[1] The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death. [2] In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage he set himself to the task of dictating his _Memoirs_, or more often penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, in order that he might repay his debts with the proceeds. [3] There was also a technical question concerning one elector in Oregon, which was easily settled. CHAPTER III ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW ERA With the close of Grant's administration, the main immediate problems connected with political reconstruction came to an end. During the war, however, important economic and social developments had been taking place throughout the United States which were destined to take on greater and greater significance. The reconstruction problem looked backward to the war; the new developments looked forward to a new America. Reconstruction affected fewer and fewer people as time went on; the later changes ultimately transformed the daily life of every individual in the nation. Not only did they determine the means by which he earned his livelihood, but the comforts which he enjoyed, the conditions of rural or urban life which surrounded him, the ease with which he visited other portions of the country or obtained information concerning them, the number and variety of the foreign products that could be brought to him, the political problems upon which he thought and voted, and the attitude of the government toward his class in society. Most of these changes were distinguishable during the twenty-five years following the war and could be stated in brief and definite terms. From the standpoint of population, the growth of the country before 1890, although not so rapid as it had been before the war, was both constant and important. Between 1870 and 1890 the numbers of people increased from nearly thirty-nine millions to nearly sixty-three millions, the rate each decade being not far from twenty-five per cent. Six states added more than a million each to their population--New York and Pennsylvania in the Northeast; Ohio, Illinois and Kansas in the Middle West; and Texas in the South. No fewer than seventeen others expanded by half a million or more--ten of the seventeen being in the valley drained by the Mississippi River system.