How Reconstruction Changed Sectionalist Tensions

After Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865, the North hoped to institute reforms that would make the Southern way of life more progressive. Northern idealists tried to change the status quo in the South but ultimately failed. After 1877 the predominantly white Democratic Party retook the Southern states, pushing out the last of the Radical Republicans. The North was victorious in the Civil War; however the South won Reconstruction because of Republican corruption, continuing racism, and the withdrawal of Union troops from the South.

Republican corruption began after the Civil War, led by so-called scalawags and carpetbaggers who used their power in office to manipulate the taxpayers for their own benefit. Republican governments came to power in the South mainly to gain recognition by the federal government and to begin Reconstruction. Many Republicans had humanitarian intentions, aiming to restore the South by creating or restoring roads, agriculture, and education. However the scalawags and carpetbaggers for the most part abused their power with bribery, grafting and other subversive means which hurt the South economically. Planters who had lost much of their wealth and power after the South's defeat looked to Republican corruption as a political opportunity. They assaulted the Republicans through public speeches and newspapers, claiming that freedmen had taken over the government and suppressed the white's natural place in society. Although these accusations were wildly exaggerated, they worked because of the massive racism present in the South. The lasting consequence of the Republican corruption was that it led to the return of Southern Democratic power.

Even though the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional amendments granted blacks many more rights and freedoms than they had before the Civil War, racism continued to play a major role in the politics of the North and South. President Johnson and wealthy planters opposed the Freedman's Bureau, which would provide basic necessities to destitute former slaves. The South passed "black codes" which gave freedmen second-class citizen rights, and no power to vote. Sharecropping evolved as a way for planters to get cheap labor and freedmen to get land. This quickly became a legal form of slavery, with blacks indebted to the white planters and not allowed to leave. Blacks were also violently and brutally pursued in Southern cities and towns, and cases of poisoning, stabbing, shooting, and lynching became commonplace. After the 15th amendment, the Klu Klux Klan began terrorizing blacks and Republicans across the South, successfully repressing the vote. The waves of violent racism toward