Reconstruction

**Reconstruction** was a period of United States history lasting from 9 May 1865 to 31 March 1877, when the liberal US Republican Party under Presidents Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes attempted to transform the status and society of the American South after the end of the American Civil War. Reconstruction began as United States Army troops were dispatched to occupy the South in the aftermath of the war, dividing it into military districts; Johnson decided that Tennessee was not to be occupied, as it was his home state, and many in the state had been opposed to secession. The Southern Democrat Johnson opposed the enfranchisement of newly-freed African-Americans and pursued a moderate approach to Reconstruction, while the Radical Republicans argued for civil rights and imposing harsh terms on the South to force them to integrate African-Americans. Northern "Carpetbaggers" came to the South to seek new jobs, and some southern politicians known as "Scalawags" changed their allegiance from the Southern Democrats to the Republicans in order to take part in the new government. The white southerners despised the northerner carpetbaggers, Republican Party supporters, and freedmen, and some Confederate States Army veterans in Tennessee formed the Ku Klux Klan as a secret society that murdered blacks, Republicans, and their supporters and terrorized opponents of racism. In 1871, President Grant passed several laws that crushed the KKK, authorizing the use of force to drive them underground.

Despite the quelling of the Klan, violence continued due to the activities of the Southern Red Shirts, who intimidated voters at elections and caused riots in South Carolina in 1876 and 1878, and the White League in Louisiana. The former Confederate states would implement the racist "Black Codes" from 1865 to 1866, reinstituting quasi-slavery in the south, and these laws forbade African-Americans from owning guns or property and from voting, and allowed for the state to imprison unemployed African-Americans and force them to work without pay. In 1876, due to voter intimidation, the Southern Democrats took over the state legislatures of the South, ending the liberalization under the Republican Party and returning the South to a state of oppression. Reconstruction came to an end under President Hayes, who ordered the withdrawal of all US forces from the South in 1877 as the result of the "Compromise of 1877"; in this deal, he sacrificed the rights of African-Americans in favor of gaining Southern recognition as President of the United States. The South was reintegrated into the union, but its society would remain segregated and racist until the 1960s under the Southern Democrats' "Solid South", and *Plessy v. Ferguson* and the Jim Crow laws would continue the South's legacy of discrimination and racism.

## Politics

### Republican Party

#### Conservatives, Moderates, and Radicals

The onset of Reconstruction brought about a nationwide political realignment. The Republican Party was divided between Conservative (led by Francis Preston Blair), Moderate (formerly led by Abraham Lincoln), and Radical Republicans (led by Thaddeus Stevens), whose support for Reconstruction varied widely. Conservative Republican leaders included former Whigs Thurlow Weed and Jacob Dolson Cox and former Democrats Oliver P. Morton and James Rood Doolittle, and they supported a lenient treatment of the American South, opposed the forceful implementation of economic mobility and free-market capitalism in the South, and opposed civil rights and Black suffrage for a variety of reasons. The Moderate Republicans, including former Whigs James G. Blaine, John Bingham, William P. Fessenden, and John Sherman and former Democrat Lyman Trumbull, embraced the civil equality of African-Americans, expansive federal authority, and stronger Reconstruction policies than the ones envisioned by President Johnson, but they were less enthusiastic on Black suffrage. Former Radicals such as Charles Sumner, concerned with the corruption of the Radical Republicans, would go on to flock to the Moderates. The Radical Republicans, led by former Democrats such as Ulysses S. Grant, Hannibal Hamlin, and John C. Fremont and former Whigs such as Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Benjamin Wade, and Henry Winter Davis, opposed allowing former Confederates to hold political offices in the South, emphasized equality, civil rights, and voting rights for the freedmen, supported measures to protect Black freedoms, and failed in their attempts to impeach Johnson. The Southern Republican coalition incorporated freedmen, "Scalawags" (mostly ex-Whigs who advocated modernization through education and infrastructure), and "Carpetbaggers" (Northern migrants who moved to the South due to both financial incentives and a desire to oversee the implementation of civil rights legislation, aid to economic development, and the establishment of public school systems). Radical and Conservative Republicans and businessmen were divided on the important economic issues of the era, with ex-Whig Radicals supporting high tariffs and ex-Democrat Radicals opposing them; there were also debates between inflationists and hard-money advocates, and Southern conservatives accused the Radicals of using the "ignorant" Black vote to promote Northeastern business interests and their expansion into the South.

#### Liberal movement

In 1870, the liberal faction within the Republican Party split from the main party and founded the "Liberal Republican Party", which attracted former Democratic and Free Soilers who had joined the Republican Party during the 1850s. German-Americans formed a major constituency within this new party; they had been among the most radical of the Radical Republicans during the Civil War, supported the immediate abolition of slavery, and backed the enlistment of Black troops into the Union Army, but the Republican Party's failure to address economic concerns after the war, the increasing influence of evangelicalism (such as prohibitionism) and nativism (in the form of a "loyalty oath" for clergymen in Missouri) within the Republican Party, and the likelihood that Black economic migrants to St. Louis would support the Republican Party's nativism and pietism due to their own evangelical beliefs led to the Germans opposing the state's 1868 Black suffrage amendment, even as they continued to vote Republican. During the December 1864 newspaper strikes in St. Louis, Black men had been used as strikebreakers, concerning members of the labor movement, who feared the manipulation of Black workers by big businesses. The Republican Party's failure to address the Germans' economic, religious, and racial concerns cost them the support of the German community. In 1872, 90% of Germans in St. Louis (including those who had previously been staunch advocates for Black suffrage) voted for Benjamin Gratz Brown for Governor. After that year, many Liberal Republican voters, including Germans, began supporting Democratic candidates.

