Transcript Aim: What events led to the end of Reconstruction?

Aim: What events led to the end
of Reconstruction?
4. The End of Reconstruction
• By the late 1860s, Radical Reconstruction was
well under way in the South.
• After many successes, it seemed Radical
Reconstruction would continue into the near
future.
• In the late 1860s and 1870s, however, many
Americans began to grow tired of the
problems presented by Reconstruction.
4.1 The Election of Grant
• In 1868, the Republicans chose General Ulysses
Grant to run for President.
• The Democrats chose Horatio Seymour, former
governor of New York as their nominee.
• The Republicans stood by Reconstruction, while the
Democrats favored putting an end to it.
• The Democrats wanted to pull soldiers out of the
South, pardon former Confederates and return all
rights to the states.
• The campaign was a heated one.
• The Republicans pointed to their war record by
blaming the Democrats for starting the Civil War.
• The Republicans stated it was their party that saved the
Union and portrayed their party as the party of
patriotism.
• The Republicans win the Election of 1868. Grant won
26 states, with an electoral vote of 214 to 89.
• Grant also received over three million votes thanks to
the help of newly-enfranchised Blacks.
• Blacks received the right to vote and voted for the
Republicans.
Question 1
• What position did each party take in the
election of 1868?
Question 2
• Who were the candidates for President in
1868? Who won the election?
Question 3
• Before becoming President, Grant was the
winning general in which American conflict?
Question 4
• Which new group of Americans affected the
United States Presidential election? Why was
this possible? Which party did they vote for
and for what reason?
Candidates For President-1868
Election of 1868
Ulysses Grant-18th President
4.2 Grant and Reconstruction
• Grant took a strong stance in favor of Radical
Reconstruction.
• Grant passed two important bills to support his stance:
(a) Force Bill (1870)
(b) Ku Klux Klan Bill (1871)
• These laws gave Grant the power to use troops to end
violence against Blacks and Republican governments in
the South.
• Slowly, Grant’s support for Radical Reconstruction
began to weaken. By 1872, he stopped sending troops
into the south.
Question 5
• How did Grant help further the cause of
Reconstruction during his first term as
President?
Question 6
• When did Grant stop believing in the cause of
Reconstruction? What action did Grant not
take in his second term?
Force Bill (1870)
Passed after the 15th Amendment, the Force Bill allowed Blacks the right
to vote because soldiers were allowed to be stationed at voting centers.
Ku Klux Klan Act (1871)
Passed in 1871, the Ku Klux Klan Act
allowed President Grant the power to
use the military to prevent the growth of the
Ku Klux Klan.
Slowly, the attention of President Grant began to turn to other matters besides Reconstruction.
President Grant would slowly become one of the worst American Presidents in US History.
4.3 Other Interests, Other
Concerns
• Congress, too, was becoming less concerned
with supervising the South and helping the
freedmen.
• For one thing, some of the most important
Radical leaders were gone.
• By 1870, Henry Winter Davis, Thaddeus
Stevens, and Benjamin Wade were either
retired or dead.
• In 1872, Congress passed an Amnesty Law that allowed most
Confederate leaders the right to vote and hold office. This
changed the climate of the south towards the Democratic
Party.
• The Freedmen’s Bureau was abolished in 1872.
• Northerners, too, were also tired of Reconstruction. They
began to focus on the following issues:
(a) Indian Wars in the West
(b) Purchase of Santo Domingo
(c) The Depression of 1873
Question 7
• What was occurring in the northern attitude
toward Reconstruction in the 1870s?
Amnesty Laws
Under the Amnesty Law, the United States
Congress allowed ex-Confederate soldiers the
right to vote in elections and restored citizenship.
This law showed the end of Congressional support
towards Reconstruction.
This changed the lives of Blacks for the worse.
The Radical Republicans Disappear
Changing The South
After the Amnesty Law was passed, southern governments slowly changed from
Republican control back to Democratic control. This allowed for ex-Confederates
the right to take freedoms away from Blacks in the South.
Freedmen’s Bureau Abolished
Rights of Blacks Ended
Southern whites slowly began to
end the freedoms granted to
Blacks in the years following the
Civil War.
This led to segregation and the
division of Southern society
until 1954.
Northern Interests Change
Indian Wars in the Western United States ended support for Reconstruction.
Northern Interests Change
The United States Congress was looking to buy the Dominican Republic from
Spain. This turned people’s attention away from Reconstruction.
Northern Interests Change
Although Grant won re-election in 1872, the United States went into
a great depression which lasted five years. The United States voter, in return,
voted the Republicans out of office and gave the Democrats power for the
first time since 1865.
4.4 Scandals Under Grant
• Tales of scandal in the Grant administration
also diverted people’s attention away from
Reconstruction.
• Grant was a great military leader but not a
great political leader.
• Many people tried to take advantage of
Grant’s poor leadership for their own gain.
• The three major scandals included:
Gould and Fisk (1869)
• Americans learned in 1869 that two millionaires
named Jay Gould and Jim Fisk bought enough gold to
control its price.
