The overthrow of Reconstruction ended the North’s period of great hope in the South after the Civil War, hope of equality and integration in the South, and peaceful restoration of the Union. It failed because the Old South refused to be buried with its defeated, dead soldiers, and sought Redemption through violence and intimidation; it failed because the South united against it: ‘the wealthy and educated, the poor white trash and illiterates’^[1] against the invading Northerners and their corrupt governments in the hope of restoring home rule and white supremacy. The plantation owning white elite’s attempt to reclaim their place was condoned by the North’s indifference to Reconstruction after 1872, thus guaranteeing the South’s Redemption.

For the Southern elite Reconstruction had to be overthrown. It was run by outsiders and therefore invaders: northern Republicans, “carpetbaggers” who were accused of being nothing more than speculators and opportunists, rejected from the North; Southerners, “scalawags” who had been opposed to Confederacy and saw Reconstruction as an opportunity to reform the South and inevitably further their own standing; and Freedmen, former slaves who prior to 1865 had been kept under the firm control of their white masters.[2] It was a ‘foreign’ government that was blamed for the economic failure that was part of the depression of the 1870s; blamed for the plummeting prices of cotton that fell by 50% between 1872 and 1877[3]; blamed for the increase in tax rates such as in Mississippi where it increased fourfold between 1869 and 1874 as well as increasing the public debt which was being accumulated at $664,000 per year.[4] It was a government that was perceived as ‘…a foreign yoke; not one imposed by its own people, or by an authority which has arisen of itself among themselves.’[5]

For the Southern elite their worst fears about defeat in the war had been realised. In South Carolina the Republican governments were accused of supporting ‘taxation without representation’ by its corrupt governors,[6] who were guilty of an ‘unenviable record of malfeasance in office’ and both Robert K Scott who governed from 1868-72, and Franklin J Moses Jr, his successor, were accused of extravagant lifestyles not just by conservative Democrats of the opposition, but also the Republicans.[7] With these governments representing and consisting of ‘labourers, renegades, and aliens, the Republicans represented all the forces of disorder.’ The Reconstruction governments as far as the South was concerned were simply mob rule and had to be resisted.[8]

Faced with such an appraisal by the former ruling white elite, the Republicans struggled to gain legitimacy and recognition of their Reconstruction governments. Southern Democrats pointed to the fact that the Reconstruction governments were instruments in imposing a policy formulated by a Congress that was not only Northern but almost singularly Republican, and in addition the Reconstruction policy and governments relied on the votes of former slaves. Every effort that Republicans made seem to antagonise the situation further: in Louisiana, the reformed New Orleans metropolitan police and the large state militia of 5,000 men were seen as tools of an arbitrary government even though the militia came under the command of former Confederate general James Longstreet. Furthermore, any laws that were introduced to protect its black voters from increasing incidents of violence were seen as partisan by Southern whites. Republicans were divided as to whether legitimacy could be garnered through coercion or conciliation, those that advocated conciliation were generally white Southerners, whilst those attempting to protect the party’s power base tended to be Northern whites and Freedmen.[9]

The fractures in the Republican Party were widened in September 1871 when Carl Shurz launched Liberal Republicanism. This was a nationwide ‘Radical’ reformist offshoot of the Republican Party containing mostly those disaffected with Republican leadership. As well as proposing national policies such as reform of the civil service, reduced taxes and stopping land grants to railroads, it also promoted an end to Reconstruction under Federal control. The Liberals also supported political amnesty and a return to ‘home’ rule in the Southern states. This offered hopes for Southern Democrats and encouraged them in their efforts in fighting Reconstruction. Whether deliberate or not, the Liberals were proponents of white supremacy in the South. Liberal Republicanism dented the Republican Party’s quest for Southern recognition even further by supporting Horace Greeley against the Republican-backed Grant in the 1872 presidential election.[10]

Whilst the Republican Party were failing in the South to endear themselves to the majority of the white population, the Democrat Party were risking their own schism by embarking on the New Departure from 1868 onwards: an attempt to grab the political centre ground through representing something other than a return to white supremacy. By drawing a line under the issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and by accepting the reality of black suffrage, the Democrats’ efforts were aimed at restoring voting rights to former Confederates as well as attracting the support of disgruntled Republicans – black and white – and former Whigs.[11]

