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CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTIONOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORYimpeachment trial was held in theSenate, it was proved that Johnsonwas technically within his rights inremoving the Cabinet member. Evenmore important, it was pointed outthat a dangerous precedent would beset if the Congress were to remove apresident because he disagreed withthe majority of its members. Thefinal vote was one short of the twothirdsrequired for conviction.Johnson continued in office untilhis term expired in 1869, but Congresshad established an ascendancythat would endure for the rest of thecentury. The Republican victor inthe presidential election of 1868, formerUnion general Ulysses S. Grant,would enforce the reconstructionpolicies the Radicals had initiated.By June 1868, Congress had readmittedthe majority of the formerConfederate states back intothe Union. In many of these reconstructedstates, the majority ofthe governors, representatives, andsenators were Northern men — socalledcarpetbaggers — who hadgone South after the war to maketheir political fortunes, often inalliance with newly freed AfricanAmericans. In the legislatures ofLouisiana and South Carolina, AfricanAmericans actually gained amajority of the seats.Many Southern whites, theirpolitical and social dominancethreatened, turned to illegal meansto prevent African Americans fromgaining equality. Violence againstAfrican Americans by such extralegalorganizations as the Ku KluxKlan became more and more frequent.Increasing disorder led to thepassage of Enforcement Acts in 1870and 1871, severely punishing thosewho attempted to deprive the African-Americanfreedmen of theircivil rights.THE END OFRECONSTRUCTIONAs time passed, it became moreand more obvious that the problemsof the South were not being solvedby harsh laws and continuing rancoragainst former Confederates. Moreover,some Southern Radical stategovernments with prominent African-Americanofficials appearedcorrupt and inefficient. The nationwas quickly tiring of the attempt toimpose racial democracy and liberalvalues on the South with Union bayonets.In May 1872, Congress passeda general Amnesty Act, restoring fullpolitical rights to all but about 500former rebels.Gradually Southern states beganelecting members of the DemocraticParty into office, ousting carpetbaggergovernments and intimidatingAfrican Americans from voting orattempting to hold public office.By 1876 the Republicans remainedin power in only three Southernstates. As part of the bargaining thatresolved the disputed presidentialelections that year in favor of RutherfordB. Hayes, the Republicanspromised to withdraw federal troopsthat had propped up the remainingRepublican governments. In 1877Hayes kept his promise, tacitly abandoningfederal responsibility for enforcingblacks’ civil rights.The South was still a region devastatedby war, burdened by debtcaused by misgovernment, and demoralizedby a decade of racial warfare.Unfortunately, the pendulumof national racial policy swung fromone extreme to the other. A federalgovernment that had supportedharsh penalties against Southernwhite leaders now tolerated new andhumiliating kinds of discriminationagainst African Americans. The lastquarter of the 19th century saw aprofusion of “Jim Crow” laws inSouthern states that segregated publicschools, forbade or limited African-Americanaccess to many publicfacilities such as parks, restaurants,and hotels, and denied most blacksthe right to vote by imposing polltaxes and arbitrary literacy tests.“Jim Crow” is a term derived froma song in an 1828 minstrel showwhere a white man first performedin “blackface.”Historians have tended to judgeReconstruction harshly, as a murkyperiod of political conflict, corruption,and regression that failed toachieve its original high-mindedgoals and collapsed into a sinkholeof virulent racism. Slaves were grantedfreedom, but the North completelyfailed to address their economicneeds. The Freedmen’s Bureau wasunable to provide former slaveswith political and economic opportunity.Union military occupiersoften could not even protect themfrom violence and intimidation.Indeed, federal army officers andagents of the Freedmen’s Bureauwere often racists themselves. Withouteconomic resources of their own,many Southern African Americanswere forced to become tenant farmerson land owned by their formermasters, caught in a cycle of povertythat would continue well into the20th century.Reconstruction-era governmentsdid make genuine gains in rebuildingSouthern states devastated bythe war, and in expanding publicservices, notably in establishingtax-supported, free public schoolsfor African Americans and whites.However, recalcitrant Southernersseized upon instances of corruption(hardly unique to the South in thisera) and exploited them to bringdown radical regimes. The failureof Reconstruction meant that thestruggle of African Americans forequality and freedom was deferreduntil the 20th century — when itwould become a national, not just aSouthern issue. 9150151