The Rise And Fall Of Reconstruction

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Reconstruction is, “the period, generally dated from 1865 to 1877, during which the nation’s laws and Constitution were rewritten to guarantee the basic rights of the former slaves, and biracial governments came to power throughout the defeated Confederacy.” The fall of reconstruction started with the Grant administration scandals caused by grant’s “hands-off style of leadership” which lead to officials in his administration to enrich themselves through illegal schemes. Many republicans began to question the wisdom of maintaining a strong federal role in the affairs of southern states. Northern Whites chose white unity with white southerners rather than black equality. The Ku Klux Klan, a white terrorist group helped with the undoing of reconstruction. “The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority,” causing a set back with reconstruction . With threats, beatings and killings the Democratic Party managed to scare away more than 60,000 black and republican Mississippi voters. This was to allow the democrats to take control of the state legislature. This was better known as the Mississippi Plan, other states adopted a form of this plan and soon the Reconstruction governments fell to a new class called the Redeemers. …show more content…

Hayes promised to withdraw federal troops from the south in 1877, allowing formal Confederate officials and slave owners to return to power, thus ending reconstruction. Once the south had power again the sharecropping system kept blacks on the land owned by rich white farmers and this system became very popular. Blacks had very little economic power and had to fight for civil rights on their own because northern whites lost interest in