Opposition to the New Departure among the Democrats came in the shape of the Bourbons. Named after the French royal house, this movement criticised the New Departure’s quest for the black vote as it appeared to abandon white supremacy. The Bourbons argued that the appeal for black votes was pointless as firstly they were unlikely to vote Democrat in large numbers, and secondly black suffrage could be dealt with once in power. For the Bourbons believed, just like John Forsyth of the Mobile Register, that ‘the road to redemption is under the white banner.’[12] The New Departure followers further incensed the Bourbons by moving against the Ku Klux Klan in 1871 alongside Republican state officials fearing the Klan’s actions would have a detrimental effect on the Greeley campaign for the 1872 Presidential election, where they mistakenly expected a victory in defeating Grant.[13]

Instead of focusing on the Colour Line in areas of white majorities like Texas and Arkansas the Democrats turned the campaign to financial issues, highlighting Republican maladministration and ineptness, citing the recent railroad scheme collapses as examples of incompetence. By making fiscal issues the centre of their campaign they would be more likely to attract aggrieved Republican voters, as the appeal of low taxes was attractive across the political spectrum.[14]

The Democrats’ efforts attempts to beat the Republicans at the polls not only attracted more moderate support in the South, but by publicly offering a peaceful opposition they would reduce the number of opportunities the Federal government could use to intervene, and also reassure Northern financial backers that their much needed investment in the New South would be not be harmed by violence. Democrats did indeed attract new support from former Whigs and sought economic and financial assistance from those who would otherwise have backed the Republicans. Black support came mainly from those who were employed by Democrats, emphasising in a paternalistic manner that voting for the Democrats was in their best interest. By getting black support it was hoped that the Republican-induced racial tension in the South would also be eased, further legitimising the Democrats’ believed right-to-rule.[15]

But for some, the Old South knew best, an Old South where violence had been an almost paradoxical part of life in that where there emphasis in society was about good manners, honour and protecting the gentlewoman, it was an Old South that was characterised by violence – ‘violence on troubled frontiers, violence in managing slaves and hunting down those who sought freedom by escape, and violence in duels.’[16] Nowhere was Southern resistance to Reconstruction more evident than in violence, violence against those that administered the Reconstruction governments, and violence against those that voted for it. The legal resistance showed by the Democrat Party on its campaign was supplemented with brutal, often murderous violence and terrorism.

The violence was designed to achieve two main objectives: firstly to discredit the Reconstruction governments by giving the appearance that they were unable to provide law and order in the South. Secondly, it was to frighten, intimidate and terrorise the mainly black Republican electorate into staying away from the polls and supporting their party, and the officials who helped administer the Reconstruction governments. As a method of achieving those aims, violence was extremely effective. In the early days of Congressional Reconstruction the main terror group was the Ku Klux Klan, and was at its most formidable in North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. In these three states the Klan played a pivotal role in ejecting the Republican legislatures in the 1870 elections, and in each state ‘the demoralising and intimidating impact of violence played a crucial role’, with Republican leadership being scattered and thrown into chaos in other states such as South Carolina.[17]

Later on in the Reconstruction period white supremacist groups such as the White League, the Rifle Clubs and the Red Shirts ‘spread such fear among black Republicans that the party became demoralized.’[18]At risk of being targeted by violence were black office holders like Congressman Richard H Cain who had constant armed guards for himself and his family who were in fear of their lives; and Emanuel Fortune of Florida Jackson County was not the only local leader to be driven out by the Klan.[19] Also at risk were white officials such as state militia leader Joe Crews who was killed in 1875[20], and the six Red River Parish Officers assassinated by the White League in September 1874, according to Governor William P Kellogg because ‘the only known objection to them was that they were of republican principles.’[21] The Klan took hold in places where there was a small black majority or where the population was evenly divided between blacks and whites. The Klan and other white supremacist groups crossed the class divide, and all parts of society were involved. In York County, South Carolina, almost all of the white population was participating in Klan activities forcing the black populace to flee to the woods at nighttime to avoid being attacked. The escape to the woods did to stop the violence – eleven murders including a militia leader and hundred of whippings numbering amongst them a ‘dwarflike cripple’ Elias Hill, a self-educated teacher and minister who had hoped his physical condition would save him from punishment.[22]

