Life in Washington during and after the war had made the short-comings of Democracy very evident to Whitman. The failure of President Johnson and his attempted impeachment, had been followed by drastic measures for enforcing Republican ideas in the South by all the abominable methods known to corruption and carpet-bag politicians. The year 1868 saw the election of Grant to the Presidency, and under him corruption extended in every direction. Grant's real work was finished at Appomattox,[499] and his eight years of official life added nothing to his fame. But Whitman, sharing the national regard for a simple-minded, downright soldier, heartily approved his nomination, and urged his brothers to support him. For the carpet-bag reconstruction of the South he had, of course, no sympathy. He longed for a union of hearts, and looked ardently forward to the day when the South, whom he loved so passionately, would realise again her inalienable part in the Union. Without her America was incomplete. And in the "magnet South"[500] was much that was personally dearest to Whitman's heart. The more extreme Abolitionist sentiment had combined with the exigency of party to create a position in the Southern States which was intolerable to all right feeling. The suffrage had been taken away from the rebellious whites and given instead to the negroes. It was as though the management of the household affairs should be entrusted to wholly irresponsible children. One need hardly add that it was not the negro who ruled, but the political agent who bought his vote and made a tool of him. Such a policy only exasperated the antagonism between North and South. And Whitman, though he hated slavery, saw that the negro was not ready to exercise the full rights of citizenship. When the negro vote in the capital became dominant in political elections, and the black population paraded the city in their thousands, armed and insolent, they seemed to him "like so many wild brutes let loose".[501] It was upon this question of negro-citizenship that he quarrelled with O'Connor. They had been arguing the subject, as O'Connor would insist on doing, and Walt, for the nonce, had the better of the bout. Thoughtlessly, and in the heat of the moment, he pressed his advantage too far; O'Connor lost his temper--perhaps Walt did the same--but when a moment later the older man returned to his usual good humour and held out his hand warmly to his friend, O'Connor's wrath was still hot; he was offended and refused the reconciliation. In spite of their friends the sad estrangement continued for years. * * * * * The political treatise appeared at last under the title of _Democratic Vistas_.[502] It is the outcome of Whitman's experiences and meditations upon the purpose of social and national life, especially during the last decade in Washington. In many respects it is an enlargement of portions of the first Preface.