Politics and the Gilded Age

The Compromise of 1877 and theEnd of Reconstruction• Throughout 1870s, Reconstruction wound downand Republicans abandoned blacks in South– Civil Rights Act of 1875• Final law passed by radical Republicans• Guaranteed equal accommodations in public places;prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection• Passed without enforcement measures– Civil Rights Cases (1883)• Supreme Court declared Civil Rights Act of 1875unconstitutional• 14 th Amendment prohibited governmental discrimination,not individual (private) discrimination– With Compromise of 1877, Republicans abandonedblacks in South to fend for themselves