Social Reconstruction Efforts to Rebuild the South Politically and Socially

Politics Three main groups made up the Republican Party in the South. Scalawags were white southerners who joined the party. Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved south after the war. African Americans also supported the Republican Party, because of their anti- slavery stance. These groups had many differences and caused a lack of unity in the party.

Lives of Former Slaves Freed slaves were anxious to take advantage of their new freedoms. For the first time, many former slaves learned to read and write. The 14 th Amendment made all persons born in the U.S. citizens, and also outlawed discriminatory laws. The 15 th Amendment allowed African-Americans the right to vote. African-Americans began to become involved in politics. Former slaves that helped General Sherman received land to start their own farms.

Problems for Reconstruction President Johnson later returned this land to the planters who formerly owned it. –The planters set up share cropping, where former slaves rented land to farm. They had to pay a large amount of their crops to the planters. –While African Americans were no longer slaves, they were trapped in a cycle of poverty with no way out due to the high rent they paid.

Opposition to Reconstruction The Ku Klux Klan was formed by Confederate veterans. –They used terror to intimidate former slaves. –They tried to destroy the Republican Party and the reconstruction governments they formed. –Congress did make the Enforcement Acts. It allowed the federal government to supervise elections. It allowed federal troops to be sent to areas where the Klan was active.

The End of Reconstruction The Amnesty Act allowed 160,000 former Confederate soldiers and leaders to vote again, and they voted for the Democratic Party, which opposed Reconstruction efforts. Scandals in the Grant administration weakened the Republican Party and took attention away from the South. The economic problems caused by the Panic of 1873 also took attention away from Reconstruction.

The End of Reconstruction The Supreme Court made rulings that weakened the 14 th and 15 th Amendments and allowed more discrimination in the South. In the North, support for Reconstruction declined. In the election of 1876, republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote and defeated democrat Samuel Tilden, but he did not win the popular vote. The House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, agreed to certify the election results if Republicans gave up some Reconstruction efforts. The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction by pulling out federal troops, and allowing home rule, the ability for states to run their own governments without federal involvement.