the South, had the serious problem of the freedmen.

CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH

The situation in the South might well have seemed hopeless, both to the people in the defeated section, and to the federal government. When the war came to an end the former Confederacy was in chaos. Everywhere demoralization, confusion, and destruction seemed to abound. The war had lasted four years, with the greater part of the fighting in the South, bringing terrific waste and loss. The whole political, social, and economic system had collapsed; the very fabric of Southern civilization seemed to be torn into shreds. There was no organized government, because when the Confederacy went to pieces, the states fell at the same time. The only functions of government and administration that were carried on at all were those in charge of federal troops. Property had been destroyed on every hand: farm buildings, shops, railroads-both track and rolling stock. The labor system to which the South was accustomed had disappeared. Most of the comparatively meager supply of accumulated capital in the South had been sunk in worthless paper currency and equally valueless bonds. The two or three billion dollars invested in slaves of course was charged off with the advent of emancipation. For a number of reasons the South found it practically impossible to begin farming immediately after the close of the war. Even where the freedmen remained on the plantations, there was a general deficiency of farm tools, which had worn out during the war, a shortage of stock, even an inadequate supply of seeds for planting. Moreover the war ended just after the season for ploughing had passed for a large part of the South.

It was equally difficult to renew commercial activities. The continuance of various war-time regulations and restrictions would have hampered distribution even though transportation could have been secured. The federal government imposed a revenue tax of twothirds of a cent a pound on cotton, and that served to hamper sales.

Even ordinary housekeeping had been rendered difficult by the gradual disappearance of countless little necessities, which could not be replaced as long as the war lasted. Whitelaw Reid, the New York journalist, visited sections of the South just after the close of the war, and some of his accounts reveal the difficulties under which nearly everyone labored.

"Everything has been mended, and generally in the rudest style. Windowglass has given way to thin boards, and these are in use in railway coaches and in the cities. Furniture is marred and broken, and none has been replaced for four years. Dishes are cemented in various styles, and half the pitchers have tin handles. A complete set of crockery is never seen, and in very few families is there enough to set a table . . . a set of forks with whole tines is a curiosity. Clocks and watches have nearly all stopped. . . . Hair brushes and tooth brushes have all worn out; combs are broken and not yet replaced; pins, needles, and thread, and a thousand such articles, which seem indispensable to housekeeping, are very scarce. Even in weaving on the looms, corn-cobs have been substituted for spindles. Few have pocket knives. In fact, everything that has heretofore been an article of sale at the South is wanting now. At the tables of those who were once esteemed luxurious providers, you will find neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor spices of any kind. Even candles, in some cases, have been replaced by a cup of grease, in which a piece of cloth has been plunged for a wick. The problem which, the South had to solve has been, not how to be comfortable during the War, but how to live at all."

This widespread confusion brought forth the main outlines of the problem of reconstruction. From the Southern point of view, the primary considerations were social and economic. Let the negroes be put to work, and the farms brought under cultivation; other matters could wait. To the North, less familiar with the completeness of the Southern collapse, the greatest issue seemed to be constitutional and political. What was the status of the eleven states which comprised the Confederacy? If they were out of the Union, they needed to be brought back; if they were still in, their rank and