And, again, when by the Reconstruction Acts and the restoration of martial law in the South under them, Congress turned the tables upon the Southern white people, and placed the ignorant barbarians in political control of them, and made every open attempt to resist this control a penal offence, it was also rather natural, though not praiseworthy, that men should have bound themselves together by secret oaths to do anything and everything in their power to defeat this blunder-crime against civilization. Whether natural or not, it always happens when such attempts are made, and it is always to be expected. [Sidenote: The opportunity for political adventurers.] But to return to the order of the narrative. The formation of the Union Leagues in 1867 and 1868 enabled {253} the negroes to vote in these years for delegates to the constitutional conventions required under the Reconstruction Acts, and to vote upon the ratification of the constitutions framed by them, and to participate in the election for the "State" officers and legislative members under those constitutions, with the help and under the direction of these organizations, and to operate the newly established "State" governments under the same direction. This opened the way for the "carpet-bag" governments in the Southern "States," whose deeds may be now briefly narrated. [Sidenote: Periods in the history of negro rule.] The landing places in this story may be placed at the years 1872, 1874, and 1876. The year 1872 is the date of the national revolt against the policy of the Washington government in the affairs of the reconstructed "States." The year 1874 is the date when some of the reconstructed "States" succeeded in overthrowing carpet-bag and negro rule, and the Democrats succeeded in electing a majority of members in the lower House of Congress. And the year 1876 is the date of the complete overthrow of that rule and the complete establishment of the "solid South" under white Democratic government. [Sidenote: The Act for the enforcement of the new Amendments.]