African Americans constituted a majority of voters in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
In Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, they fell short of a majority.
Only in South Carolina did African Americans control the state legislature; no state elected a black governor.
Over 600 black men served in state legislatures.
Sixteen black men held seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Two black men from Mississippi served in the U.S. Senate.
African Americans considered politics a community responsibility, holding rallies and mass meetings.
Women attended these gatherings and influenced outcomes, even without the right to vote.
The New York Times reported that “the entire colored population of Richmond” attended a Republican convention in Richmond in October 1867.
Freedpeople formed mutual aid associations for education, economic advancement, and social welfare, intertwined with politics.
Southern black people built alliances with sympathetic whites.
Interracial political coalitions produced reforms:
Created the first public school systems.
Provided funds for social services.
Upgraded prisons.
Rebuilt the South’s transportation system.
State constitutions extended suffrage to poor white men and black men.
Some states allowed married women greater control over their property and liberalized the criminal justice system.
Reconstruction governments brought the South into the nineteenth century.
Economic Independence and Sharecropping
Obtaining political representation and economic independence defined freedom for African Americans.
Without government land redistribution, options were limited.
Lacking capital, most entered tenant contracts with landowners.
Sharecropping emerged as the dominant mode of agricultural production.
Sharecropping: Sharecroppers received tools and supplies from landowners for a share of the harvest.
Black and poor white people became sharecroppers.
Sharecroppers farmed plots of land and turned over a portion of the harvest to the owner.
Sharecropping benefits proved less valuable in practice.
Croppers purchased household provisions on credit from local merchants (often landlords).
Tenants faced high-interest rates and considerable debt.
Merchants devised crop lien system: tenants pledged a portion of their crop to satisfy debts.
Falling agricultural prices ensured tenants remained indebted.
Sharecropping turned into a form of virtual slavery for many.
Some black families planted gardens and raised chickens.
Sharecropping provided labor independence and allowed some to accumulate cash.
About 20% of black farmers bought their own land despite racism.
Many white small farmers (yeomen) also fell into sharecropping after the war.
Planters’ sons became lawyers, bankers, and merchants.
White elites ruled over black and poor white people, preventing unity by fanning racial prejudice.
Exodusters and Migration
Economic hardship and racial bigotry drove black people to leave the South.
Exodusters: Formerly enslaved people who migrated from the South to Kansas in 1879 seeking land and opportunity.
They pooled resources to create land companies and purchase property in Kansas.
An exodus of about 25,000 African Americans from the South occurred.
Kansas was ruled by the Republican Party and was home to John Brown.
A freedman from Louisiana wrote to the Kansas governor expressing hope due to “the sacredness of her soil washed in the blood of humanitarians for the cause of black freedom.”
Poor-quality land and unpredictable weather made farming hard.
The chance to own land and escape oppression made hardships worthwhile.
In 1880, the census counted 40,000 black people living in Kansas.
White Resistance and Reconstruction
White Southerners did not accept the legitimacy of Reconstruction.
They accused interracial governments of raising taxes and encouraging corruption.
Taxes rose because legislatures funded education and social services.
Corruption was common but not unique to Reconstruction governments.
Economic scandals were part of American life after the Civil War.
Only one rebel was executed for war crimes (Andersonville Prison commandant).
Only one high-ranking official went to prison (Jefferson Davis).
No official was forced into exile.
Most rebels regained voting rights and the ability to hold office within seven years.
Reconstruction governments had limited opportunities to transform the South.
By the end of 1870, civilian rule had returned to former Confederate states.
Republican rule did not last long in most states.
Redeemers: White, conservative Democrats who challenged and overthrew Republican rule in the South during Reconstruction.
Democratic victories came via violence, intimidation, and fraud.
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK): Formed in 1865 to enforce prewar racial norms via threats and violence against black people and white Republicans.
gun-wielding Ku Kluxers rode on horseback to terrify their victims.
In 1871, 150 African Americans were killed in Jackson County, Florida.
Many targeted individuals bought property, gained political leadership, or defied white stereotypes.
Other white supremacist organizations joined the Klan.
During the 1875 election in Mississippi, armed terrorists killed hundreds of Republicans.
