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The Depression had set in surely by 1874, deeply,
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and certainly by the fall elections of 1874.
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This became the great takeover of Congress by the Democratic Party,
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so under duress since the Civil War,
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since they had been the party, in many ways,
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that had not favored the war for the Union
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or the war to free the slaves.
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And its coverage in the press after this tells it all.
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The Buffalo Advertiser says, in the wake of it,
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its headline: "Republican Party Struck by Lightening," it said.
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Or another newspaper, the Louisville Courier Journal,
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a Democratic paper, said, headline: