The weaknesses of the federal government - Legislative, Political (and Ideological)

Question 1

The end of the civil war:

Answer 1

The American Civil War was a long and destructive struggle but it ended with surprising speed. When Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election in 1864, victory still seemed far off; before the election Lincoln had been genuinely worried he might lose. It was only after the capture of Atlanta by Union forces in September 1864 that victory, in both the election and the war, was assured

By the time of Lincoln’s Second Inauguration in March 1865, the armies of the North were closing in on the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia. On 2 April 1865 Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy, was notified by General Robert E. Lee that the Southern armies could not fight on. Davis and his government fled. Union troops occupied Richmond; President Lincoln arrived to tour the city on 4 April. Five days later, General Lee met the Union commander Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Courthouse to negotiate surrender. On 13 April Lee’s 26,000 troops laid down their arms. The Civil War was over and the Confederacy was dead

Question 2

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865):

Answer 2

Abraham Lincoln was a self-educated lawyer from Springfield in Illinois, who was elected to Congress in 1846. Lincoln played a leading role in the formation of the new Republican Party in 1854 and ran for the Senate in 1858. He lost, but his debates with his rival, Stephen Douglas, gained him a national reputation. He won the 1860 election to become the 16th American President. He led the North to victory in the Civil War, and his 1863 Gettysburg Address paved the way for the abolition of slavery. Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865

Question 3

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln:

Answer 3

On 14 April, President Lincoln attended Ford’s Theatre in Washington to see Our American Cousins. An actor who had often performed at the theatre, James Wilkes Booth, came into Lincoln’s box and shot him in the head. Lincoln died the next day. On 21 April massed crowds watched Lincoln’s funeral train set out on its journey to his home in Springfield, Illinois. Having led the nation through years of war, Lincoln was prevented from leading the divided nation back to peace

The death of Lincoln was part of a major plot against the federal government: while James Wilkes Booth was shooting the President at Ford’s Theatre, other conspirators went to kill Vice-President Johnson and the Secretary of State, William Seward. Johnson was unharmed because his would-be assassin panicked and ran away; Seward was badly hurt in a knife attack while in bed at home, but survived

Booth was shot dead by the soldiers sent to capture him, and four other conspirators (one a woman) were hanged in July 1865

Question 4

The legacy of Lincoln:

Answer 4

The legacy of Abraham Lincoln was both political and personal. The Civil War had been won, but restoring national unity required more than military victory. The economic legacy of the Civil War was complex. The war had lasted four years, and 625,000 lives had been lost. Agriculture, trade and overseas markets had been dislocated, but the economic impact of the war reflected the divided nation. In the North, the war had stimulated vast economic expansion, with an acceleration of industrialisation and modernisation. But for the South, the war was traumatic

There had been considerable physical destruction of Southern towns and cities, especially in the last months of the war, when Union armies led by General William Sherman captured Atlanta and marched 440 miles across Georgia to the sea, leaving a trail of devastation. Sherman’s march through Georgia was, in military terms, a ‘normal’ demonstration of the nature of modern warfare, but it was to be remembered for generations to come. Scars such as the burning of Atlanta and the destruction of Charleston became symbols of what had been done to the South by the Northern invaders

How could the Southern states be reconciled and reintegrated? Was it necessary or desirable to put the leaders of the Confederacy on trial for treason against the Union? How should the balance of power between the States and the federal government be redefined? Should the big decisions about rebuilding the nation be taken by Congress, or the President?

Most of these political problems revolved around the issue of the abolition of slavery. More than 3 million former slaves were now free men: nobody knew what the social, economic and political consequences of this would be in the New South. How far towards equality would the position of African-Americans move? Would there be a racial conflict between former slaves and their former masters? Economic developments provided the context for these political battles and widened the gulf between the expanding North and the relatively impoverished South

Question 5

Answer 5

Question 6

The weaknesses of the federal government:

Answer 6

The Reconstruction of the nation would depend to a large extent on the actions and authority of the federal government, but its powers were very limited in 1865. Many of these weaknesses were generic and institutional. The Constitution was based on the separation of powers, on a system of checks and balances, to ensure no one arm of government became too powerful. Even a successful president like Lincoln could face difficulties in gaining support from Congress

The Civil War had tested to destruction the issue of states rights in relation to the federal government; after 1865 it was clear that the rights of the states had limits. The power and prestige of the presidency had also been strengthened by Lincoln’s role as a war leader. But the federal government was small in scale, with no large bureaucracy to implement its policies nationwide. Much political power was still reserved to state governments, whose local and sectional interests could obstruct or frustrate Congress or the presidency

Other weaknesses of the federal government in 1865 were specific to the crisis situation after the Civil War. The fierce resentment in the South made it particularly difficult to agree on a policy for Reconstruction, or to enforce it. There were fractured party loyalties. The main political parties were divided into factions, and the end of the war weakened the forces that had held rival politicians together in a common cause. Many of these political and personal rivalries were made worse by the divisive personality of Andrew Johnson

Question 7

The constitution:

Answer 7

Question 8

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875):

Answer 8

Andrew Johnson represented Tennessee in both the House and the Senate, and was Governor from 1853 to 1857 (he was military governor during the Civil War). As a War Democrat, Johnson seemed an ideal choice as Lincoln’s running mate in 1864. He became president after Lincoln’s death. He had deep differences with Congress over Reconstruction and was impeached in 1868, narrowly escaping conviction by the Senate. Tennessee elected him to the Senate in 1875, the only ex-president to serve there

Question 9

The troubled presidency of Andrew Johnson:

Answer 9

When he assumed the presidency in April 1865, Andrew Johnson was widely regarded as the right man for the job. He was respected for his decision to stay on in Congress after Tennessee seceded (withdrew) from the Union in 1861, the only Southern senator to do so. He had served as military governor of Tennessee and had been supportive of Lincoln in his time as Vice-President. He was a supporter of emancipation (the freeing of slaves) and was a fierce critic of the old plantation-owning Southern elite. Radical Republicans were hopeful Johnson would bring in the kind of reforms they wanted

Johnson, however, was a Democrat with his own ideas who wanted to carry through his own policies, without depending on Republican allies in Congress. In May 1865, Johnson launched his own programme of Presidential Reconstruction. This was seen by Radical Republicans as ‘soft’ towards the Southern states. The result was four chaotic years of bitter disputes, splitting the Republican Party, alienating Southerners, and leaving Johnson massively unpopular and politically isolated. In 1868, Johnson was impeached (the removal of a public official who is deemed guilty of misdemeanours) by Congress and only narrowly escaped being convicted. Reconstruction was still a faraway prospect

Question 10

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction:

Answer 10

Johnson aimed to act quickly to bring the South back into the political mainstream. Seven Southern states - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas - did not yet have approved Reconstruction governments. Johnson announced that all Southerners, except Confederate soldiers and the rich plantation owners, would be pardoned if they swore an oath of allegiance to the Union, and he eventually issued approximately 13,000 pardons. This opened the way for state conventions to set up new, lawful state governments, which would then accept the abolition of slavery and renounce the illegal action of breaking away from the Union in 1861

Johnson’s shortcut to reconciliation did not work out as intended and it aroused intense opposition from Republicans. His original plan to prosecute Confederate leaders for treason was dropped. Johnson had wanted to purge the old plantation aristocracy and prevent them from regaining power and influence in state governments, but the new state governments were dominated by the same old Southern elites, and the men elected to represent the Southern states in Congress were mostly former Confederate politicians and military officers. The new state governments also back-tracked on the question of rights for African-Americans; every state brought in ‘black codes’ that placed severe restrictions on the legal and economic rights of freedmen. Several states refused to ratify the Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery

Johnson has sound reasons for acting as he did. He knew it was vital to reconcile the South and to prevent those who had supported the Confederacy from becoming ‘a degraded and debased people’. But to Northern liberals, Johnson had betrayed the high hopes aroused by victory in the Civil War. He had undermined the status of black people in the South and he had allowed the old gang of Confederate leaders to creep back into politics. When Congress convened in December 1865 it was dominated by angry Republicans determined to wipe out the black codes and to remove former Confederates from power

Question 11

The black codes:

Answer 11

The ‘black codes’, introduced by new state governments in the South to replace the old slave codes, accepted the basic rights of freed slaves such as the right to marry and to own property. But there were harsh limitations, and many states imposed segregation and prohibited interracial marriage. Under the codes, blacks were not allowed to testify in court against whites; blacks also faced great difficulties in gaining economic freedom from work on the plantations

Question 12

Congressional Reconstruction:

Answer 12

From December 1865, Andrew Johnson was on a collision course with Congress. The president faced four competing political factions: Democrats, conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans, and radical Republicans. However this situation was approached, there was bound to be tension and political conflict, but a viable compromise might well have been achieved. Johnson, however, was high-handed and inept in his attempts to override opponents by the use of his presidential veto. He alienated many potential allies among moderate Republicans and drove them into allying with the Radicals

Johnson’s first use of the veto was against the renewal of the Freedmen’s Bureau. This had been established in March 1865 to assist and protect freed slaves. Now Congress voted to extend the life of the Bureau for three more years and to strengthen its powers to prosecute offenders guilty of discrimination against freedmen. Johnson vetoed this in February 1866. Congress then passed the Civil Rights Act in March 1866, re-stating the equal rights of African-Americans and authorising federal intervention to enforce them, but Johnson vetoed this as well. In July 1866 Congress passed another Freedmen’s Bureau Act, but Johnson vetoed this, too. Congress fought back, voting to override the presidential veto. In April 1866 the alliance between moderate Republicans and the Radicals pushed Congress into adopting the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to secure the Civil Rights Act. This was the most controversial of the Reconstruction Amendments - a highly politicised attempt to build equal citizenship rights into the Constitution and to penalise any states that denied the vote to male citizens. The third clause of the Amendment disqualified from office anyone who had supported the Confederacy, thus cancelling most of the pardons previously issued by Johnson

Question 13

Freedmen’s Bureau:

Answer 13

The Freedmen’s Bureau was set up by President Lincoln in 1865 as part of the United States Department of War. The Bureau was originally to last for one year but in 1866 its powers were renewed and expanded to provide assistance to African-Americans with family issues, legal advice, and improvements in employment and education. The Bureau continued operating until 1872

Question 14

The Reconstruction Amendments:

Answer 14

• Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, in April 1865 shortly after Lincoln’s Second Inauguration. It was ratified by a sufficient majority of the states in January 1866
• The Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing equal citizenship and voting rights, was proposed by Congress in April 1866 and ratified in July 1868
• The Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting federal or state governments from denying citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, was adopted by Congress in February 1869 and ratified in March 1870

Question 15

Reconstruction after the Fourteenth Amendment:

Answer 15

The passing of the Fourteenth Amendment led to a major political confrontation. Johnson refused to compromise and denounced it. Almost the entire South regarded it as unfair Northern revenge (though abolitionists thought it did not go far enough). Johnson hoped that he could form a new centrist political party, the National Union Party, but the 1866 mid-term elections were disastrous for Johnson. Republicans won two-thirds of the seats in the House and gained an even stronger hold on the Senate. Presidential Reconstruction was finished. Congressional Reconstruction was in full flow

After complex negotiations between moderates and Radicals, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act in February 1867. Johnson vetoed it. In March 1867 Congress voted it through again, overriding the presidential veto. The Reconstruction Act took bold steps - all previous measures to reintegrate the Southern states were declared void; Tennessee was the only state to be recognised. The other ten ex-Confederate states were effectively abolished and placed under temporary military rule until elected delegates agreed a new state constitution that ensured voting rights for all African-American males. Then, after ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, the state would be accepted back into the Union

The Reconstruction Act was a compromise and did not go far enough to satisfy the Radicals, whose leader, Thaddeus Stevens, wanted to confiscate estates and to redistribute the land to freedmen. Stevens knew that economic freedom would be as important for former slaves as political freedom. For President Johnson, however, the Act went much too far and he did much to obstruct it, especially by placing conservative military officers in control of the five military districts

Question 16

Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868):

Answer 16

Thaddeus Stevens was a Congressman from Pennsylvania and a long-term opponent of slavery. From 1861 to 1865 he played a key role in organising the financing of the North’s war economy. After the Civil War he was leader of the Radical Republicans in Congress and a fierce opponent of Andrew Johnson; Stevens took the lead in campaigning for Johnson’s impeachment. At the time, Stevens was seen as an extremist, driven by hatred of the South. Later generations saw him as a hero of the struggle for equal rights

Question 17

The Ku Klux Klan:

Answer 17

Congressional Reconstruction was not opposed only by Andrew Johnson - there was a hostile reaction in the South. There was open defiance of the new laws passed by Congress and deep resentment of the Northerners sent to rule over the South. In December 1865 a small group of Confederate ex-soldiers in Tennessee formed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a ‘white racial brotherhood’ that spread rapidly into other states. In the summer of 1866 there were major race riots in Memphis, New Orleans, and other Southern cities. By 1868 there was entrenched opposition to Reconstruction across the whole South. The KKK took its name from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle. It combined with other violent white supremacist secret societies to form a coordinated paramilitary movement that linked together various local chapters. The KKK faded away in the 1870s but came back to prominence after its revival in 1915

Question 18

The impeachment of President Johnson:

Answer 18

Johnson’s obstructionist tactics in 1867 infuriated Republicans in Congress and they responded by passing laws to limit the powers of the president. One prohibited the president from issuing direct military orders. The other law was the Tenure of Office Act (officials cannot be removed without the vote of the senate.) This was passed for a very specific purpose: it was known that Johnson wanted to get rid of his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who was a supporter of the Radicals. In August 1867 Johnson suspended Stanton. This strengthened the alliance between moderate and Radical Republicans, who started to search for grounds to impeach the president as unfit for office

In February 1868 Johnson tried to dismiss Edwin Stanton. Led by Thaddeus Stevens, the House of Representatives started the process of impeachment. Eleven charges were laid against Andrew Johnson, most of them based on his breaches of the Tenure of Office Act. This led to Johnson being placed on trial in the Senate

Johnson seemed certain to be convicted because the Republicans held such a powerful majority in the Senate, but during the seven dramatic weeks of the trial many Republicans hesitated. They did not want to take such an extreme step as to convict a president who had been lawfully appointed. They were fearful of setting a dangerous precedent by removing a president on political grounds, and moderates were not enthusiastic about the Radical Republican Benjamin Wade, the man most likely to replace Johnson. In the end, seven Republicans sided with the Democrats, and Johnson was saved from conviction by one vote. Yet this was not really a victory for Johnson because his political standing has been fatally damaged - he would play no part in the key political decisions and the 1868 election would be fought by other men. The new president was to be a Republican, the war hero, Ulysses S. Grant

Question 19

Answer 19

Question 20

Ulysses Grant and Radical Reconstruction:

Answer 20

The presidency of Ulysses Grant was dominated by the issue of Reconstruction and ended in failure and disappointment. Radical Reconstruction met fierce opposition, above all in the South, and petered out in an anticlimax by 1877. Grant’s administration was also plagued by accusations of corruption, and by the fall-out from the stock market crash of 1873. In 1876 Grant, who had been hoping to serve a third term as president, was sidelined as Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden fought out a bitterly-disputed election campaign. By the time of the inauguration of President Hayes, politicians on all sides were dissatisfied with the messy and inconclusive outcome of the era of Reconstruction

Question 21

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885):

Answer 21

Ulysses S. Grant was a soldier made famous by his victories at Shiloh and Vicksburg in the Civil War. In 1864 President Lincoln placed him in command of all Union armies. After the surrender of the South, Grant supervised the role of the army in enforcing Reconstruction there. He was elected president in 1868 and re-elected in 1872. Grant was successful in many respects, but his administration was discredited by financial scandals. Despite this, Grant was given a national hero’s funeral in 1885

Question 22

The election of 1868:

Answer 22

The election of 1868 was the Reconstruction Election. The Republican campaign was focused on Radical Reconstruction and the issue of voting rights for African-Americans in the South. The Democrats attacked Reconstruction as revolutionary and unconstitutional. In addition, the election was fought on the emotive legacy of the Civil War. Republicans presented themselves as the party of patriotism and principle; they constantly portrayed the Democrats as disloyal. The Republican party line was symbolised by their presidential candidate, General Ulysses S. Grant, the ‘Man Who Won The War’

Andrew Johnson had optimistically hoped to run for the presidency again, but the Democrats preferred Horatio Seymour, who had been wartime governor of New York. Grant was duly elected, carrying three-quarters of the states, but the margin of victory was deceptively narrow - Grant’s total popular vote was only 300,000 more than Seymour’s. Republican strategists realised how much Grant’s victory had depended on 700,000 votes from African-Americans in the South. It made Republicans even more determined to strengthen the provisions for black voting rights

Question 23

The policies of Radical Reconstruction:

Answer 23

After Grant’s election victory, Republicans in Congress moved quickly to propose the Fifteenth Amendment. This went much further than the Fourteenth Amendment, insisting that the right to vote was not to be denied on account of race, color or previous servitude. It was passed by Congress in February 1869, even before President Grant was inaugurated. It was ratified by a sufficient majority of the states in 1870

The implementation of Reconstruction policies was carried out by the federal government, by state governments in those states where the Republicans had a majority in the state legislatures, and by organisations such as the Freedmen’s Bureau. To be effective, all Reconstruction policies depended upon the presence of the US Army in the South. In the eyes of the federal government and Republican reformers, these troops were just a necessary precaution at a time of transition, but many Southerners bitterly resented them as an ‘army of occupation’

From the beginning there was intense, often violent resistance in the South against the policies of Reconstruction, including the violent actions of the Ku Klux Klan. In trying to deal with this opposition, the federal government passed three Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871, to strengthen the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in respect of equal rights for African-Americans and to try to limit discrimination. Because one of the key motives behind the Enforcement Acts was to target the ‘White Terror’ of the Ku Klux Klan and other groups, banning the use of intimidation or bribery of black voters, the Enforcement Acts are often referred to as the ‘Ku Klux Klan laws’

A further federal law, the Civil Rights Act, was passed by Congress in February 1875. This had originally been proposed in 1870 by the Radical Republican Senator for Massachusetts, Charles Sumner. It was intended to guarantee equal treatment in issues such as jury service and public transport. Even some Republicans regarded this as an extreme interference with state governments, and there was a long struggle before it was passed. President Grant supported and signed this measure, as he did with other legislation and the use of federal troops in the South, but by 1875 there was mounting opposition to such policies. Radical Reconstruction was losing momentum

Question 24

‘White Terror’ in the South:

Answer 24

The Ku Klux Klan was the best-known of the racist extremists in the South but there were many other paramilitary groups, such as the White League in Louisiana and the Red Shirts in South Carolina and Mississippi. The men in these militias were often ex-Confederate soldiers. Violent intimidation took many forms, especially lynching - beating and hanging victims by mob justice without any trial. The white terror made intervention by federal troops essential for the protection of African-Americans

Question 25

Opposition to Radical Reconstruction:

Answer 25

Opposition to Radical Reconstruction took many forms. There was the extreme opposition ‘on the ground’ from the white terrorists. There was political opposition from Southern state legislatures, which gathered strength after the ex-Confederate States were gradually re-admitted to the Union and Democrats fought back against the Republican majorities that had been temporarily dominant. Above all, there was a powerful reaction from the Democratic Party in the South who called themselves the Redeemers

Opposition against Reconstruction was effective on many levels. Violence and intimidation reduced the Republican vote from African-Americans. One vivid example of this was Louisiana, where the 1868 elections were fought against the background of sustained violence by white terrorists; more than a thousand people were killed, most of them freedmen. This violence was carried out by extremist groups, but they were openly encouraged by ‘respectable’ white politicians. There was also extensive electoral fraud

In 1873 three whites and an estimated 150 pro-Republican freedmen were killed in the Colfax Massacre. In September 1874, 5000 members of the White League (mostly Confederate army veterans) carried out a rebellion in New Orleans against the Republican Governor, William Pitt Kellogg. In the Battle of Liberty Place there were three days of fighting between the rebels and the state militia over whether the Redeemer or Republican claimant should be recognised as Governor of Louisiana. The Republicans were only able to keep power because of the intervention of federal troops. Louisiana was one of the few states where Republican rule was maintained

