So the contest was ended. Hayes was to be President; the South, with the negro, was to be left to the whites; there would be no further military aid to carpetbag governments. In so far as the South was concerned, it was a fortunate settlement--better, indeed, than if Tilden had been inducted into office. The remnants of the reconstruction policy were surrendered by a Republican President, the troops were soon withdrawn, and the three radical States fell at once under the control of the whites. Hayes could not see in his election any encouragement to adopt a vigorous radical position, and Congress was deadlocked on party issues for fifteen years. As a result the radical Republicans had to develop other interests, and the North gradually accepted the Southern situation. Although the radical policy of reconstruction came to an end in 1877, some of its results were more lasting. The Southern States were burdened heavily with debt, much of which had been fraudulently incurred. There now followed a period of adjustment, of refunding, scaling, and repudiation, which not only injured the credit of the States but left them with enormous debts. The Democratic party under the leadership of former Confederates began its régime of strict economy, race fairness, and inelastic Jeffersonianism. There was a political rest which almost amounted to stagnation and which the leaders were unwilling to disturb by progressive measures lest a developing democracy make trouble with the settlement of 1877. The undoing of reconstruction was not entirely completed with the understanding of 1877. There remained a large but somewhat shattered Republican party in the South, with control over county and local government in many negro districts. Little by little the Democrats rooted out these last vestiges of negro control, using all the old radical methods and some improvements,¹ such as tissue ballots, the shuffling of ballot boxes, bribery, force, and redistricting, while some regions were placed entirely under executive control and were ruled by appointed commissions. With the good government which followed these changes a deadlocked Congress showed no great desire to interfere. The Supreme Court came to the aid of the Democrats with decisions in 1875, 1882, and 1883 which drew the teeth from the Enforcement Laws, and Congress in 1894 repealed what was left of these regulations. ¹ See The New South, by Holland Thompson (in The Chronicles of America).