Democrat leaders blamed poor, uneducated white folk for the violence and indicated it was a reaction to the Republican governments as they had been ‘pushed beyond endurance and denied the thoughtful guidance of their historic leaders, these men had turned into a murderous mob’. White democrat elites, seeking an invitation from Republicans to end this violence, suggested they could stop this violence if they were resumed to their rightful place in political society.[23] The Democrats could indeed stop this violence, although they viewed it as warranted; it was part of an attack on Republican governments, officials and voters justified as it was seen as ‘the political arm of a garrison in the South sustained since 1868 by 20,000 US soldiers.’[24] Violence was used as a political weapon of which the main beneficiaries were the white elites such as wealthy planter and former Confederate general Matthew Butler. Butler, when giving testimony to Federal authorities, denied being part of the Klan but of a number of ‘men who have a right to know and be heard’ and ‘laid out the philosophical underpinning of the elite-led rebellion against Reconstruction; certain men were entitled to pass judgment on state policies and veto they disapproved.’[25]

Republicans were placed in an almost impossible position from which to react to the violence against them: by passing laws against the violence they allowed themselves of being accused of governing arbitrarily, and action taken by mostly-black Republican militia could be seen as instigating racial warfare. Legislation passed against Klan and other forms of violence was accused of introducing military rule and destroying civil liberties. For many Southerners the Ku Klux Klan Acts of April 1871 were a step too far and infringed on constitutional rights – if the Federal government could pass these laws bypassing the State governments, Democrats argued, where would the Federal government stop? Despite the Federal and Southern Republican backing for the Klan Acts very few of those arrested were charged; however the Klan Acts succeeded in its main objective which was to restore order and allow the black electorate to exercise their vote.[26]

Southern Republican governors were afraid to use loyal militias because not only would it almost entirely compose of Freedmen and therefore any legitimate action might descend into racial warfare, but that the appearance of an armed black militia in any of the States would lose the Republicans any support from the white voters that they so desperately sought.[27] The Republican Party in the South was unable to defend itself and suffering ‘violent assaults and with whites responding eagerly to the Democrats call for white supremacy’ it seemed that Southern resistance could be successful, especially in the Deep South after 1874.[28]

But Southern Resistance was not the only engine that drove the South towards Redemption: the overthrow of Reconstruction was as much down to the North’s desertion of the South, and its increasingly ambivalent attitude towards the region’s reintegration into the Union; an attitude shared by the Northern Republican party, the Federal government, and its electorate. The Northern Republican Party attitude had changed to the South, and the Radical element slowly ebbed away to be replaced by a more conservative party. Believing that Reconstruction had been completed with the readmission of the Southern states into the Union and realizing that racial prejudice was still evident in the North, the Republican Party abandoned progressive reform both in the South and also in the North where there were calls for labour reform and female suffrage.[29]

The Federal government under Ulysses S Grant took limited action during his eight years as president, and only in extreme circumstances was he pushed to send in federal troops to quell public disturbances such as in South Carolina in 1871-2 against the Klan, and continuously in Louisiana 1872-6 helping the Republicans under William P Kellogg stay in power.[30] Despite the Fifteenth Amendment – preventing state governmental deprivation of suffrage on the basis of colour – being passed by Congress in 1869, his first term in office was conservative in its decisions towards Reconstruction, and in his second term Grant ‘presided over a broad retreat from the policies of Reconstruction’.[31] Northerners too were tired of hearing about the South, and Republican congressman were no longer lobbied about Reconstruction issues as public opinion was more concerned with the corruption of the Grant administration economic issues that affected their everyday lives like taxation. The Northern public’s eyes turned from reforming the South to conquering the West.[32]

By turning its back on the Southern Republicans and withdrawing Federal troops from the South in 1877, the North was condoning the behavior of the white supremacists and allowing the Democrats to dominate the polls in the South. But Reconstruction had started to decline before then as Redemption came to the South through the ballot box: North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia as early as 1870-1 returned a Democrat legislature after elections. Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee moved to Democrat hands with comparatively little violence due to the Republicans being unable to present a united front and the Democrat dominated popular press that advertised the attraction of white supremacy.[33] The North’s indifference to Reconstruction galvanized the Democrats and supremacists in the South, and allowed the Democrats to dominate the political scene below the Mason-Dixon Line. By offering no opposition to Southern resistance it had not only justified the Southern supremacists’ use of violence, but also ensured its success.

