18.3 End of Reconstruction

Objective: To understand the reasons that Reconstruction ended and African-Americans lost civil and political rights after 1877.

I.D. Review

• Radical republicans• Reconstruction• Freedmen’s Bureau• Impeachment• Andrew Johnson• Black codes• Civil Rights• Richmond

• 13th Amendment• 14th Amendment• 15th Amendment• Freedmen’s

schools• Sharecropping• Ku Klux Klan• Lynch

15th AmendmentThe right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

“Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869. But some

states resisted ratification. …All eyes turned toward those Southern states which

had yet to be readmitted to the Union. Acting quickly, Congress ruled that in

order to be let into the Union, these states had to accept both the Fifteenth

Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all

people born in the United States, including former slaves. Left with no choice,

the states ratified the amendments and were restored to statehood.”SOURCE: PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-fifteenth/

WHO DID NOT GET THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE 15th AMENDMENT?

Map: Popular Vote for President in the South, 1872

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Grant (Republican) wins 214 electoral votes to Seymour’s (Democrat) 80 NOTE: Grant only wins popular vote by 300,000 SIGNIFICANCE: The approx. 500,000 to 700,000 Freedmen’s votes swing election to Grant. This election reinforced the resolve of the KKK and white supremacists to prevent freedmen from voting.

Grant Administration

• Grant – Popular soldier, ineffective president

• Grant’s Cabinet and Administration was infamous for graft, corruption and nepotism (his wife’s family)

• Despite, numerous scandals and charges of incompetence, Grant is reelected in 1872!

• Handles Panic of 1873 poorly

Reconstruction cartoonThis 1868 cartoon by Thomas Nast pictured the combination of forces that threatened the success of Reconstruction: southern opposition and the greed, partisanship, and racism of northern interests. (Library of Congress)

Reconstruction cartoon

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Pres. Grant fights the Klan“The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, made private criminal acts federal crimes; consequently, President Grant decreed that "insurgents were in rebellion against the authority of the United States." He sent federal troops to restore law and order to many areas where violence was raging at its worst.

In nine counties of South Carolina, martial law was declared and Klansmen were tried before predominantly black juries. By 1872, the Klan as an organization was broken. By the time the terror ended, thousands of blacks and hundreds of whites had been massacred or driven from their homes and communities. For a moment, it seemed that peace and Republican rule was restored. Yet within a few years, the terror was reborn and Reconstruction officially ended.”

SOURCE: PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_enforce.html

The White LeagueAlabama's White League, formed in 1874, strove to oust Republicans from office by intimidating black voters. To political cartoonist Thomas Nast, such vigilante tactics suggested an alliance between the White League and the outlawed Ku Klux Klan. (Harper's Weekly, October 24, 1874)

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Panic of 1873

• What was the significance of the Panic of 1873?• How did it effect the economy?• How did it effect the political power of Grant and Republicans?

PANIC OF 1873

CIVIL WAR

PANIC OF 1837

The Grant administration had already undergone the embarrassment of a slew of scandals.

In the fall 1876 elections, the Democrats attempt to impeach the president.

http://www.harpweek.com/09CartoonBrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=June&Date=3

Supreme Court undermines Black Civil RightsVOTING RESTRICTIONS & SEGREGATION• Literacy test• Poll tax• Grandfather clause• Jim Crow Laws

In 1876, the Supreme Court finds these laws constitutional in U.S. v. Cruikshank and U.S. v. Reese.

WHY???

Map: The Presidential Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877

The Presidential Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877In 1876 a combination of solid southern support and Democratic gains in the North gave Samuel Tilden the majority of popular votes, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the disputed election in the electoral college, after a deal satisfied Democratic wishes for an end to Reconstruction. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Compromise of 1877• Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes, veteran from Ohio• Democrats nominate Samuel J. Tilden, reformer who convicted

Tweed• Tilden wins 184 of 185 needed votes, with 20 contested electoral

votes. Tilden also wins popular vote.

Democrats and Republicans make a deal:1. The federal government will remove troops from the South

(ending the protection for blacks under the Klan Acts)2. Pres. Hayes will appoint a Democrat to his cabinet3. Democrats “promised” to respect Freedmen’s civil and political

rights.

EFFECT: Republican governments in the South collapse. Democrats return to power. Freedmen loose their political and civil rights.

Why did Reconstruction fail?• African Americans mired in poverty and stuck in

sharecropping• Reconstruction troubled with corruption of Grant

Administration, scalawags and carpetbaggers• KKK and secret societies intimidation • Congress’ Force acts of 1870 and 1871 ineffective• Black officials and representatives removed from office • 1883: Supreme Court rules 1875 Civil Rights Act

unconstitutional• Jim Crow laws & intimidation disenfranchise blacks

VIDEO: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fifteenth-amendment/videos/the-failure-of-reconstruction

http://pbsvideodb.pbs.org/resources/eyes/images/dc1.jpg