THE COLLAPSE OF THE INSURGENT MOVEMENT in 1880 removed
the last formidable barrier from the path of the New Departure
for a decade more and marked the beginning of a new era. The
political peace and acquiescence of the 'eighties contrasted grate-
fully with the war of the 'sixties and the revolution of the
'seventies. Energy and imagination, wearied by stale feuds and
recriminations, turned hopefully toward the glittering prizes
promised by capitalists and industrialists. The new decade
afforded no rôle for the agrarian rebel, whether a Bob Toombs
of the older generation or a Tom Watson of the new. The
career opened so brilliantly by Watson in 1880 was virtually
closed to him for the next ten years, for Watson in any other
rôle than rebel was miscast. It was during this period of mark-
ing time, however, that ideas that were perhaps the product of
opportunism and temperament took firm root in him and his
class, found nutriment in the soil of rebel tradition, and bur-
geoned into a hardy native growth. It was in this period, too,
that the economic setting was prepared for what Watson in a
moment of optimism pronounced "Not a Revolt; It Is a Revolu-
tion."

In an address before the General Assembly on November 13,
1880, the night before the senatorial election, Joseph E. Brown
frankly interpreted the issues at stake, and unconsciously enun-
ciated the dominant mood of the 'eighties. Reminding his audi-

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