The Reconstruction Governments

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7 The Reconstruction Governments

The passage of the Reconstruction Acts by the U.S. Congress in 1867 set in motion a remarkable experiment. Because this legislation (passed over the objections of President Andrew Johnson [1808–1875; served 1865–69] and many white Southerners) guaranteed participation by all the citizens of the South—whether black or white—this experiment was truly revolutionary. For the first time in the nation's history, the state governments of the South (including the eleven that had formed the Confederacy, which had in 1861 seceded or broken away from the rest of the United States, sparking the Civil War [1861–65]) would take the form of multiracial democracies.

In a region that had once been the setting for the enslavement of four million blacks (brought from Africa since the seventeenth century and forced to work without pay on white farms, plantations, and households), people of both African and white European heritage were participating in government and in civil life. For the first time, black people were voting in elections, serving on juries, and attending school. Eventually, they would also be holding political offices at the local, state, and even national levels.

These great changes in Southern life—and in U.S. society in general—had come about through a chain of events that began even before the Civil War ended. During a period referred to as the Reconstruction era (stretching roughing from the Civil War to the end of the 1870s), blacks and whites took part in an effort to rebuild a South that had been devastated by four years of war. This effort took place in an atmosphere charged on one hand with the jubilation and hope experienced by the newly freed slaves and on the other by the resentment, fear, and hatred expressed by many white Southerners. Although the Reconstruction era ended in disappointment for those who had hoped that a more just society would emerge from it, the era was also marked by some important achievements. Among the most notable of these were the new and remarkably fair state governments that were forged in the South between 1867 and 1870.

The Radicals' plan for Reconstruction

The Reconstruction Acts had been created and passed by a Congress dominated by the Radical Republicans, a group made up of senators and representatives who had first fought to end slavery and then sought to win expanded rights for blacks. In general, members of the Republican political party, most of whom lived in the Northern United States, tended to favor protections for business interests, public support for internal improvements (like roads and services), and social reforms. Making up a tiny opposition party were the Democrats, which had been dominant in the South before the war. Democrats were opposed to the kinds of changes proposed by the Republicans, especially those that, they felt, took away individual freedom and local government control by making the federal government too strong.

Under the rules laid out by the Reconstruction Acts, the Southern states were to hold conventions at which elected delegates would devise new constitutions. The constitutions had to include male suffrage (the right of all male citizens, black or white, to vote). In addition, the states had to approve the Fourteenth Amendment (the constitutional amendment that guaranteed equal protection under the law to all U.S. citizens), and each constitution had to be approved by a majority of eligible voters. The Reconstruction Acts specified that those white Southerners who had given aid to the Confederacy during the war would not be eligible to vote or hold office. When all these steps had been completed, the states could hold elections for local, state, and national offices.

A massive effort to educate and register black voters had been remarkably successful, as over seven hundred thousand of them (as well as about an equal number of whites)—representing over 90 percent of those who had registered to vote—turned out first to elect convention delegates and then to choose office-holders. It was obvious that despite the physical and psychological scars left by slavery, and despite the efforts of some white Southerners to control them and hold them back through violence and other means, African Americans were eager to practice their new and hard-won citizenship.

Thus the new, Republican-led state governments set sail amid an atmosphere of optimism. The challenges they faced, however, were huge. In the aftermath of war, the state treasuries were empty, and much of the South lay in ruins. These new governments would take on major public responsibilities never before provided, and these services would be expensive. In addition, they would face the opposition of much of the public: Whereas blacks saw these multiracial governments as the first fair ones ever to appear in the South, many white Southerners refused to recognize them as legitimate. Still clinging to racist beliefs about the inferiority of black people, they were not willing to share their civil and political rights with those who had so recently been slaves. They resisted the changes to their society in ways both passive (such as refusing to vote) and aggressive (through violent assaults on those who did try to participate).

Carpetbaggers, scalawags, and black leaders

For many years after the Reconstruction era ended, there was a popular belief that the period had been a complete disaster for the South. In this view, opportunistic Northerners called "carpetbaggers" (an intentionally offensive nickname that suggested they could carry everything they owned in fabric bags) had come south to take advantage of the defeated people of the former Confederacy. They were schemers whose only motive was to make money. One early-twentieth-century historian, quoted in the Civil War Desk Reference, called them "too depraved, dissolute, dishonest and degraded to get the lowest places in the states they had just left." Meanwhile, Southerners who had joined the Republican Party were ridiculed as "scalawags" (rascals or disreputable characters) who had turned their backs on their own people in favor of white Northerners and blacks.

