An American History

THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ★^599

1870 (1873)

1868 (1876)

1868 (1874)

1870 (1875) 1868 (1874) 1870 (1871)

(1876)^1868

(1876)^1868

1866 (1870) 1868 (1876)

1870 (1873)

TEXAS

NEW MEXICO

TERRITORY

COLORADO

KANSAS

TERRITINDIANORY

LOUISIANA

ARKANSAS

MISSOURI

ILLINOIS INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPIALABAMA GEORGIA

FLORIDA

CARSOUTHOLINA

NORTH CAROLINA

VIRGINIA

VIRWESTGINIA

PENNSYLVANIA

MARYLANDDELAWARE

Gulf of Mexico

Atlantic

Ocean

0

0

150

150

300 miles

300 kilometers

Former Confederate states

Date of readmission to the Union

Date of election that Democratic control of legislatureproduced

and governorship

1869

(1873)

RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH, 1867–1877

Mississippi, in 1875, white rifle clubs drilled in public and openly assaulted
and murdered Republicans. When Governor Adelbert Ames, a Maine- born
Union general, frantically appealed to the federal government for assistance,
President Grant responded that the northern public was “tired out” by south-
ern problems. On election day, armed Democrats destroyed ballot boxes and
drove former slaves from the polls. The result was a Democratic landslide and
the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. “A revolution has taken place,” wrote
Ames, “and a race are disfranchised— they are to be returned to... an era of
second slavery.”
Similar events took place in South Carolina in 1876. Democrats nominated
for governor former Confederate general Wade Hampton. Hampton promised
to respect the rights of all citizens of the state, but his supporters, inspired by
Democratic tactics in Mississippi, launched a wave of intimidation. Democrats
intended to carry the election, one planter told a black official, “if we have to
wade in blood knee- deep.”

The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877

Events in South Carolina directly affected the outcome of the presidential
campaign of 1876. To succeed Grant, the Republicans nominated Governor
Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Democrats chose as his opponent New York’s

What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the

abandonment of Reconstruction?