Other states, such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, were ‘redeemed’ with the help of similar violent actions. The redemption of the South was also helped by quieter, outwardly legal forms of discrimination. Voters were disfranchised by measures such as literacy tests and vagrancy (homelessness) laws. Many public posts went back into the hands of the old planter elites. By 1876, Redeemers had won back white Democratic control of most of the ex-Confederate states: only Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina were still unredeemed

Question 26

The failure of Radical Reconstruction:

Answer 26

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last major initiative of Radical Reconstruction. By then support was waning in Congress, where there were many sympathisers with Southern opposition, and also many who were not in a sufficiently strong political position to carry through policies that were seen as unpopular. Liberal Republicans were reluctant to keep on using federal troops to suppress Southern discontent. The Redeemers had gained confidence as Democrat control was restored in several Southern states between 1870 and 1875. This process was helped by Grant’s decision to approve the Amnesty Act of 1872, which allowed large numbers of ex-Confederates to return to political life after being disqualified by previous laws. In March 1876, two rulings by the Supreme Court went in favour of Southern conservatives, not federal laws

It was now ten years since the end of the Civil War and even Radical Republicans were weary of the constant political battles. The context of politics was also changing. Grant had won re-election easily enough in 1872, but his position was badly weakened by the economic depression that followed the stock market Panic of 1873. Grant was also distracted by the Indian Question and the renewed outbreaks of war in Red River in 1874 and the Black Hills War of 1876. An even bigger distraction weakening Grant’s presidency was a tide of accusations of political and financial corruption

In 1873 Grant was damaged by the fall-out from the stock market Panic, which many people blamed on wild financial speculation by the railroad companies. In later scandals Grant’s vice-president, Schuyler Colfax, was disgraced by links to railroad speculators; his personal secretary was caught accepting bribes from the Whiskey Ring, and his Secretary of War was caught taking bribes to sell Indian trading posts

The toxic combination of scandals and economic depression left Grant’s presidency badly discredited. The Liberal Republicans deserted him and the Party was divided. It was obvious that Grant would not win a third term in office, as he had hoped to do. The scene was set for a bruising and bitter contest between Republicans and Democrats in the 1876 elections

Question 27

Answer 27

Question 28

The failure of Radical Reconstruction - corruption:

Answer 28

Ulysses Grant actually had quite a good record of fighting corruption. He had tried to improve the administration of Indian affairs. He had brought in reforms to the administrative civil service. He had given his backing to Radical Reconstruction. But none of this saved him from intense criticism of his failure to prevent his administration being tainted by various scandals about the ‘Rings’ of political and financial corruption connected to his friends and associates

In 1869 the so-called Black Friday scandal caused a sensation when the Gold Ring, a conspiracy between Jay Gould and Jim Fisk to control the New York gold market, was exposed. Grant was not directly involved but suffered political damage because his brother-in-law had connections with Gould and Fisk. Other scandals included the Star Routes Ring in the Postal Service, and the New York Custom House Ring; this was very damaging because it drew attention to the notorious Tweed Ring that was poisoning local politics in New York in the 1870s

Question 29

The Tweed Ring:

Answer 29

The Tweed Ring was a system of patronage and corruption run by William Tweed, the ‘boss’ of the Democratic political ‘machine’ in New York. Tweed had power and influence in city and state politics, banks, and the Erie Railroad. His Ring controlled the courts, the police, the legislature and supervision of elections. Tweed and his associates looted at least $45 million from New York. He was convicted of corruption in 1877 and died in prison

Question 30

Answer 30

Question 31

Summary:

Answer 31

The Era of Reconstruction shaped the history of post-Civil War America. The political upheavals and controversies were not resolved by Abraham Lincoln’s successors. Andrew Johnson attempted to bring about a shortcut to reconciliation, but his policies of Presidential Reconstruction failed. Problems continued throughout the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, and persisted long after Radical Reconstruction was finally abandoned. Reconciliation between North and South was postponed by deep-rooted divisions and political conflict

By the autumn of 1876 it was obvious that Radical Reconstruction was fading away. The Republican Party was increasingly divided, weakening the drive for Reconstruction at precisely the time the Redeemers gained political control of most of the Southern states. Whoever won the 1876 presidential election, there was bound to be a significant change of direction in American politics