As I have indicated at the close of the last chapter, we all got home to Buffalo in perfect safety, and settled down once more to the duties of life. In the meantime we continued to watch the course of reconstruction in the South, which was run by the Republicans with but very few exceptions. We all seemed to think that things had settled down all right in those States. White and colored Republicans were mixed up pretty fairly in the Governments, and in all the different departments. There were about a dozen colored Congressmen at Washington, and numbers were also employed abroad in the consular and diplomatic service of the United States. All things appeared to have settled down in quietness and peace, but it was only to lull that which comes before the tempest, for the elements in Secessia were only awaiting a favorable opportunity to strike their favorable blow. Up to the year 1872 (as I still remember well) this entire nation seemed to be running a course of unprecedented and joyful prosperity. Everybody was working, there seemed to be plenty of money in the country, and glorious good times, and immediately prospective wealth were the order of the day everywhere. Alas, alas! It was nothing but the inflation of a big balloon. In 1873 came a universal crash, and the balloon collapsed entirely! There was nothing but consternation over the whole nation, and the Northern States ceased for a time to keep their watchful eyes upon the reconstruction of the South, in order to attend to the dreadful troubles at home, caused by the complete collapse in trade. This was the opportunity for which the late open rebels had been waiting. They determined at once to take advantage of the sudden panic. The Ku-Klux-Klan now came to the front (of whom I have made mention before). They seized the shot-gun, and wrote on their banners, "We must carry these States peaceably if we can; forcibly, if we must." Their first efforts were directed against the white Republican leaders, who melted away like new fallen snow before a warm sun. Their next effort was directed against the most intelligent and influential colored leaders, to whom they denied employment in almost every possible case. In a short time there were not many Republican leaders left, either white or colored, and the rank and file of the party could not then do much. Congress passed next an act empowering President Grant to use the army to suppress their domestic violence, and prevent bloodshed; also to protect colored voters in the constitutional exercise of the rights conferred upon them by the Fifteenth Amendment. But the South were up on their feet again, and offered the most determined opposition to the right and proper use of the national army. Like a high-strung, violent termagant, the lately-defeated rebels now clamored for the ruling of their own States in their own way, to the complete exclusion of the lawful rights of all others. In her anxiety and desperation to have her