• The two millionaires then asked Grant to see the
government’s gold. This would drive up the price of
gold, but Grant refused.
• Gould and Fisk then spread a rumor that Grant did
sell the gold. This drove up the price and the two
men sold their gold for profit.
• The government then released its gold and it
dropped the price of gold while ruining the
financial livelihood of many Americans.
• Seeing that this occurred under the
administration of President Grant, Americans
blamed Grant and the Republicans for their
woes.
Gould and Fisk Corner the Gold
Market (1869)
Credit Mobilier
• In 1872, the Credit Mobilier scandal broke.
• The Credit Mobilier Construction Company was
formed by the leaders of the Union Pacific Railroad
Company, which had been awarded contracts to
build the transcontinental railroad.
• Huge profits went to railroad executives and
members of the United States Congress who had
accepted stock in the company for certain favors.
• People became incensed when the Congress blocked
all investigations into the matter.
Credit Mobilier Scandal
Schuyler Colfax-The
Vice President of the
United States was
bribed with stock.
The Credit Mobilier Scandal broke in 1872. The scandal allowed for members of
Congress to make huge profits by selling tracts of land to the Union Pacific
Railroad Company. This scandal affected the second term of President Grant
The Whiskey Ring
• This scandal affected a member of Grant’s
Cabinet, Treasury Secretary W.A. Richardson,
who was found to be dishonest.
• Another member of Grant’s staff, his private
secretary, Orville Babcock, who was part of
the Whiskey Ring.
• The Whiskey Ring was a group of revenue
officers and distillers formed to cheat the
government out of tax money.
• When the ring was discovered, the
government had lost billions of dollars.
• This led to War Secretary, W.W. Belknap’s
resignation. He was about to be impeached
for taking bribes.
The Whiskey Ring
Another scandal linked to the
Grant Administration.
Members of Grant’s Cabinet
were either indicted or
forced to resign.
Grant was able to protect his
private secretary Orville
Babcock from any criminal
charges.
Support of President Grant
President Grant received support from Thomas
Nast, a leading political cartoonist of the era.
In this picture, Nast is showing his hatred that the
Democrats are using the President as a
scapegoat for the problems that occurred during
his administration.
President Grant is an example on how in history,
a military hero does not usually become a great
President.
Grant retired from the presidency in 1876.
He is buried in New York City.
Grant’s Tomb, Harlem, NYC
Question 8
• What did Gould and Fisk attempt to do?
Question 9
• Who was involved in the Credit Mobilier
Scandal?
Question 10
• Which cabinet members were indicted in the
Whiskey Ring?
Question 11
• Where is Ulysses Grant buried?
4.5 Election of 1876
• The administration of President Grant severely
weakened the Republican Party, which had
already lost power in the Southern State
Governments.
• By 1875, only three states-Louisiana, Florida
and South Carolina-remained under
Republican control.
• Against this background, the Election of 1876
is to take place.
Republicans Lose the South
Due to the political scandals of Grant’s administration, the state governments in
the south slowly went back to the Democratic Party. This is a major issue in the
Election of 1876.
The Candidates-1876
Rutherford Hayes-Republican
Samuel Tilden-Democrat
The Results of the Election
The results of the election were disputed. Tilden won the popular vote while three
states could not declare a winner of the popular vote. This was a major crisis for the
Constitution.
• Tilden won a majority of the popular vote, but a
question arose over the electoral vote.
• Both parties claimed victory in Florida, Louisiana and
South Carolina. The matter would be settled in
Congress.
• The Congress established a panel of fifteen
government officials-five from the United States
House of Representatives, the United States Senate
and the United States Supreme Court.
• The commission voted eight to seven-making Hayes
the 19th President.
• The matter had to be settled in the United States
Congress.
• On March 2, 1877, the Democrats reached a
compromise for Congress to make a decision
regarding the commission’s report.
• The Democrats accepted Hayes as President as long
as the Republicans would pull the remaining troops
out of the South.
• This spelled the end of Reconstruction.
Question 12
• What southern states were under Republican
control in 1876?
Question 13
• Who were the candidates for President in
1876?
Question 14
• How was the Election of 1876 decided?
Question 15
• Which President in your lifetime was similar to
President Hayes, in that, he won the election
even though he did not win the popular vote?
A Disputed Election
The Similarities Between 1876 and
2000
Total 50,456,002 47.87% (Bush) (Gore) 50,999,897 48.38%
4.6 The Plight of Southern Blacks
• The real losers of the Compromise of 1877
were southern blacks.
• The last Radical governments were no longer
protected by the federal government. One by
one, they were replaced by the Democrats.
• Many people called these new southern
governments “Redeemers”, or saviors of the
South.
• As southern Democrats came into power,
blacks began to lose their political rights.
• Violence between blacks and whites increased
with many blacks being lynched.
• Blacks lost their economic power. When
Blacks were promised on free land, the
federal government never gave them any, and
many remained poor in a new system called
sharecropping.
Question 16
• Why was it hard for blacks to prevent the loss
of their rights?