2 presentation the new south

The New SouthI. The Failure of ReconstructionII. “Redemption”

A. Prologue: MississippiB. The Redeemers Seize Power

III. Prospects for African-AmericansIV. The Economic Landscape of the New South

A. The Sharecropping SystemB. Southern Industry

The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)Home RuleRutherford B. Hayes/Samuel TildenCompromise of 1877“Solid South”Politics of the “Bloody Shirt”Colfax MassacreU. S. v. CruikshankRedeemersretrenchment

poll taxJourdan AndersonExodustersBenjamin “Pap” Singletonsharecropping“King Cotton”crop lienHenry Grady

The Failure of Reconstruction

1. Declining support in the Northa. Panic of 1873b. Corruption of the Grant administrationc. Weariness

2. Legal challenges (Slaughterhouse, etc.)3. Hostility from the white South

The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)

- Origins: meatpackers inLouisiana challenge a monopoly granted to a New Orleans slaughterhouse

-USSC upholds monopoly, saying that 13th and 14th Amendments focused upon the freedom of “the slave race”

Impact1. Narrows the scope of the 14th Amendment’s protections 2. Most of citizens’ rights remained under the control of state, not

fed’l, governments

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

A Democratic Party broadside from the electionof 1866 in Pennsylvania

Colfax (Louisiana) MassacreEaster Sunday, April 1873


The Freedmen’s Bureau, an engraving fromHarper’s Weekly

The “Redeemers”- White supremacists- Goals

1. dismantle the Reconstruction state2. reduce the political power of blacks3. reshape South’s legal system in interest of

labor control/racial subordination- The Redeemer Governments:

Low taxesFiscal retrenchment:

“Spend nothing unless absolutely necessary.”

How do the “Redeemers” maintain power after Reconstruction?

Political shenanigans- Electoral fraud- Poll taxes- Registration laws- “Grandfather clauses”

Changes in criminal laws- Vagrancy and “anti-enticement” laws- Sharpened penalties for petty thef- Expansion of convict labor system

Reforming “local” governmentGerrymandering: redrawing political districts * Violence

United States v. Cruikshank (1876)- The U. S. Supreme Court overturns the only three federal

convictions that had resulted from Colfax Massacre.

- The Court found that the 14th Amendment only empowered the federal government to stop violations of citizens’ rights by the states

- The 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection/Due Process rights did not apply to the actions of individuals

- Provides a virtual green light to acts of terror in areas where local officials could/would not prosecute such acts.

The Prospect for African-Americans

Thwarted in efforts to participate in public life, where do African-Americans look?- Opportunities for advancement

EducationChurchBusiness

- Migration?Abroad? LiberiaThe West? Exodusters

Above: African-American migrants await asteamboat for passage to points west and,

eventually, Kansas.

Left: Benjamin “Pap” Singleton,organizer of the Exoduster migration to Kansas

The Sharecropping SystemDefined: a labor system in which tenant farmers (black and white)

worked small plots of land for property’s owners (whites), producing cash crops (namely cotton)

- at end of the year, tenants paid their rent with share of that season’s crop

Compromise: 1. owners’ desire for control and reliable/powerless

labor supply 2. tenants’ desire for land and some measure of independence

Why cotton?A cash-poor societyMany advantages


A black family in the cotton fields after the Civil War,photographed in 1867.

Henry GradyProphet of a new, industrialized South