End of Reconstruction

1
End of Reconstruction

• The Lost Cause

2
Review

• Radical Republican state govts in South
• Reforms instituted
• Corruption in state and federal govts
• Political racial violence
• After 1872 Redeemer state govts
• New economic structure emerges

3
Redemption

• Northern Republicans begin to lose interest
• Reconstruction complete after 15th Amend.?
• Panic of 1873 weakens party
• Factionalism
• States begin to elect Democratic governments

4
Colfax Massacre

• 13 April 1873, Colfax, Louisiana
• Separate Republican and Democratic govts
• Armed confrontation at courthouse
• 150 blacks killed

5
Slaughterhouse case

• 14 April 1873
• Supreme Court rules against butchers in New
  Orleans
• 14th Amendment applies only to citizens of
  national citizens
• Narrow interpretation of Amendment

6
Cruickshank case

• Ruling against Colfax killers overturned
• 14th Amendment applies only to states, not to
  individuals
• Effectively overturns anti-KKK laws

7
Election of 1877

• Hayes (Republican) vs. Tilden (Democrat)
• Tilden wins popular vote
• Electoral vote disputed / Democrats attempt
  filibuster
• Political agreement leads to Hayes election
• 3rd election in US history where loser wins

8
Election of 1877

• Reconstruction ended
• Troops withdrawn
• Federal govt overlooks violence

9
1877-1896

• Beginning of Nadir era
• Increase in lynchings
• 3,500 in period 1882-1968
• Peak in 1892 (161)
• Segregation

10
1877-1896

• Jim Crow laws
• Regulates public behavior
• Separate facilities for blacks
• Barbers (Georgia)
• Schools (Florida, Oklahoma)
• Libraries (North Carolina)
• Buses (Alabama)
• Trains (Louisiana)

11
Booker T. Washington

• Ex-slave
• Begins school (Tuskegee)
• Emphasizes manual labor (practical)
• Atlanta speech (1892)
• Argues for a deal
• Advancement through education
• Acceptance of social position

12
Two directions in AA society

• B. T. Washington
• Social responsibility
• industrial education

• W.E.B. DuBois
• Social equality
• classical education

13
Plessy v. Ferguson

• Black man (1/8) challenges Jim Crow laws on train
• Taken to Supreme Court
• Argues that race cant be legislated
• Ruling no violation of 14th Amendment
• Result Separate but equal

14
Legacy of Reconstruction

• Solid South
• National political power for region
• Segregation

15
The Lost Cause

• Military superior (Robert E. Lee, Stonewall
  Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest)
• Betrayed by politicans (Jefferson Davis)
• South noble, North a mob
• Defeat inevitable, though cause noble
• Slavery pastoral
• South raped by North in Reconstruction
• Carpetbaggers, scalawags
• Corruption

16
The Lost Cause

• The Clansman (1905)
• Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Gone with the Wind (1936) (1939)

17
Political realignment

• How did Democrats become party of Obama?
• Supported Progressive era changes
• Combine Solid South with working class
• Roosevelt New Deal
• How did Republicans become party of Bush?
• Associated with Gilded Age prosperity
• Business party
• Supported Prohibition

18
Changes brought by Civil War?

• Republicans control Congress in 1861
• Carry out agenda blocked by sectionalism
• What to do with new territories?

19
Homestead Act

• Enacted in 1862
• 160 acres granted
• Live on land for 5 years
• Improve land
• Pay license fee

20
Homestead Act

• Land in West arid
• Exploited by speculators
• Ended in 1977

21
Pacific Railroad Act

• Enacted 1862
• Land grant for transcontinental railroad
• Huge land transfer to railroad companies
• Irish working from east, Chinese from west
• Completed 1869 in Utah

22
Union Pacific
23
Transcontinental Railway
24
Morrill Land-Grant Act

• Enacted in 1862
• Federal land granted for higher education
• Ohio State
• University of Minnesota
• University of California
• Cornell University
• Tuskegee (founded as black college)

25
Next week

• Other changes brought on by war
• Interpretations of Civil War