The historians of the early twentieth century helped to promote this view of Reconstruction. They portrayed this as a period dominated by incompetence and corruption on the part not only of the carpetbaggers and scalawags but of blacks too ignorant, illiterate, and irresponsible to handle the burden of citizenship. Contemporary scholars, however, have created a much different picture. They have shown that while some of the carpetbaggers were motivated by greed, most were well-educated, responsible, ambitious men, and many sincerely wanted to help create a better society in the South. A considerable number were Union army veterans, whereas others had come to the South as teachers, agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, or investors in plantations.

Among the scalawags were many former Unionists or supporters of the Union during the Civil War, many of whom owned farms in the upcountry or mountainous regions of the South and hoped to shift power away from the wealthy plantation owners who had previously dominated Southern politics. Few were very enthusiastic about the idea of equality between blacks and whites, and their alliance with blacks in the Republican Party was mostly one of convenience. Others had been members of the Whig political party (a conservative group active in Southern politics before the war) who now wished to cast their lot with the Republicans, whom they saw as more likely to promote the modernization of the South.

The African Americans who took leading roles during Reconstruction included both free blacks (those who had either never been slaves or had escaped to freedom in the North) and former slaves, many of whom were now teachers, ministers, Union army veterans, and tradesmen. While it is true that they lacked experience and that some were illiterate, they were passionate in their pursuit of expanded civil rights, education, and economic advancement for their people. Their achievements during the period are especially impressive when their background as slaves and as frequent victims of white brutality and mistreatment are considered.

Republican goals and achievements

Among the Republicans who were now in charge of the South's new state governments, many differences of background and opinion existed. There was tension between the native Southerners and the Northerners, between blacks and whites, and between free blacks and former slaves. There were different views on how much power should be given to blacks, on whether or not the government should confiscate and redistribute land, and on whether or not former Confederates should be allowed to vote.

On certain points, however, most Republicans were in agreement. They wanted to guarantee civil and political rights for African Americans, modify the Southern economy to benefit people at all income levels, and provide expanded public services. The idea that the state had a responsibility to offer such benefits to its citizens was somewhat revolutionary; indeed, before the war the Southern states had offered very few services. Describing prewar conditions in South Carolina, twentieth-century African American leader W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), quoted in Reconstruction and Reaction: The Emancipation of Slaves, 1861–1913, wrote: "It is said that the ante-bellum state was ruled by 180 great landlords. They made the functions of the state just as few as possible, and did by private law on plantations most of the things which in other states were carried on by the local and state governments."

Perhaps the most important of the public services guaranteed through the new state constitutions were the tax-supported public school systems. Before the Civil War, of course, most slaves had been strictly prohibited from getting any education, and during the Reconstruction era African Americans were eagerly pursuing their new right to learn to read and write. But even whites—only about one-eighth of whom had attended school before the war—benefited from the new public school systems. In Texas, for example, almost all children began attending school, while in Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina, about half were enrolled. In South Carolina, the number of students jumped from 30,000 in 1868 to 123,000 in 1876. This expanded access to education is considered the leading achievement of the Reconstruction governments.

The new constitutions also abolished the Black Codes, which governments formed under President Johnson's Reconstruction plan had put in place as a way to control the black labor force. These laws created a situation very close to slavery by restricting not only the work opportunities and conditions available to blacks but their rights and behavior (sometimes confining them to their plantations, for example, unless their employers gave them permission to leave). New laws also provided protection for debtors and free medical care and legal advice for the poor. They called for hospitals, orphanages, prisons, and other public facilities to be built. Benefits to families included laws protecting married women's property rights, making it illegal to physically abuse children, requiring white fathers to support their biracial (mixed race) offspring, allowing interracial marriage (marriage between people of different races), and expanding the grounds for divorce.