Reconstruction finally came to an end in 1877 when Louisiana and South Carolina achieved Redemption as the final Federal troops left the South as part of the promises made by Hayes in the Compromise that led to his election. This removal of the last garrisons was the final Redemption of the South causing Freedmen to accuse Hayes of undoing all the hard work of the previous nine years – an unfair accusation. Reconstruction was defeated by conflict in the South – political and physical – and by neglect in the North as Redemption ended an era of progressive racial reform in the South and ushered in prejudice maintained by state laws. Through violence and political adaption it managed to return the South back to its white supremacist ways, and using these same methods it would preserve the elite control for almost another century.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Brogan, H. (1999). The Penguin History of the USA. London: Penguin.

Current, R. N. (Ed.). (1969). Reconstruction in Retrospect: Views from the turn of the century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Dailey, J., Gimore, G. E., & Simon, B. (Eds.). (2000). Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Foner, E. (2002). Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. New York: Harper Collins.

Foner, E. (2011). Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Kantrowitz, S. (2000). One Man’s Mob Is Another Man’s Militia: Violence, Manhood, and Authority in Reconstruction South Carolina. In J. Dailey, G. E. Gilmore, & B. Simon (Eds.), Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics From Civil War to Civil Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Patrick, R. W. (1967). The Reconstruction of the Nation. London: Oxford University Press.

Perman, M. (1985). The Road To Redemption: Southern Politics, 1869-1879. London: University of North Carolina Press.

Perman, M. (2003). Emancipation and Reconstruction. Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson Inc.

Perman, M., & Taylor, A. M. (Eds.). (2011). Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Randall, J. (1953). The Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: Heath and Company.

Stampp, K. M., & Litwack, L. F. (Eds.). (1969). Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

Trelease, A. W. (1971). Reconstruction: The Great Experiment. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^[1] Patrick, Reconstruction of the Nation, 1967,P149

^[2] Perman & Murrell Taylor (eds), Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction, 2011, P451

^[3] Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877, 2002, P535

^[4] Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1953, P851

^[5] James S Pike, The Prostrate State, 1873, quoted in Perman & Murrell Taylor, 2011, P428

^[6] “Proceedings of the Tax-Payers’ Convention of South Carolina …1871” (Charleston 1871) quoted in Stephen Kantrowitz One Man’s Mob from Dailey, Gilmore & Simon (eds.) Jumpin’ Jim Crow, Princeton, 2000, P69

^[7] Foner, 2002, pp542-3

^[8] Kantrowitz, S. (2000). One Man’s Mob Is Another Man’s Militia: Violence, Manhood, and Authority in Reconstruction South Carolina. In J. Dailey, G. E. Gilmore, & B. Simon (Eds.), Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics From Civil War to Civil Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press. P69

^[9] Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, 2003, pp103-7

^[10] Foner, 2002, pp500-505

^[11] Foner, 2002, pp412-3

^[12] Perman, The Road to Redemption, 1985, pp77-8, quote is from the editorial of the Mobile Register 13th January, 1871

^[13] Perman, 1985, pp63-4

^[14] Perman, 2003, pp112-3

^[15] Perman, 2003, P109-110

^[16] Patrick, 1967, P150

^[17] Perman & Murrell Taylor, 2011, pp455-7

^[18] Perman, 2003, P113

^[19]  Foner, 2002, P426

^[20] Kantrowitz in Dailey, Gilmore & Simon, 2000, P72

^[21] Statement to the Public, Governor William P Kellogg, September 3rd 1874, found in Perman & Murrell Taylor, 2011, pp431-3

^[22] Foner, 2002, pp 430-2

^[23] Kantrowitz in Dailey, Gilmore & Simon, 2000, P67

^[24] Perman & Murrell Taylor, 2011, P454

[25] Kantrowitz in Dailey, Gilmore & Simon, 2000, P70

[26] Foner, 2002, pp435-8

[27] Perman 2003, pp105-6

[28] Perman, 2003, P115

[29] Perman 2003, pp132-4

[30] Perman, 2003, P120

[31] Foner, 2002, P528

[32] Foner, 2002, P449

[33] Foner, 2002, pp441-2