The new administration had been in power only a short while before it became apparent to southern Republicans that they had very little to expect from this administration. It was generally understood that a southern man would be made Postmaster General in the new cabinet, but it was assumed, of course, by those, at least, who were not fully informed about the secret deals and bargains that had been entered into as a condition precedent to a peaceable inauguration of the new administration,--that he would be a Republican. Senator Alcorn, of my own State, Mississippi, who had just retired from the Senate, had an ambition to occupy that position. I was one to whom that fact was made known. I did not hesitate to use what little influence I had to have that ambition gratified. I was so earnest and persistent in pressing his claims and merits upon those who were known to be close to the appointing power, that I succeeded in finding out definitely and authoritatively the name of the man that had been agreed upon and would, no doubt, be appointed to that position. Ex-Senator Key, a Democrat from Tennessee, was the man. When I informed Senator Alcorn of that fact the manifestation of surprise, disappointment, and disgust with which he received it can better be imagined than described. This was not due so much to the fact that some other one than himself had been selected, but to the fact that the fortunate man was a Southern Democrat. For the first time the Senator became convinced that southern Republicans had been made the subjects of barter and trade in the shuffle for the Presidency, and that the sacrifice of southern Republicans was the price that had to be paid for the peaceable inauguration of Mr. Hayes. This, in Senator Alcorn's opinion, meant that the Republican party in the reconstructed States of the South was a thing of the past. There was no hope for it in the future. "It would have been far better," said the Senator, "not only for the Republican party at the South but for the country at large, to have allowed the Democrats to inaugurate Tilden, and to have taken charge of the Government, than to have purchased Republican victory at such a fearful cost. What inducement can a southern white man now have for becoming a Republican? Under the present state of things he will be hated at home, and despised abroad. He will be rejected by his old friends and associates, and discountenanced by his new ones. He will incur the odium, and merit the displeasure and censure of his former friends, associates, and companions with no compensating advantages for the sacrifices thus made."