Some snags in the plan

However much they were needed and appreciated by citizens, all these new public responsibilities came with a high price tag to the state governments, causing a dramatic growth in expenditures. (For example, South Carolina's budget doubled between 1860 and 1873.) As a result, the states increased property tax rates to pour money back into their treasuries. That meant that plantation owners—who had previously paid hardly any taxes, despite owning so much property—were now forced to part with a significant sum, which they deeply resented. Many blacks and others hoped that the high taxes would result in a breakup of the plantation system by forcing the planters to sell off pieces of their land. This did not occur, however, and the long-cherished dream of owning land was never realized for most blacks. Only South Carolina put a system of land distribution into place, but the number of families that benefitted (fourteen thousand by 1876) was relatively small.

Another controversial issue was that of equal access to public transportation and accommodation. Racist attitudes about the differences between blacks and whites were prevalent not only in the South but across the United States, and most whites demanded physical separation from blacks. Although laws prohibiting the segregation of railroad cars, hotels, and even such facilities as orphanages and insane asylums were put on the books, they were rarely enforced. In addition, most schools were still segregated. The idea of requiring integrated schools was tried only in Louisiana, and succeeded only in the city of New Orleans. The University of South Carolina was also an exception to the general rule of segregated education. This issue was complicated by the fear of many black parents that integrated schools might expose their children to prejudice and discrimination. They wanted their children to have full access to education, but often preferred that it be delivered by black teachers in a welcoming atmosphere.

Blacks take an active role

One of the most significant achievements of the Reconstruction era involved the number of blacks who, for the first time in U.S. history, took an active role in politics and government. White Southerners complained, both during the period and later, that their homeland was unfairly subjected to "Negro rule," but this was not really true. In fact, whites took the most prominent roles in the new governments, especially at the beginning, when it was thought that blacks should stay in the background in order to avoid causing alarm. Gradually, however, a significant number of African Americans were elected to offices.

Prominent officeholders included two men who served in the U.S. Senate, Blanche K. Bruce (1841–1898) and Hiram Revels (1822–1901), both of Mississippi, and fourteen who were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, including John Roy Lynch (1847–1939) of Mississippi, Jefferson Long (1836–1901) of Georgia, and Joseph Rainey (1832–1887) and Robert Smalls (1839–1915), both of South Carolina. At various times during the Reconstruction era, blacks held the state offices of lieutenant governor, treasurer, superintendent of education, and secretary of state. In addition, six hundred served as state legislators. On the local level, there were several black mayors (including Robert H. Wood, who headed the city government of Natchez, Mississippi) and members of city and town councils, as well as county supervisors, tax collectors, and judges. The cities of Tallahassee, Florida, and Little Rock, Arkansas, had black police chiefs, and there were thirty-four black sheriffs in Louisiana and Mississippi. P. B. S. Pinchback (1837–1921) served briefly as governor of Louisiana.

John Roy Lynch: African American Legislator

Born into slavery, John Roy Lynch became a very successful Mississippi politician during the Reconstruction era. After the Reconstruction governments were overthrown by white supremacist "Redeemers," Lynch moved to the North.

Lynch was the son of the Irish overseer of a Louisiana plantation and his slave wife. After his father's death, Lynch and his mother were sold to another planter. They were living in Natchez, Mississippi, when, in 1863, the Union army liberated them. By 1866, Lynch had learned the photography trade and was managing a business, while also attending evening school to acquire an education. He added to his studies by reading books and newspapers and listening to the students and teachers he could hear from the white school across the alley from his photography studio.

Lynch became politically active in 1868, when he began writing and speaking in favor of the new state constitution (written in accordance with the program created by the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress). He also took part in Republican Party activities. Lynch gained the attention and approval of Mississippi governor Adelbert Ames (1835–1933), who made him a justice of the peace in 1869. Later that year, he was elected to Mississippi's House of Representatives, where he served until 1873, eloquently speaking out on such causes as federal aid to education and civil rights. During his last term, Lynch was speaker of the house.

In 1872, Lynch was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Reelected in 1874, he was defeated in 1876, but ran again in 1880. His Democratic opponent was initially declared the winner of the election, but Lynch successfully contested the results and took his seat in Congress. After losing the 1882 election, he went back to managing the plantation he had recently purchased, though remaining active in Republican politics. Between 1872 and 1900, he served as a delegate to various Republican national conventions.

