questions to be disposed of before that point is reached, but there seems to be good reason for hope. And is not the end so desirable that every honorable effort in that direction should receive all possible encouragement?
FROM RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
I am glad to get your New Year's greeting. It has occurred to me also that on the two leading topics of the time the present difficulties may be of great service to us. As to the South I am confident in my hope that such is the fact. I do not anticipate any help from the present House. I had heard suggestions of the sort you allude to. But I look for nothing of value growing out of Southern conservative tendencies in this Congress. Whatever the caucus decides to do will be done, and the influence referred to is too small to control the large House majority. But after this session closes, if the right result is declared, I shall confidently hope that a wise and liberal policy will enable us to divide the whites, and thus take the first step to obliterate the color line. There have been no “overtures,” but an encouraging disposition is shown by letters and visitors from all parts of the South.
The Herald talk may have some foundation, but I am sure nothing will come of it. The present House will be ruled by Tilden's caucus. I send you a Redfield letter. The country must come to disregard the Democratic boasts. South Carolina and Florida were as strongly claimed as Louisiana.
TO RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
When speaking in my last letter of the independent action of Southern members of the House, I did not mean to indicate that I expected anything of the kind, for I
