Lesson 4: The Aftermath of Reconstruction

Question 1

Compromise of 1877 Definition

Answer 1

an agreement by Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes to end Reconstruction in return for congressional Democrats accepting his inauguration as president after the disputed election of 1876

Question 2

Grandfather Clause Definition

Answer 2

in the post-Reconstruction South, a law that excused a voter from a literacy test if his grandfather had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867

Question 3

Jim Crow Laws Definition

Answer 3

laws that separated people of different races in public places in the South

Question 4

Literacy Test Definition

Answer 4

an examination to see if a person can read and write; used in the past to restrict voting rights

Question 5

New South Definition

Answer 5

a term used to describe the South in the late 1800s when efforts were being made to expand the economy by building up industry

Question 6

Plessy v. Ferguson Definition

Answer 6

an 1896 court case in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public facilities was legal as long as the facilities were equal

Question 7

Poll Tax Definition

Answer 7

a tax required before a person can vote

Question 8

Segregation Definition

Answer 8

the legal separation of people based on racial, ethnic, or other differences

Question 9

What shift in Northern ideology and politics was happening by the 1870s?

Answer 9

By the 1870s, Radical Republicans were losing power. Many northerners grew weary of trying to reform the South. It was time to let southerners run their own governments, they said—even if it meant that African Americans in the South might lose their rights.

Question 10

How did corruption in the Republican Party during President Grant’s presidency tarnish their image?

Answer 10

Disclosure of widespread corruption also hurt Republicans. President Grant appointed many friends to government offices. Some used their position to steal large sums of money from the government. Grant won reelection in 1872, but many northerners lost faith in Republicans and their policies.

Question 11

What did the Amnesty Act of 1872 state?

Answer 11

Congress passed the Amnesty Act in 1872. It restored the right to vote to nearly all white southerners, including former Confederate officials who had lost voting rights due to the Fourteenth Amendment. White southerners voted solidly Democratic. At the same time, threats of violence kept many African Americans from voting. By 1876, only three southern states—South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee—remained under Republican control.

Question 12

How did the Election of 1876 end Reconstruction?

Answer 12

The end of Reconstruction came with the election of 1876. The Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden, governor of New York, for President. The Republicans chose Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes. Both candidates vowed to fight corruption.
Tilden won the popular vote. However, he had only 184 electoral votes, one short of the number needed to win. The outcome of the election hung on 20 votes from states where the election was disputed. All but one came from the three southern states still controlled by Republicans. The exception was Oregon, where a Democratic governor replaced a Republican elector with a Democratic one, even though his state had voted heavily Republican. In the three southern states, Republican election officials were accused of throwing out Democratic votes. As inauguration day drew near, the nation still had no one to swear in as President. Congress set up a special commission to settle the crisis. The commission, made up mostly of Republicans, decided to give all the disputed electoral votes to Hayes. Southern Democrats could have fought the decision. However, they agreed to support the commission’s decision in return for a promise by Hayes to end Reconstruction. This agreement is known as the Compromise of 1877. Once in office, Hayes removed all remaining federal troops from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. Reconstruction was over.

Question 13

What was the political impact of Reconstruction on the South?

Answer 13

Reconstruction had a deep and lasting impact on southern politics. White southerners had bitter memories of Radical Republican policies and military rule. For the next hundred years, the South remained a stronghold of the Democratic party. At the same time, black southerners steadily lost most of their political rights.

Question 14

What did Conservative Democrats start doing after federal troops withdrew from Southern states?

Answer 14

As federal troops withdrew from southern states, Conservative Democrats tightened their grip on southern governments. These Conservatives found new ways to keep African Americans from exercising their rights. Many of these were laws that restricted the right to vote.

Question 15

What laws did the South pass to limit the political rights of African Americans? What were poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause?

Answer 15

Over time, many southern states passed poll taxes, requiring voters to pay a fee each time they voted. As a result, poor freedmen could rarely afford to vote. States also imposed literacy tests that required voters to read and explain a section of the Constitution. Since most freedmen had little education, such tests kept them away from the polls. Election officials also applied different standards to black and white voters. Blacks who were able to read often had to answer much more difficult questions than whites on literacy tests. Still, many poor whites could not pass the literacy test. To
increase the number of white voters, states passed grandfather clauses. These laws stated that if a voter’s father or grandfather had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867, the voter did not have to take a literacy test. No African Americans in the South could vote before 1868, so grandfather clauses ensured that white men could vote.

Question 16

After 1877, what became the law of the South? How did George Washington Cable describe it?

