The murder of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth removed the only man who could have done justice to the South and controlled the passions of the North. Lincoln was signally, providentially adapted to be the nation's guide in the struggle which, under his leadership, was brought to a successful conclusion. For the equally difficult task of reconstruction he was likewise admirably qualified, and his death was followed by a civil chaos almost as deplorable as armed disunion. From that chaos the American people gradually emerged by force of their native character and their fundamental sense of justice and of right. The South, for some years subjected to the rule of camp-followers and freedmen, gradually recovered from the devastation of war, and superior intelligence came to the top, as it always will eventually. The Southern people learned that they had other resources besides cotton, and they began to emulate the North in the development of manufactures and mines. The old slave-owning aristocracy in the South has disappeared, but the "poor whites" have also almost disappeared, and the average of comfort in that section is greater than at any period in American history. The negroes complain, and with too much cause, of political oppression and exclusion from the suffrage, but they seem to be on good terms with their "oppressors," and on the principle of the old Spanish proverb that "he is my friend who brings grist to my mill," the Southern black has no better friend than the Southern white. Thirty Years of Peace. CHAPTER XXXVII. Reconstruction in the South--The Congress and the President--Liberal Republican Movement--Nomination, Defeat and Death of Greeley--Troops Withdrawn by President Hayes--Foreign Policy of the Past Thirty Years-- French Ordered from Mexico--Last Days of Maximilian--Russian-America Bought--The Geneva Arbitration--Alabama Claims Paid--The Northwest Boundary--The Fisheries--Spain and the Virginius--The Custer Massacre --United States of Brazil Established--President Harrison and Chile --Venezuela--American Prestige in South America--Hawaii--Behring Sea--Garfield, the Martyr of Civil Service Reform--Labor Troubles-- Railway Riots of 1877 and 1894--Great Calamities--The Chicago Fire, Boston Fire, Charleston Earthquake, Johnstown Flood.