Grant Administration and Reconstruction

The Grant Administration

Ulysses S. Grant, a celebrated figure from the Civil War, entered the presidency in 1868.
Grant's political inexperience led him to defer policy development to Congress, a move that pleased Radical Republicans but weakened his presidency.
His lack of experience eventually caused division within the Republican Party and eroded public support for Reconstruction.

During Grant's first term, the Republican-controlled Congress continued Reconstruction enforcement.
They expanded programs initiated during the Civil War to boost commerce and industry.
High tariffs, strict banking regulations, and a gold-backed currency were maintained.
Increased federal spending on railroads, ports, and the postal system occurred.
Taxes on alcohol and tobacco, dubbed "sin taxes," remained to pay off Civil War bonds.
Democrats criticized these economic policies, arguing they favored the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
Some Republicans, known as Liberal Republicans, shared these concerns.
They worried about the influence of those seeking personal gain within the Republican Party.
The Liberal Republicans attempted to block Grant's renomination for a second term.
Failing this, they nominated Horace Greeley in 1872 and promised to pardon Confederates and remove troops from the South to gain Southern support.
The Democratic Party also nominated Greeley, seeing a united front as the only way to defeat Grant.
Despite the division, Grant secured a second term.

Grant's second term was marred by scandals that damaged his administration's reputation.
The Credit Mobilier scandal involved fraudulent railroad construction contracts.
Grant's secretary of war, William Belknap, was found to have taken bribes from merchants operating at army posts and was impeached.
The "Whiskey Ring" scandal in 1875 exposed government officials and distillers in St. Louis who evaded taxes.
Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was implicated but never proven guilty.

An economic crisis began in 1873, triggered by bad railroad investments that led Jay Cooke and Company to bankruptcy.
The Panic of 1873 caused bank closures and a stock market crash.
Businesses shut down, and unemployment soared.
The scandals and economic depression harmed the Republicans politically.
Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in the 1874 midterm elections.
The newly elected Democrats launched investigations into the scandals.

The growing Democratic power in Congress made Reconstruction enforcement more challenging.
Many Northerners were tired of Reconstruction and focused on their own economic problems.

Southern Democrats aimed to regain control of state and local governments.
Southern militia groups intimidated African American and white Republican voters.
Democrats resorted to election fraud, such as ballot stuffing and bribery.
Democrats appealed to white racism to win back support from small farm owners who had previously supported Republicans.
They defined elections as a struggle between whites and African Americans.
By 1876, Democrats controlled all Southern state legislatures except those of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida.
Union troops protected African American voters in those states, keeping Republicans in power.

Due to Grant's damaged reputation, Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.
Hayes was seen as a moral man, untainted by scandal.
The Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden, a lawyer who had fought corruption in New York City.
Tilden won 184 electoral votes, one short of a majority, while Hayes won 165, leaving 20 votes in dispute.
Disputed votes came from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, due to election fraud.
Congress created a commission of 15 members to resolve the issue.
The commission, with a Republican majority, voted to give the electoral votes to Hayes.
Southern Democrats in the House joined Republicans to accept the commission's findings, giving Hayes the presidency.
The Compromise of 1877 involved a promise by Republicans to withdraw federal troops from the South.
Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in April 1877.
The remaining Republican governments in South Carolina and Louisiana collapsed.
Southern Democrats had “redeemed" the South, marking the end of Reconstruction.

President Hayes aimed to move the country beyond Reconstruction and end regional distinctions.
He sought to unite the North and South.
Southern leaders advocated for a "New South" with a strong industrial economy.
Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the phrase.

An alliance between Southern leaders and Northern financiers led to economic changes in the South.
Northern capital supported railroad construction; by 1890, there were almost 40,000 miles of railroad track.
An iron and steel industry grew around Birmingham, Alabama.
Tobacco processing became a major industry in North Carolina, and cotton mills appeared in small towns.
The South remained largely agrarian; only 6% of the Southern labor force worked in manufacturing as late as 1900.
For many African Americans, Reconstruction's end meant a return to the "Old South," with little political power and unfair labor conditions.

Reconstruction's collapse ended African American hopes of land ownership.
Many returned to plantations as wage laborers or tenant farmers.
Most tenant farmers became sharecroppers, paying a share of their crops as rent.
- Sharecroppers often paid one-half to two-thirds of their crops to cover rent and supplies.
Country stores and suppliers, known as furnishing merchants, provided supplies on credit, often at high interest rates (up to 40 percent).
Laws allowed merchants to put liens on the crops to ensure debt repayment.
The crop lien system and high interest rates led to debt peonage, trapping sharecroppers on the land.
They could not earn enough to pay off their debts or declare bankruptcy.
Failure to pay off debts could result in imprisonment or forced labor.
Though slavery ended, many African Americans remained in economic circumstances that limited their freedom.