Excerpt from History of the United States, Vol. 7: From the Compromise of Restoration of Home Rule, at the South in 1877 Had the presidential contest been close, a charge made by the New York Sun, during the heat of it, might have turned the scale against Grant. It was alleged that in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad through the operations of a construction ring, Oakes Ames, the leading spirit of those thus associated had, in order to ensure the performance of certain actions for their bene fit, distributed in bribes to members of Congress thirty thousand shares of Credit Mobilier [the construction company] worth nine millions of dollars. Fifteen 1 were named as having received the stock the vice-president, the Secretary of the Treasury, two senators, two ex senators, the Speaker and six other members of the House, besides one ex-representative and one no longer living. Of these Blaine, Dawes, Henry Wilson, Colfax and Garfield explicitly denied the charge and, although the Greeley speakers and journals made the most of it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.