In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901; served 1889–93) gave Lynch a position at the Navy Department. He subsequently turned down two job offers from Democratic administrations. Lynch turned to law in 1896, acquiring a license in Washington, D.C., and opening an office there. After working to get President William McKinley (1843–1901; served 1897–1901) elected, he was encouraged by the president to join the U.S. Army. Thus he became paymaster of volunteers for the army, with the rank of major. In 1901, Lynch received his commission in the regular Army, serving in posts in Nebraska and California as well as in Cuba and the Philippines.

Lynch retired from the Army in 1911 and settled in Chicago, where he practiced law for twenty-five years. In 1913, he wrote a book entitled The Facts of Reconstruction, in which he refuted the inaccurate portrayals of Reconstruction that had become common. Lynch died in Chicago in 1939 and was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

African Americans could not be said to have dominated Southern politics during this period. Their only majority was in South Carolina's House of Representatives, which elected the first black Speaker of the House in 1872. Still, the election of six hundred blacks as state legislators represented a huge change and historic milestone in the life of both the South and the nation in general.

Charges of corruption

One of the major charges leveled against the leaders of the Reconstruction era was that they were corrupt, using their positions and power to gain financial and material benefits for themselves. These charges called the integrity of the Reconstruction governments into question and also scared off the investors that they had hoped to attract to the South. Although in some cases the charges were true, contemporary historians have noted that this was a period of widespread corruption in the United States as a whole, a time when the social disorganization wrought by the Civil War combined with fast-paced economic growth and untrustworthy business leaders created conditions ripe for corruption. In the North, in fact, these years were marked by several great corruption

Robert Smalls: A Daring Deed, and a Stellar Career

Born a South Carolina slave, Robert Smalls gained fame when he managed to pilot a Confederate ship into the custody of the Union army. He later became one of the most successful black politicians of the Reconstruction era.

Smalls was born near Beaufort, South Carolina. After moving with his master to Charleston, he was allowed to hire himself out as a boatman by paying his master $15 a month. He learned piloting skills and became very familiar with the area's coastal waterways. In 1862, Smalls was forced to join the Confederate Navy as a "wheelsman" (the title of pilot was considered too elevated for a slave) on the steamboat Planter. He learned the signals needed to safely pass the Confederate forts and the locations of land mines.

By the spring of 1862, the Union had blockaded the harbors of the main forts along the Atlantic coasts of the Confederate states. On May 12, with the white crew on shore, Smalls took the opportunity to steer the Planter out of Charleston harbor to the Union lines. This daring exploit earned Smalls instant celebrity and became a symbol of what slaves—assumed by many whites to be obedient and happy with their enslaved status—were willing and able to do.

Smalls received an award of $1,500 and was made a second lieutenant in the Navy. In December 1863, Smalls was promoted to the rank of captain and was made the pilot of the Planter. He took part in seventeen battles. After the war, Smalls's good-humored personality, intelligence, and speaking skills helped him gain influence as a leader. Through his investments in real estate and local companies, he also gained wealth and was able to contribute to and raise funds for such causes as building schools.

Smalls helped write South Carolina's 1868 constitution and subsequently became a state legislator and senator. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1874 to 1886, although by the end of that period, white supremacists had taken control of the Southern state governments. During his political career, Smalls consistently supported free public education and the interests of the former slaves, including cheaper land, continuing eligibility for military service, enforcement of the Civil Rights Acts, health care for the poor, and equal accommodations on public transportation.

After violence and fixed elections had finally pushed all African Americans out of Southern politics, Smalls served as Beaufort's customs collector from 1890 to 1913, while remaining active in the Republican Party. Despite his own frequent protests against corruption in government, Smalls was himself convicted of bribery, but he received a pardon from South Carolina's governor. In 1896, Smalls was one of six black members of the state constitutional convention, where he made an eloquent but vain attempt to prevent the disenfranchisement (removal of voting rights) of the state's African Americans. He died in 1915.

scandals, including those perpetrated by groups known as the Whiskey Ring and the Tweed Ring.

