Collapse of Reconstruction

1. Main Idea • Essential Question Collapse of Reconstruction What was the legacy of Reconstruction?

2. Opposition to Reconstruction • Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – • KKK and other groups killed thousands of African Americans and the Whites who helped them. They burned schools and churches • African Americans forced to lay low, because owning land, running for office, or voting Republican made them a target of violence • Despite Enforcement Act, President Grant hesitated to use troops to implement order • Political power shifted from Radical Republicans back to Southern Democrats • Jim Crow Laws –

3. Scandals Hurts Republicans • Scandals plagued the Grant administration, exposing both fraud and bribery at the nation’s highest offices. • Grant was considered an honest man, but an amateur politician. He hired friends and cronies that put themselves before the good of the administration • Credit Mobilier Affair – • Republican unity shattered by Grant’s scandals. Liberal Republicans ran Horace Greeley against Grant in election of 1872. Grant wins in a landslide despite reputation of corruption • Radical Republicans lose strangle hold on Reconstruction effort due to scandal and in-fighting • Redemption –

4. Scandals of the Grant Administration

5. Economic Turmoil • Jay Cooke – • Panic of 1873 – • To safeguard currency, Congress passed Specie Resumption Act, which put the US back on the Gold Standard • Gold Standard–

6. Supreme Court Derails Progress • Supreme court decisions undermined 14th and 15th amendments, narrowing ability of Congress to protect African Americans • Court made of Conservatives who were unwilling to expand civil rights to include former slaves • Slaughterhouse Cases – • US v. Cruikshank – • US v. Reese –

7. Support for Reconstruction Fades

8. Democrats Redeem the South • Grant decides not to run for reelection, due to exhaustion from scandals • Election of 1876 – Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden were too close to declare a winner of the Presidential election • Rutherford B Hayes – • Compromise of 1877 – • Withdrawal of federal troops from the Southern states • Federal money for Southern infrastructure • Appointment of a conservative Southern cabinet member • Home Rule –

9. Legacy of Reconstruction