These men had led in the contest against the scalawags and the carpetbaggers and many had suffered thereby.

Now they came into their own.

In some States the organization of voters was almost military.
During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction governments the task of consolidating the white South was measurably achieved.

As some one flippantly put the case, there came to be in many sections "two kinds of people--Democrats and negroes." It was the general feeling on the part of the whites that to fail to vote was shameful, to scratch a ticket was a crime, and to attempt to organize the negroes was treason to one's race.

The "Confederate brigadier" sounded the rallying cry at every election, and a military record came to be almost a requisite for political preferment.