Answer 16

After 1877, segregation, or legal separation of races, became the law of the South. Jim Crow laws, as they were known, separated blacks and whites in schools, restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals, and even cemeteries. Louisiana novelist George Washington Cable described segregation as:
“A system of oppression so rank that nothing could make it seem small except the fact that [African Americans] had already been ground under it for a century and a half.”

—George Washington Cable, “The Freedman’s Case in Equity”

Question 17

What did the Supreme Court rule in the 1896 court case of Plessy v. Ferguson? Why was this devastating, yet influential?

Answer 17

African Americans brought lawsuits to challenge segregation. In 1896, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal so long as facilities for blacks and whites were equal. In fact, facilities were rarely equal. For example, southern states spent much less on schools for blacks than for whites. Despite such setbacks, the Constitution now recognized African Americans as citizens. Laws passed during Reconstruction—especially the Fourteenth Amendment—would become the basis of the civil rights movement almost 100 years later.

Question 18

How was the South slowly rebuilding its economy? Who coined the term “New South”?

Answer 18

During Reconstruction, the South made some progress toward rebuilding its economy. Cotton production, long the basis of the South’s economy, slowly recovered. By 1880, planters were growing as much cotton as they had in 1860. After Reconstruction, a new generation of southern leaders worked to expand the economy. In stirring speeches, Atlanta journalist Henry Grady described a “New South” that used its vast natural resources to build up its own industry instead of depending on the North.

Question 19

What did the South do to increase cloth production? What did James Duke do to increase the amount of tobacco in the South?

Answer 19

In 1880, the entire South still produced fewer finished textiles than Massachusetts. In the next decade, more and more communities started building textile mills to turn cotton into cloth. The tobacco industry also grew. In North Carolina, James Duke used new machinery to revolutionize the manufacture of tobacco products. Duke’s American Tobacco Company eventually controlled 90 percent of the nation’s tobacco industry.

Question 20

How did the physical characteristics of the environment influence Southern industry?

Answer 20

The physical characteristics of the environment influenced many of the economic activities of the South. In addition to farming, abundant natural resources provided opportunities for new industries to emerge. In particular, the South tapped into its mineral resources. With its large deposits of iron ore and coal, Alabama became a center of the steel industry. Oil refineries sprang up in Louisiana and Texas. Other states produced copper, granite, and marble. By the 1890s, many northern forests had been cut down. The southern yellow pine competed with the northwestern white pine as a lumber source. Southern factories turned out cypress shingles and hardwood furniture.

Question 21

How did factories, farming, and mining modify the physical environment of the South? How did they provide more job opportunities?

Answer 21

Factories, farming, and mining modified the physical environment of the South. The work clearing land and making use of natural resources provided jobs and opportunities for southerners who had been struggling economically after the Civil War. Its wood, steel, and other products were used in industry around the country.

Question 22

How was the Southern economy like by 1900?

Answer 22

The South had developed a more balanced economy by 1900. “We find a South wide awake with business,” wrote a visitor, “eagerly laying lines of communication, rapidly opening mines, building furnaces, foundries, and all sorts of shops.” Still, the South could not keep up with even more rapid growth in the North and the West.

Question 23

What was the Separate Car Act of 1890 that was passed by Louisiana?

Answer 23

In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, a law that required railroads to provide “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” and made it illegal for anyone to sit in a place that was reserved for members of the other race.

Question 24

What did Homer Plessy agree to do at a Citizen’s Committee, organized by black Louisianans?

Answer 24

A group of black Louisianans formed the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Act and raised money to mount a legal challenge to the law. A 30-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy agreed to be arrested. Seven of Plessy’s great-grandparents had been white; one had been black. He looked white, but was legally classified as black.

Question 25

What did Homer Plessy do on June 7, 1892? What did judge John Ferguson decide?

Answer 25

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a train ticket from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana, and sat in the car reserved for whites. He then told the conductor that he was black. The conductor told him to move to the “colored” car, but Plessy refused. As he was required to do by the law, the conductor called the police and had Plessy arrested. Plessy was brought up in front of Judge John Ferguson. In an earlier case, Ferguson had ruled that the Separate Car Act was unconstitutional if it was applied to interstate train travel. Plessy contended that the law was unconstitutional even when applied to travel within Louisiana. Ferguson ruled that it was constitutional, and sentenced Plessy to pay a fine or go to jail. Plessy petitioned Ferguson to overturn his decision based on the unconstitutionality of the law.