Liberal Republicans had set off down the path that would reconcile them with old enemies in the South. They turned denunciations of corruption into denunciations of democracy, whose particular targets were the newly enfranchised. The denunciations of Tammany and immigrant voters echoed in the South with denunciations of carpetbaggers and black voters, which led liberals to have a new sympathy with Southern elites. The “best men,” North and South, believed that expanding the franchise was a mistake. It inevitably yielded corruption. Here were the additions to the core liberal ideology that
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