Identifier: historyofamerica03mcla (find matches)
Title: A history of the American nation
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham, 1861- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Chicago, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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as at this time almost entirely without political expe-rience and without training in civil duties. He was a graduate of WestPoint, and had served with distinction in the Mexican War. At the out-break of the rebellion he occupied a humble position as a private citizen.His success as a general gave him world-wide reputation, and he was hailedby the enthusiastic North as the savior of his country. He was a man ofstrict, unswerving honesty, and of pure motives. He was direct and inci-sive in his methods of thought and action. It may be doubted whether histalents, that so well fitted him for conducting a great aggressive war, wereequally well adapted to the no less difficult tasks of peace. Downrightand upright himself, he was not always successful in winning and holdingthe best men of his party by giving them frank confidence; nor did he havegreat insight into the weaknesses of the men about him. These character-istics account, in part, for some of the diflSculties of his administration.
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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 445 imagine greater or more troublesome tasks than those confront-ing the American Government in these years. The peoplewere undoubtedly showing a remarkable capacitythetime^^ for self-government and self-restraint. They sub-mitted quietly to the payment of enormous taxes;they were honestly and without ostentation bent upon payingthe great war debt with all reasonable speed. A million soldierswho had been quietly absorbed into the peaceful communityiseemed to have forgotten military arts or ambition. And yetthe period was full of difficulties. There were grave interna-tional questions to be settled, and internal problems that calledfor wise solution. Not till about 1871 were all the SouthernStates in possession of their full constitutional rights, with theright to send senators and representatives to Congress, and evenw^hen politically reconstructed they were of course internallystill in some confusion. Moreover, the North continued tokeep troops in

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