Radical Rule in the South

1876 Electoral Map. Electoral Map of the disputed 1876 Election between Hayes and Tilden.

In the South, political–racial tensions built up inside the Republican Party as they were attacked by the Democrats. In several states, the more conservative ‘scalawags’ fought for control with the more radical carpetbaggersThis is a pejorative term for Northerners who moved to the South after the American Civil War, especially ones who went South to gain political influence or personal wealth. This term can also refer to someone perceived as intervening in the politics of an area without actually having a connection with the area., and the Republican Party steadily lost support. Meanwhile, freedmen were demanding a bigger share of the offices and patronage, squeezing out their carpetbagger allies. The racial tension within the Republican Party was exacerbated because poor whites resented the job competition from freedmen. Finally, some of the more prosperous freedmen were joining the Democrats, angered by the failure of the Republicans to help them acquire land.

Democrats Try a "New Departure"

The Grant administration had proven by its crackdown on the Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism. that it would use as much federal power as necessary to suppress open anti-black violence. So, by 1870, the Democratic–Conservative leadership across the South decided it had to end its opposition to Reconstruction and black suffrage to survive. They wanted to fight the Republican Party on economic grounds rather than race. This New Departure offered the chance for a clean slate without having to re-fight the Civil War every election.

Not all Democrats agreed however, and an insurgent element continued to resist Reconstruction. Eventually, a group called "RedeemersIn United States history, "Redeemers" and "Redemption" were terms used by white Southerners to describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War. Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats—the conservative, pro-business faction of the Democratic Party who sought to oust the Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags." took control of the party in the Southern states, forming coalitions with conservative Republicans and emphasizing the need for economic modernization. Across the South, some Democrats switched from the race issue to taxes and corruption, charging that Republican governments were corrupt and inefficient.

In the lower South, violence continued and new insurgent groups arose. The disputed 1872 election of a Republican Governor in Louisiana led to an outbreak of violence - later known as the Colfax Massacre – in which 3 white men died, 120–150 African-Americans were killed and some 50 were held as prisoners. This marked the beginning of heightened insurgency and attacks on Republican officeholders and freedmen in Deep South states.

Panic of 1873

The economic Panic of 1873 hit the Southern economy hard and disillusioned many Republicans. Many local black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with white elites, rather than racial political progress in opposition to them. Nationally, President Grant was blamed for the depression, and as a result, the Republican Party lost 96 seats in the 1874 elections. The Bourbon Democrats took control of the House in all but 4 states.

Paramilitary Groups Allied with Democratic Party

Throughout the South, secret societies rose with the aims of preventing blacks from voting and destroying the Republican party by assassinating local leaders and public officials, both white and black. The most notorious such organization was the Ku Klux Klan, which in effect served as the military arm of the Democratic party in the South. The White League and the Red Shirts were similar white supremacist paramilitary organizations that operated throughout the South to restore white supremacy.

Election of 1876

In 1876, Republican Rutherford Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious and hotly disputed elections in American history. Although he lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Hayes won the presidency by the narrowest of margins after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty disputed electoral votes (Figure 1). The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election and Hayes accepted the end of military occupation of the South.

This compromise essentially marked the end of Reconstruction. After assuming office, President Hayes removed troops from the capitals of the remaining Reconstruction states. The Democrats gained control of the Senate, and now had complete control of Congress having already taken over the House in 1875.

The period after Reconstruction saw the rise of the Democratic "Redeemers" in the South. The Redeemers vowed to take back the South from Republican rule, passing Jim Crow laws segregating blacks and whites, and putting voting restrictions on blacks that would not be outlawed until the next century.