three weeks later, prescribing, for voters in the States lately in
rebellion, what was known as the "ironclad oath," which excluded from
the franchise not only all who had borne arms against the United States,
but all who, having ever held any office for which the taking an oath of
allegiance to the United States was a qualification, had afterwards ever
given "aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." This practically
disfranchised all the white men of the South over twenty-five years old.

On this legislation there grew up, as all the world now knows, what was
called the "carpet-bag" _regime_. Swarms of Northern adventurers went
down to the Southern States, organized the ignorant negro voters,
constructed State constitutions to suit themselves, got themselves
elected to all the chief offices, plundered the State treasuries,
contracted huge State debts, and stole the proceeds in connivance with
legislatures composed mainly of negroes, of whom the most intelligent
and instructed had been barbers and hotel-waiters. In some of the
States, such as South Carolina and Mississippi, in which the negro
population were in the majority, the government became a mere
caricature. I was in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, in 1872,
during the session of the legislature, when you could obtain the passage
of almost any measure you pleased by a small payment--at that time seven
hundred dollars--to an old negro preacher who controlled the coloured
majority. Under the pretence of fitting up committee-rooms, the private
lodging-rooms at the boarding-houses of the negro members, in many
instances, were extravagantly furnished with Wilton and Brussels
carpets, mirrors, and sofas. A thousand dollars were expended for two
hundred elegant imported china spittoons. There were only one hundred
and twenty-three members in the House of Representatives, but the
residue were, perhaps, transferred to the private chambers of the
legislators.