The Union Won The Civil War, and The Seceded States Won Reconstruction

Although the Union won the Civil War, it was the states who seceded who won Reconstruction. Reconstruction saw the introduction of white supremacy groups, widespread lynching, and political violence. Eventually, those led by the Redeemers brought about the end of the Reconstruction era through a series of backroom deals with Republicans. With the help of the Redeemers and the Democratic party, segregation and white supremacy was reinforced for nearly eighty years, effectively suppressing generations of blacks, preventing them from exercising the most basic rights that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifthteenth Amendments secured.

After the end of the civil war, white southerners feared what Reconstruction would do to the southern way of life. While slavery had been eradicated, “there was a strong desire to maintain a caste system” in the south[1]. White southerners feared that black independence would mean disaster for the southern order of life. This sense of fear gave way to lynching and terror to reinforce white supremacy over blacks. The amount of lynchings that occurred during Reconstruction and the decades that followed are impossible to count. Lynchings, however, were not the only way to instill fear into blacks and prevent them from exercising their basic rights. Many African Americans who were accused of crimes had to rely on white paternalism to prevent harsh punishment. If they were able to name a white man of good standing in the community, the punishment they would receive for crime would be far less than if he had no white man to vouch for him.

Black reliance on whites was not the only method of systematic oppression that took place during Reconstruction. While Reconstruction provided blacks with many tools for advancement such as the rise of black churches and schools, it also saw the raise of organized militias to prevent the ever-expanding number of African Americans turning out to vote in elections. The KKK, the White Line, and the Red Shirts were all organizations that employed fear, intimidation, and violence to promote white supremacy and strike fear into African Americans.

Outside of lynching and white supremacist groups, Reconstruction efforts to advance blacks in the south were strongly opposed by Democrats, even Northern Democrats as well Republicans. Instead of offering a compromise to Reconstruction, they flat out rejected it and called for the “immediate amnesty for ex-Confederates and the restoration of the former Confederate states to their prewar status[2].” They also opposed the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government agency meant to aid blacks in the south with adjusting to free life after the Civil War. In addition to Democratic opposition to Reconstruction efforts, Republicans also disagreed about how Reconstruction should be carried out. Their main goal after the war was to strengthen their own party as much as possible and rebuild the economy. As Fellman states in the textbook, “one major reason they backed black suffrage was to support southern Republicans[3].” However, when they realized that very few southerners supported widespread black suffrage, they quickly tossed this issue to the wayside.

Reconstruction efforts to equalize African Americans were also undercut by the Supreme Court. The Slaughterhouse cases as well as U.S. v Cruikshank greatly weakened the federal government’s ability to prosecute violators of black civil rights. The cases argued that the Fourteenth Amendment only guaranteed the protection of black rights on the federal scale and that the claims of the cases’ defendants fell under state jurisdiction. This was a major victory for southern states since it reasserted states’ rights. It also meant that cases regarding the infringement of black rights could not be brought before the federal government, ensuring that the cases would not be won, since juries very rarely convicted whites for crimes against blacks.

By the end of President Grant’s second term in office, the Republican party had lost much of its hold on the south, controlling only Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. This helped the self-proclaimed “Redeemers” win control of the south bit by bit. Grant refused to run for a third term and the Election of 1876 proved to further halt the advancement of the position of African Americans in society. After a hung election, Hayes was chosen by a special commission to be President. Only after this, Republicans and Democrats met to discuss what the south would be given “if the opposition permitted Hayes to be inaugurated[4].” The deal was clear: the Hayes presidency would bring about the end of the Reconstruction era in the south. Sure enough, after Hayes was inaugurated, he pulled federal troops out of the south, effectively ending Reconstruction era governments. Hayes also appointed former Confederate to patronage positions in his cabinet, for example appointing David Key as his postmaster general. With the compromise of the Hayes presidency, Republicans effectively abandoned the quest for black rights, disenfranchising millions of Americans for nearly eighty years.

With the Democrats and the Redeemers in positions of power within the south and the era of Reconstruction demolished, the Redeemers moved to prevent African Americans from voting in elections by instilling poll taxes, separately labelled boxes at the polls, and literacy tests. However, this seemed to be not enough for the Redeemers, and white southerners. Throughout the American south, laws were passed to not only suppress black voters, but to segregate them from whites in public places. Blacks could only sit in designated seats at movie theatres, use bathrooms labelled “Colored Women,” and were sent to segregated schools, which were, of course, less funded than their white counterparts. The end of Reconstruction also brought about an increased rate of lynchings across the south with recorded numbers between 1885 and 1903 being 2,585 (this number could be higher due to unreported lynchings)[5]. Blacks were once again further disenfranchised by the Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson, which ruled that segregation did not violate the Constitution and thus could be enforced by the state governments, another major victory for states’ rights.

While the Union won the Civil War, the seceded states undoubtedly won Reconstruction through a variety of means including the establishment of white supremacy groups, white paternalism, Supreme Court rulings that increased states’ rights, and backroom deals in smoke-filled parlors. These efforts combined led to the end of Reconstruction and effectively ensured that African Americans would not see advancement in civil rights equality for nearly eighty years.