DK - The American Civil War

THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION

Although lackluster in the defense of

Reconstruction, President Hayes took

important steps to reform the “spoils

system,” which had been a significant

source of political corruption.

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

In June 1877, Hayes issued an executive order

forbidding Federal employees from being

involved in party politics. The next year he

put this into effect when he fired the

Republican Chester A. Arthur as collector

of customs at the Port of New York. New

York Senator Roscoe Conkling had obtained the

lucrative job for Arthur, who was in turn accused

of employing staff for party allegiance rather

than competence. Ironically, Arthur, when he

became president, was responsible for key

civil service reforms.

THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE

Violence returned to the nation in July 1877,

when a strike by railroad workers led to

widespread riots in several cities. Controversially,

Hayes sent in Federal troops to restore order

and protect the railroads. The strike and its

repression left more than 100 people dead.

was both parties’ central message.

Both candidates had genuine reform

credentials, but it was unclear what

Hayes intended to do about the South,

since his platform called for conflicting

notions of “permanent pacification”and

protection of equal rights.

By this time, the Democratic Party

once more controlled most Southern

states, the exceptions being South

Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. There

were widespread outbreaks of violence

in the South during the election, and

these stifled Republican voters, although

to an unknown degree. Tilden had a

small lead in the popular national vote,

but the votes were contested, and

accusations of fraud were aimed at both

sides. The result was uncertainty about

who the next president would be, which

threatened to continue well into 1877.

In the end, an Electoral Commission

set up to resolve the issue declared the

Republican Hayes the winner, but

the result was unsatisfactory since

Republicans narrowly dominated the

commission. Democratic opposition

only ended with a backroom deal

between Southern Democrats and

representatives of Hayes. The

Democrats agreed to recognize

Hayes as president. In exchange, the

Republicans promised to pull Federal

troops out of the South—where the

soldiers’ duties had included

protecting the rights of black and

Republican voters. They would

also relinquish control of South

Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana

to the Democrats. For their part,

Southern Democrats were to

respect the civil rights of African-

Americans—a promise that they

failed to keep. The year 1877,

therefore, saw the end of Reconstruction

of the South. Black voting and office

holding continued in some places into

the 1890s, but for the most part the

United States entered a dark chapter of

segregation that lasted for a century.

AFTER

Civil rights martyr
Just 32 when he died, Catto was born in Charleston, South
Carolina, but grew up mainly in Philadelphia. He was an
enthusiastic baseball player and one of the founders of the
successful black Pythian Base Ball Club of Philadelphia.

assumptions about supposed black
inferiority. The same people who were
committed to notions of equality before
the law often did not believe in true social
equality. Public newspaper reports
increasingly highlighted corruption and
chaos in Southern governments, depicting
black voters and politicians in unfavorable
terms. The perennial Southern violence at
election time seemed insurmountable.
Judging the mood of the North, President
Grant was hesitant to extend further
federal power to keep the peace and
enforce black rights.
In 1875, came the largest blot on the
President’s scandal-prone record: the
exposure of the “Whiskey Ring.” Liquor
taxes had been raised in the postwar years
to help the government pay off the costs
of the conflict. In response, a group, or
“ring,” of Midwestern distilleries bribed
Federal agents to allow them to keep back
most of the tax revenue. As a result, the
Treasury was being defrauded of millions
of dollars. Grant’s own private secretary,
Orville E. Babcock, a former Union
general, was implicated, but the President
shielded him by praising his character.

Contested election
The hinge point in bringing
Reconstruction to a close was the
presidential election of 1876. The two
candidates were Governor Rutherford
B. Hayes of Ohio for the Republicans
and New York Governor Samuel J.
Tilden for the Democrats. With little
public interest any longer in the old war
issues, the need for government reform

“The whole public are tired out with these

annual, autumnal outbreaks [of election

violence] in the South.”

PRESIDENT GRANT TO ATTORNEY GENERAL EDWARD PIERREPONT, SEPTEMBER 1875

Republican candidates

A chart issued by the Republicans in the 1876 campaign

shows their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes (above, left),

with his vice-presidential running mate, William A. Wheeler.

Panic on Wall Street
An illustration from Scribner’s Magazine shows the
chaos outside the New York Stock Exchange on
September 18, 1873, the day that the bank Jay
Cooke & Co. declared bankruptcy.

Democratic

candidate Samuel

J. Tilden’s lead in the popular vote over

his Republican rival Rutherford B. Hayes

in the presidential election of 1876. A

total of 8.4 million votes were cast.

264,292