Why is 1877 considered the end of reconstruction

They focused on business, economics, political corruption, and trade, instead of Reconstruction. In the South, New Departure Democrats were called Redeemers, and were initially opposed by southerners who clung tightly to white supremacy and the Confederacy.

But between and , their home rule platform, asserting that good government was run by locals—meaning white Democrats, rather than black or white Republicans—helped end Reconstruction in three important states: Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. In September , Jay Cooke and Company declared bankruptcy, resulting in a bank run that spiraled into a six-year depression.

In the South, many farms were capitalized entirely through loans. After , most sources of credit vanished, forcing many landowners to default, driving them into an over-saturated labor market. Wages plummeted, contributing to the growing system of debt peonage in the South that trapped workers in endless cycles of poverty. Democrats responded nationally in , running on sound economics and fiscal policy, which allowed them to take control of the House of Representatives. During the Panic of , workers began demanding that the federal government help alleviate the strain on Americans.

They were met with brutality as police dispersed the crowd, and consequently the unemployment movement lost much of its steam. On the eve of the Presidential election, the nation still reeling from depression, the Grant administration found itself no longer able to intervene in the South due to growing national hostility to interference in southern affairs.

Scandalous corruption in the Grant Administration had sapped the national trust. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes, won big without mentioning Reconstruction, focusing instead on honest government, economic recovery, and temperance.

His success entered him into the running as a potential Presidential candidate. By , Democrats had majorities in every southern state. The shift of political power in the South was only one cause of the end of Radical Reconstruction.

The other key factor was a series of sweeping Supreme Court rulings in the s and s that weakened radical policy in the years before.

The first of these were the Slaughterhouse Cases , so named because they involved a suit against a New Orleans slaughterhouse. Moreover, in , the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Cruikshank that only states, not the federal government, could prosecute individuals under the Ku Klux Klan Act of As a result, countless Klan crimes went unpunished by southern state governments, who tacitly condoned the violence.

SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Summary The End of Reconstruction: — Page 1 Page 2 Page 3. Tilden and Rutherford B. By the s, support was waning for the racially egalitarian policies of Reconstruction , a series of laws put in place after the Civil War to protect the rights of African Americans, especially in the South. Many southern whites had resorted to intimidation and violence to keep blacks from voting and restore white supremacy in the region.

Beginning in , a series of Supreme Court decisions limited the scope of Reconstruction-era laws and federal support for the so-called Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the 14th Amendment and 15 Amendment , which gave African Americans the status of citizenship and the protection of the Constitution , including the all-important right to vote. In addition, accusations of corruption within the administration of Ulysses S. Grant and an economic depression had heightened discontent with the Republican Party , which had been in the White House since As the presidential election approached, the Democrats chose Governor Samuel B.

Hayes , governor of Ohio. By midnight, Tilden had of the electoral votes he needed to win, and was leading the popular vote by , The Republicans refused to accept defeat, however, and accused Democratic supporters of intimidating and bribing African-American voters to prevent them from voting in three southern states— Florida , Louisiana and South Carolina.

As of , these were the only remaining states in the South with Republican governments. In South Carolina, the election had been marred by bloodshed on both sides of the party line. Supporters of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wade Hampton , a former Confederate general, had used violence and intimidation to confront the African-American voting majority.

A clash between black militia and armed whites in Hamburg in July ended in the death of five militia men after their surrender, while at Camboy near Charleston , six white men were killed when armed blacks opened fire in a political meeting. With both sides accusing each other of electoral fraud, South Carolina, along with Florida and Louisiana, submitted two sets of election returns with different results. To resolve the dispute, Congress set up an electoral commission in January , consisting of five U.

When Davis refused to serve, the moderate Republican Justice Joseph Bradley was chosen to replace him. Hayes would also have to agree to name a leading southerner to his cabinet and to support federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad, a planned transcontinental line via a southern route. Within two months, however, Hayes had ordered federal troops from their posts guarding Louisiana and South Carolina statehouses, allowing Democrats to seize control in both those states.

The Compromise of effectively ended the Reconstruction era. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!