In addition to German-Americans, Republicans concerned with the corruption of the Reconstruction regimes in the South and the Grant presidency, and opponents of the growing power of the central goverment backed the formation of the Liberal Republican Party. The Liberal Republicans argued that, since Blacks had been granted civil rights, slavery was over, and Confederate nationalism had been defeated, the goals of Reconstruction had been achieved, and the continued presence of federal troops in the South, the disenfranchisement of former Confederates, and the lack of self-government in the South was cause for grave concern. Many Liberal Republicans also sought to lower tariffs, accusing big businesses of unfairly protecting certain goods.

Free-Soiler Democrats who had joined the Republican Party in the 1850s had done so because of their opposition to the political power of slaveholding oligarchs in the American South, but they retained their beliefs in states' rights, decentralized government, a constitutional balance of power, and a distrust of big business. The Liberal Republicans were able to join the left-wing of the Republican Party (liberal ex-Democrats, radical "Forty-Eighter" Germans, and utopian socialists such as Horace Greeley) with anti-corruption former Whigs.

At the 1872 presidential election, however, three-quarters of ex-abolitionists backed Grant, arguing that only relentless law enforcement could guarantee Black voting rights in the South; for this reason, in spite of the Liberal Republican Party's attempts to court the Black vote, Frederick Douglass successfully organized Blacks in support of Grant. The defeated Liberal Republicans either rejoined the Republican Party as "Half-Breeds" or joined the Democratic Party. While the Liberal Republican Party was decisively defeated, the national Republican Party grew less supportive of Reconstruction and more conservative, losing interest in supporting Black civil rights and instead prioritizing economic issues and business interests.

### Democratic Party

#### White supremacy

At the start of Reconstruction, the Democrats - concerned about the Republican Party's potential acquisition of a new voting bloc in the form of African-American freedmen - opposed the enfranchisement of African-Americans, backing President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Democratic Party openly appealed to white supremacism, proclaiming itself the party of white men and the Republican Party the party of Black men. At this time, the Democratic Party relied on the support of Irish immigrants in the North and Southern whites; in northern cities, Grant had to compete with strongly anti-Reconstructionist Irish voting blocs, and he attempted to win Irish votes by supporting the Fenian Brotherhood against Britain. In the South, ex-Confederate officers founded the Ku Klux Klan to violently resist Reconstruction.

### New Departure

By 1870, the Democratic Party in the South - hoping to retain its relevancy - pursued a rebranding effort known as the "New Departure", whereby the Democrats would fight the Republicans on economic grounds rather than race, such as arguing for lower tariffs. Several Democrats had come to support civil rights, and a faction within the Mississippi Democratic Party were described by Black Republican congressman John Roy Lynch as, "many liberal, fair-minded and influential Democrats in the state who are strongly in favor of having the state provide for the liberal education of both races." The Democrats pushed for economic modernization and recovery, criticizing the corruption and inefficiency of the Republican regimes in the South, as well as accusing the Republicans of failing to revive the economy in the face of falling cotton prices. In 1877, a populist coalition of poor whites and Blacks in Virginia formed the "Readjuster Party" and challenged the planter elite of Virginia, and it later merged into the Republican Party.

The New Departure movement was conservative in nature, with the orator Henry W. Grady promoting a "New South" marked by economic modernization through business, railroads, banking, merchandising, and industry and cooperation with Northern business interests. Some of the more prosperous freedmen joined the Democratic Party due to their fury at the Republican Party for failing to help them acquire land.

#### Conservative Parties

After the Civil War, former Southern Whigs who sought to revive the Whig Party and reconnect with northern Whigs rallied around the banner of the "Conservative Party" or the "Democratic-Conservative Party". These state Conservative parties supported or tolerated white supremacist paramilitary groups and were affiliated with the national Democratic Party, and groups such as the White League and Red Shirts became the military arm of the Southern Democrats. By 1874, the Conservative parties had abandoned their separate names and merged into the Democratic Party, having sent delegates to the 1868 Democratic National Convention.

The Conservatives served as a coalition of planters, businessmen, and common farmers who opposed Black civil rights, carpetbaggers, and military rule and sought the restoration of white supremacy. After failing to entice Blacks from the Republican side through nominating Black political candidates, the planters joined with the common farmers in simply trying to displace the Republican governments, and they were paternalistic towards the freedmen.