Republican officials were not immune to the "get rich quick" mentality that dominated U.S. society, especially those who were not landowners and faced uncertain futures when they left office. This created something called the "politics of livelihood," which referred to politicians who had to rely solely on their offices for income. It affected not only poor blacks but scalawags, some of whom were harshly condemned for serving in the Republican governments. As quoted in Reconstruction and Reaction: The Emancipation of Slaves,1861–1913, a New Orleans man who lost his job as a weights-and-measures inspector lamented, "I do not know what I shall do. My own relatives have turned their backs and it will be impossible for me to get any employment."

Under these conditions, it is perhaps less surprising that some officials took part in corruption, which included such practices as accepting bribes (payments) for voting a certain way, selling property to the government at inflated rates, or buying shares in property for less than the market value. Some of the most notable cheaters of the period included scalawag Franklin J. Moses (1838–1906), who served as both a legislator and governor in South Carolina, and Governor Robert K. Scott (1826–1900), a carpetbagger, also from South Carolina. Members of the Democratic Party were also involved, however; in fact, after Reconstruction had ended, a Democratic treasurer of Mississippi stole $316,000 from the state government, which was more than anyone ever had before.

In the South, a factor that helped open the door to corruption was railroad development, which many states got involved with in pursuit of economic growth and recovery. Hoping that railroads would open their states to expanded trade and glorious profits, they offered either direct grants or laws endorsing bonds to finance them. However, railroad construction and operation were extremely expensive processes and put too much financial burden on the states. Only a few (including Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas) actually benefitted.

A new labor system

In addition to the political developments occurring in the South, a new system of labor and class organization was developing. Although plantation owners continued to occupy the top social rung of Southern society, the disenfranchisement (removal of voting rights) of former Confederates had diminished their political influence. The overproduction of cotton led to a decrease in its profitability. Other changes included a shift in prosperity from the previously thriving coastal towns to those further inland, which were now linked to the North and West by the new railroads. Cities like Atlanta and Macon in Georgia; Selma, Alabama; and St. Louis, Missouri, were humming as merchants, bankers, and railroad promoters carried on their trades.

Meanwhile, most rural blacks in the South were working as sharecroppers, a system that to them represented a kind of compromise as their hopes of landownership faded. Under this arrangement, individual families were given specific plots of land to farm. At each harvest, they would either give the owner a share (usually one-half) of the crop they had raised or pay rent to the landowner. Blacks preferred this system because it allowed them to live apart from other families and gave them control of their own time and labor.

By contrast, plantation owners disliked sharecropping because it gave them less control over their labor force; they went along with it only grudgingly. They managed to increase their influence, however, through a credit system by which workers would purchase needed supplies on credit, usually at very high interest rates. This system effectively trapped laborers by forcing them to carry credit over from year to year, never allowing them to pay off their debts.

By the end of the Reconstruction era, sharecropping dominated most areas of the South where cotton and tobacco were grown. In the Louisiana sugar industry, however (where Northern investors had made it possible for production to resume quickly after the war), workers still labored in the gangs typical of the slavery system but were also given individual plots in which to raise some crops of their own. In the rice-growing regions of South Carolina and Georgia, plantation owners had been unable to replace the irrigation systems and equipment destroyed during the war. Most of the large plantations here did break up into small farms, some of which were purchased by black farmers. Generally, the African Americans who lived in these areas grew their own food and earned cash through day labor.

Blacks who lived in the towns and cities of the South had more opportunities for employment, but most were still restricted to jobs as low-paid, unskilled manual laborers or servants with no chance of advancement. The number of black professionals and craftsmen was still very small, and businesses owned by blacks—such as grocery stores, restaurants, and funeral parlors—tended to be the kind that provided only a small number of jobs. Still, urban life offered blacks access to the schools, churches, newspapers, and fraternal societies that were at the heart of the African American community. In addition, such black educational institutions as Fisk University began, in the 1870s, to turn out graduates who offered an example of achievement and the promise of advancement.

White terrorists resist the changes

Even before the end of the Civil War, white Southerners had begun to resist the changes occurring in the society and culture they cherished. The familiar world they had known, in which black people existed as inferior beings fit only to serve whites, was falling down around them, and they fought back. They did so through violent attacks that included arson, beatings, rape, and murder. These attacks were focused not only on the former slaves but on anyone who tried to help them or seemed sympathetic to the idea of freedom, civil rights, and equality, including teachers, soldiers, and white Unionists.