Congress passed three Force Acts in 1870 and 1871:
Designed to protect black political rights and end violence.
Empowered the president to dispatch officials to supervise elections.
Barred secret organizations from using force to violate equal protection.
In 1872, Congress established a joint committee to probe Klan tactics.
Elias Hill, a freedman from South Carolina, testified about Klan violence.
The federal government prosecuted some 3,000 Klansmen, but only 600 were convicted.
As the Klan officially disbanded, other vigilante organizations arose.
Reconstruction Undone
Violence, intimidation, and fraud do not fully explain the unraveling of Reconstruction.
By the early 1870s, Northerners believed they had done enough for black Southerners and focused on other issues.
Economic problems intensified this feeling.
White America turned to memorializing the Civil War dead.
White America was united in the belief that it was time to move on.
The Retreat from Reconstruction
Most northern whites shared the racial prejudices of their southern counterparts.
Although they supported civil rights and suffrage, they believed African Americans were inferior.
They sympathized with southern complaints about black people's ability to govern.
In 1872, Liberal Republicans challenged Grant's reelection.
Financial scandals had racked the Grant administration.
Liberal Republicans nominated Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune.
They linked government corruption to Reconstruction and called for troop removal and amnesty for Confederates.
They also campaigned for civil service reform to base government employment on merit.
The Democratic Party endorsed Greeley.
Grant remained popular and “waved the bloody shirt,” reminding voters of Union soldiers.
Grant won reelection.
Attacks against Grant foreshadowed the Republican retreat on Reconstruction.
Andrew Johnson returned to the U.S. Senate in 1874 and continued to oppose federal troops in the South until his death in 1875.
In 1872, Congress removed penalties on former Confederates and permitted nearly all rebel leaders the right to vote and hold office.
In 1874, Democrats gained a House majority and prepared to remove troops from the South.
Panic of 1873: Economic depression triggered by the Northern Pacific Railroad's collapse.
Tens of thousands of unemployed workers worried more about jobs than civil rights.
Great Railway Strike: Nationwide railway worker strikes in 1877.
U.S. troops were removed from the South to contain the strikes.
The Supreme Court weakened civil rights enforcement:
Slaughterhouse cases (1873): Defined the rights entitled to African Americans under the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly.
Justices interpreted the amendment as extending greater protection to corporations than to black people.
Black people had to depend on southern state governments to protect their civil rights.
United States v. Cruikshank (1876): Narrowed the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting black people against abuses only by state officials, not private groups like the KKK.
The Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had extended “full and equal treatment” for all races in public accommodations.
The Presidential Compromise of 1876
The presidential election of 1876 officially ended Reconstruction.
Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes; the Democrats selected Samuel J. Tilden.
The outcome depended on twenty disputed electoral votes.
Tilden won 51% of the popular vote.
Reconstruction political battles in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina put the election up for grabs.
In each of these states, the outgoing Republican administration certified Hayes as the winner, while the incoming Democratic regime declared for Tilden.
Congress created a fifteen-member Joint Electoral Commission.
A majority voted to count all twenty votes for Hayes, making him president.
Southern Democrats threatened a filibuster to block certification.
The Compromise of 1877:
Democrats would support Hayes in exchange for appointing a Southerner to his cabinet.
Withdrawing the last federal troops from the South.
Endorsing construction of a transcontinental railroad through the South.
The compromise averted a crisis, increased southern influence, and ended protections for African Americans.
The Legacies of Reconstruction
Reconstruction was limited.
African Americans did not receive landownership.
Civil and political rights did not withstand efforts to deprive freedpeople of equal rights.
The Republican Party shifted its priorities.
Democrats gained power and short-circuited federal intervention.
Northern support for racial equality was limited.
Federal courts sanctioned the retreat by narrowing the interpretation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Despite this, Reconstruction transformed the country:
Slavery was abolished, and the legal basis for freedom was enshrined.
Black people exercised political and economic freedom.
Freedpeople asserted control over their lives.
Descendants would one day revive promises codified in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
African Americans transformed the nation.
The Constitution became more democratic and egalitarian.
Reconstruction established a model for expanding federal power.
Reconstruction transformed the South by modernizing state constitutions, expanding educational and social welfare systems, and unleashing potential for industrialization.