A History of the American People

These transactions at least had the merit of enabling Congress to bully the South into ratifying
the Fifteenth Amendment, which stated that the right of American citizens to vote should not be
denied or abridged on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.' On the other hand, in evading its implications, Southerners could later cite, as moral justification, the fact that they had ratified it only under duress-especially true in Georgia, for instance, which had to be placed yet again under military occupation and Reconstructed for the third time. Moreover, the Republican-imposed governments in the Southern states, as might have been expected, proved hopelessly inefficient and degradingly corrupt from the start. The blacks formed the majority of the voters, and in theory occupied most of the key offices. But the real power was in the hands of Northerncarpetbaggers' and a few Southern white renegades termed `scalawags.' Many of the
black officeholders were illiterate. Most of the whites were scoundrels, though there were also,
oddly enough, a few men of outstanding integrity, who did their best to provide honest
government. There were middle-class idealists, often teachers, lawyers or newspapermen who, as
recent research now acknowledges, were impelled by high motives. But they were submerged in
a sea of corruption. State bonds were issued to aid railroads which were never built. Salaries of
officeholders were doubled and trebled. New state jobs were created for relatives and friends. In
South Carolina, where the prescriptions had been particularly savage, and carpetbaggers,
scalawags, and blacks had unfettered power, both members of the legislature and state officials
simply plunged their hands into the public treasury. No legislation could be passed without
bribes, and no verdicts in the courts obtained without money being passed to the judges.
Republicans accused of blatant corruption were blatantly acquitted by the courts or, in the
unlikely event of being convicted, immediately pardoned by the governor.
The South, its whites virtually united in hatred of their governments, hit back by force. The
years 1866-71 saw the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret society of vigilantes, who wore white
robes to conceal their identities, and who rode by night to do justice. They were dressed to terrify
the black community, and did so; and where terror failed they used the whip and the noose. And
they murdered carpetbaggers too. They also organized race-riots and racial lynchings. They were
particularly active at election-time in the autumn, so that each contest was marked by violence
and often by murder. Before the Civil War, Southern whites had despised the blacks and
occasionally feared them; now they learned to hate them, and the hate was reciprocated. A
different kind of society came into being, based on racial hatred. The Republican governors used
state power in defense of blacks, scalawags, and carpetbaggers, and when state power proved
inadequate, appealed to Congress and the White House. So Congress conducted inquiries and
held hearings, and occasionally the White House sent troops. But the blacks and their white allies
proved incapable of defending themselves, either by political cunning or by force. So gradually
numbers all, was a democracy, even in the South. Congressional Reconstruction gradually
crumbled. The Democrats slowly climbed back into power. Tennessee fell to them in 1869, West
Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina in 1870, Georgia in 1871, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas
in 1874, Mississippi in 1875. Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were held in the Republican
camp only by military force. But the moment the troops were withdrawn, in 1877, the
Republican governments collapsed and the whites took over again.
In short, within a decade of its establishment, Congressional Reconstruction had been
destroyed. New constitutions were enacted, debts repudiated, the administrations purged, cut
down, and reformed, and taxation reduced to prewar levels. Then the new white regimes set
about legislating the blacks into a lowly place in the scheme of things, while the rest of the
country, having had quite enough of the South, and its blacks too, turned its attention to other