During the period of President Johnson's Reconstruction program, race riots had occurred in two major Southern cities—Memphis, Tennessee, where forty-six blacks were killed, and New Orleans, Louisiana, where thirty-four blacks and three whites died. These riots had underscored the link between white resentment and violence. With the triumph of the Radical Republicans' plan for Reconstruction, the violence increased. Secret terrorist societies, most of whose members covered their identities with masks and long robes, began a widespread campaign to try to control through fear what they had not been able to control any other way. They wanted to prevent blacks from exercising their new rights, and they also wanted to ensure that plantation owners had the same kind of disciplined labor force they had enjoyed during the days of slavery.

The Ku Klux Klan

These terrorist groups included the Knights of the White Camellia in Louisiana, the Knights of the Rising Sun in Texas, and the White Line in Mississippi. The most notorious of all was the Ku Klux Klan. Begun as a kind of social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865, the Klan quickly grew into a full-fledged terrorist organization with members and sympathizers across the South. By 1867, it was under the leadership of Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877), a former slave trader and plantation owner who had served as a general in the Confederate army. Forrest bore the title of Grand Wizard.

Although it was never tightly or centrally organized, the main goal of the Ku Klux Klan was clear to all: to restore white supremacy by destroying the power of the Republican Party in the South. Klan groups were locally formed and operated, with a diverse membership that ranged from poor whites to plantation owners to doctors and lawyers. The months leading up to the 1868 elections were particularly bloody. Blacks were threatened not only with violence but with the loss of jobs, credit, or homes if they voted for Republican candidates. The Klan targeted black schools, churches, and homes for destruction. Most of the victims were black, but white Republicans were also threatened, beaten, and killed.

The bloodshed continued even after 1869, when Forrest ordered the breakup of the Klan. The victims included individuals both prominent, including a member of Congress from Arkansas, three South Carolina state legislators, and three scalawag members of the Georgia legislature, and ordinary, like Irish-born William Luke, a teacher in a black school. Former slave Washington Eager was killed, his brother said, because he could read and write. In Jackson County, Florida, the 150 individuals murdered by the Klan included a Jewish merchant who was considered to be sympathetic to blacks.

The new state governments found it hard to fight the violence, as law enforcement officers refused to become involved, witnesses were afraid to testify in court, and courts refused to convict suspected terrorists. In three states—Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas—governors who were willing to declare martial law (when a military government takes control, with ordinary law suspended) were able to organize militias that proved somewhat effective in stemming the violence. Suspending constitutional rights and making arrests in this way were not popular, however, owing to the risk of stirring up sympathy for the suspects.

The Enforcement Acts

Finally, the U.S. Congress was pushed into action. In early 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified, baring state governments from denying or abridging voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." (It did not, however, specifically prohibit the kinds of literacy and property requirements that would later be used to keep blacks away from the polls.) Clearly, allowing terrorist groups to keep blacks from voting was in violation of the amendment. In May, Congress passed the first of three Enforcement Acts designed to help protect the right to vote. This act mandated fines or prison time for anyone convicted of preventing voters from casting ballots and made it a felony (a serious crime) to interfere with the exercising of constitutional rights. But because of lack of enforcement, this law proved ineffective.

The second Enforcement Act, passed in February 1871, provided for the appointment of federal election supervisors to oversee voting, and interfering with elections was made a federal crime. In April 1871, the strong support of President Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885; served 1869–77) helped push through the third Enforcement Act. This law made it a federal crime to prevent someone not only from voting but from holding office, serving on juries, or otherwise denying them equal protection under the law. The act gave the federal government the right to step in if the states failed to ensure these constitutionally guaranteed rights; in fact, the president could suspend habeas corpus (the right to be tried in court) and use military force if necessary.

Despite the somewhat controversial nature of these acts, which some said gave the federal government too much power over the states, Attorney General Amos T. Akerman (1821–1880) made an aggressive effort to enforce them. The results were only marginally effective, though; for example, of six hundred South Carolinians convicted under the Acts, only sixty-five were sent to federal prison. They were, however, thought to have reduced the violence that occurred around the relatively peaceful 1872 election in which Grant was reelected. Nevertheless, the violence had already taken a serious toll on Republican Party organizations and on the morale of black communities.