As the Whiggish "Scalawags" came to routinely lose their battles with the Radical "Carpetbaggers" and their Black allies in the early 1870s, many of them switched over to the Whig-leaning Conservatives or the Democratic side.

#### Bourbon Democrats

Following the disastrous 1872 presidential election, during which the loosely-organized Democrats had endorsed the Liberal Republican Horace Greeley for President, the Democratic Party underwent drastic changes and came under the control of a conservative and pro-business faction derisively nicknamed the "Bourbon Democrats" in reference to the reactionary House of Bourbon in France. The Bourbon Democrats, allied with the Redeemer Democrats in the South, represented Northern and Midwestern business interests, earning supports from the banks and railroads while campaigning for the gold standard. Though they fought bureaucratic corruption, they had no interest in the sweeping reforms of the more progressive factions of the party. Despite the popularity of the anti-gold William Jennings Bryan in the 1890s, the Northern Democrats remained Bourbon in outlook.

Southern whites, political and fiscal conservatives, and classical liberals rallied behind the gold standard, economic and monetary stability, the business establishment, limited government, *laissez-faire* economics, and against commercial or agricultural subsidies, protectionism, and military expansionism and adventurism. While some Bourbons claimed to speak for the common man, they saw labor unions as unhealthy for economic growth, and they were averse to the political participation of small-scale farmers, the landless poor, and blue-collar urban workers. The Bourbons were initially concentrated in the American South and Midwest before spreading elsewhere, and they frequently ran on anti-corruption platforms, battled against the Tammany Hall political machine, and supported civil service reform, winning them the support of Republican defectors during the 1880s. Under President Grover Cleveland, the Bourbons would go on to veto bills expanding federal spending or authority, reduced tariffs, condemned corruption, and supported the gold standard and isolationism. In 1888, the Republican Benjamin Harrison championed industrialists and labor unions in maintaining high tariffs, leading to his victory over Cleveland. In 1892, farmers and organized laborers who opposed both the Bourbons and Republicans' support for the gold standard formed the Populist Party, and, in 1896, the anti-labor and pro-business Bourbons were toppled by William Jennings Bryan's populist faction within the party. The Bourbons secured the presidential nomination for the last time in 1904, before their remaining leaders and supporters either retired or switched to other political affiliations.

#### Redeemers

The "Redeemers", classically liberal and pro-civil service Southern whites affiliated with the national Bourbon Democrat movement and seeking to restore the Antebellum social order (minus slavery), regained power across the South from 1873 to 1877, forming coalitions with conservative Republicans (including scalawags and carpetbaggers) and emphasizing the need for economic modernization (such as railroad building). Across the South, white voters were persuaded to shift their focus from racism to taxes and corruption. Following the Panic of 1873, many carpetbaggers returned to the North or joined the "Redeemers", and many local Black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with White elites. By that year, only Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina remained under Republican control, and Arkansas fell to the Democrats in 1874.

The Democratic takeover of the South grew increasingly violent as Democratic insurgent groups killed or intimidated Black Republican voters; political violence was the norm in Louisiana and the Carolinas. In 1875, the Democrats took over Mississippi after President Grant refused to send in the Army to fight back against the Red Shirts and Democratic rifle clubs which had killed hundreds of Black voters. In South Carolina in 1876, Red Shirts paraded with arms behind Democratic candidates, and Red Shirts prevented almost all Black voting in two majority-Black counties. By 1877, White Democrats controlled most of the Southern legislatures and armed militias controlled small towns and rural areas, and, under the Compromise of 1877, Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to end the military occupation of the South in exchange for the Democratic Party's recognition of his victory in the controversial 1876 presidential election, and a promise by the Redeemers to protect the lives of Blacks.

The Redeemers, representing the planters, landowners, and merchants of the South, used violent coercion and bribes to utilize the Black vote to control Democratic Party conventions and state governments across the South, and they reined in racial violence due to fear of federal intervention, instead leaving Blacks in peace and respecting their basic civil rights. The Redeemers supported agricultural diversification and industrialization and prioritized Northern investment over the plight of poor farmers, and the Bourbons defunded education and other public services. The new political leaders represented not only the planters but also the rising Southern business community, interested in railroads, cotton textiles, and urban land speculation. Under the Redeemers, Virginia and North Carolina became increasingly industrialized states.

#### Populist resistance to the Bourbons

Small white farmers opposed to planter dominance allied with hill-country unionists who were outvoted by Black Belt constituencies and political outsiders to form populist coalitions to challenge the excessively corrupt Redeemer governments. During the 1870s, these coalitions backed independents or left-wing populist Greenback Party candidates, and Virginia's Readjuster Party also enjoyed a brief period of success during the late 1870s-1880s, challenging the Bourbons' insistence on fully repaying Virginia's Civil War debts. The rise of issues such as hard currency and inflation led to the silverite takeover of several Southern states, or the Southern Democrats' co-option of the free silver movement. These white populists, while sharing common cause with disenfranchised Blacks, blamed Black voters for voting the conservative regimes into power and harbored racial animosity, and, throughout the 1890s, the populist Democrat coalitions disenfranchised Black voters across the South upon seizing power.