Settlers poured into the plains beyond the Mississippi and the valleys of the Far West; new industries sprang up; unsuspected mineral wealth was discovered; railroads were built.

Not only bankers but taxpaying voters took an interest in the financial readjustments of the time.

Many thousand people followed the discussions over the funding and refunding of the national debt, the retirement of the greenbacks, and the proposed lowering of tariff duties.

Yet the Black Friday episode of 1869, when Jay Gould and James Fisk cornered the visible supply of gold, and the panic of 1873 were indications of unsound financial conditions.
These new developments and the new domestic problems which they involved all tended to divert public thought from the old political issues arising out of the war.

Foreign relations, too, began to take on a new interest.