Developments in the North and
the West

Events and trends occurring across the rest of the United States during the Reconstruction era both paralleled and, in some ways, influenced what was happening in the troubled Southern part of the country. In the North, the span of years from 1865 to 1877 was marked by economic growth and political and social reforms, but there were also periods of economic depression, episodes of political corruption, and clashes between the expanding class of wealthy people and professionals and the small farmers and workers who still made up the bulk of the population. Northern state governments, like those in the South, were raising taxes and expanding their budgets in order to pay for new social services and public schools. But the North had not experienced the devastation of the Civil War in the same dramatic way as the South, and its stronger economy meant that it could better afford to finance the changes.

Between 1865 and 1873, industrial production (especially iron and steel manufacturing) increased by 75 percent. The population was expanding—including the addition of three million immigrants—but migration to the open spaces of the West had been eased by the construction of 35,000 miles of railroad routes. In the West were plenty of opportunities for farming as well as lumber harvesting, mining, and ranching.

While African Americans fought for their rights in the South, Native Americans were losing theirs in the West. Before the massive western migration of settlers intensified, the government had signed treaties with various Indian nations, allowing them to maintain—to lesser or greater extents, in specified areas—the hunting-based life patterns they had followed for centuries. But the need for land on which to build railroads and accommodate homesteaders (people who claimed land following the Homestead Act in 1862) led to a major change, as the government began pushing Native Americans onto reservations (areas of land set aside for Indians to live on). In 1871, Congress declared that the Indian nations were no longer sovereign (acting independently, without outside influence) and that there would be no more treaties. Although Native Americans continued to resist this trend through about 1890, most were living on reservations by the end of the Reconstruction era. Meanwhile, Chinese immigrants who had come to the United States to help construct the railroads were also routinely discriminated against.

The growth of the railroad and mining industries, with their dependence on receiving federal land grants, led to closer ties between business and government. This in turn created more opportunities for corruption as, for example, government officials would serve on the governing boards of companies and would receive favors in exchange for arranging government aid. Although President Grant himself appears to have been honest, his administration's reputation was tarnished by the involvement of several high-ranking officials in various scandals. Anxiety about the ties between government and business also spurred the growth of the labor movement: whereas only three labor unions had existed before the Civil War, there were twenty-one by the early 1870s. They campaigned for better working conditions, winning such benefits as the eight-hour work day for government workers in 1868. The unions, however, generally excluded women, African Americans, and people of Chinese heritage from their membership.

Achievements and disappointments

By the early 1870s, the Southern United States had become the setting for a pattern of both accomplishments and dashed hopes. Remarkably, a multiracial democratic government had been established and blacks were, for the first time in U.S. history, eagerly participating in every aspect of public life. Many public facilities had been rebuilt or newly constructed, school systems had been set up, and labor conditions on plantations had improved. As noted in Reconstruction and Reaction: The Emancipation of Slaves, 1861–1913, several years after the end of the Reconstruction era, a black legislator from South Carolina, Thomas E. Miller (1849–1938), would recall Republican accomplishments in a speech to the white-supremacist-dominated legislature of South Carolina:

We were eight years in power. We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary [prison] system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the jails and courthouses, rebuilt the bridges and reestablished the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the state and put it on the road to prosperity.

But the days of hope and achievement—darkened, of course, by the shadow of violent resistance—that Miller remembered with pride were almost over. Soon a new movement of conservative politicians would "redeem" the South, reclaiming it for the white supremacists who had previously dominated its society.

For More Information

Books

Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Benedict, Michael Les. A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869. New York: Norton, 1974.

Cox, LaWanda C., and John H. Cox, eds. Reconstruction, the Negro, and the New South. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Foner, Eric. Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

Foner, Eric. A Short History of Reconstruction. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

Golay, Michael. Reconstruction and Reaction: The Emancipation of Slaves, 1861–1913. New York: Facts on File, 1996.

Jenkins, Wilbert L. Climbing Up to Glory: A Short History of African Americans During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002.

Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Litwack, Leon F., and August Meier, eds. Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

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