Failure of Reconstruction
The unfinished revolution
For many Americans, Reconstruction is often criticized as a failed attempt to reunify the country after the Civil War, particularly when citing the horrific levels of violence committed against the formerly enslaved and the return to power of the prominent secessionists. Many southerners resisted Reconstruction efforts from the outset, arguing that federal intervention was unnecessary and that reports of violence against formerly enslaved persons was exaggerated to slander southern opponents of Reconstruction. Proponents of Reconstruction, on the other hand, often argued that the federal government failed to seriously protect African Americans from violence and disenfranchisement.
Violent resistance
Almost immediately after the final surrender of Confederate military forces and the dissolution of the Confederate government, a campaign of coordinated intimidation and violence spread throughout the former Confederacy. The most powerful and widespread of these violent organizations, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), emerged in Tennessee in 1866 and soon initiated a campaign of terror targeting the formerly enslaved and southern white Republicans throughout the south, particularly in rural areas. While we do not have complete records of Klan and related white supremacist violence in the south, many historical analyses and estimates highlight thousands of racist murders between 1866 and 1877.
Ku Klux Klan letter to Davie Jeems, circa 1868
Initially, many white northerners dismissed claims of Klan violence as exaggerated; eventually, however, Congress and the Grant administration enacted the Enforcement Acts to effectively prosecute Klan members suspected of committing violent crimes. The implementation of the Enforcement Acts succeeded in reducing Klan violence and even leading the notorious Confederate cavalry commander, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, to formally renounce his leadership position in the Klan; tragically, though, within a few years, federal commitments to the Enforcement Acts waned and the Klan and related organizations, including the White League, (re)surfaced, carrying out bloodier and more brazen acts of violence, including the Colfax Massacre in rural Louisiana in 1873.
Corruption
White southern opposition to Reconstruction often included criticisms of perceived, and sometimes substantiated, corruption in Reconstruction state governments and the Freedmen’s Bureau. At the national level, the Grant administrations, including both of Grant’s vice presidents, Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson, faced allegations of involvement in the Credit Mobilier and Whiskey Rings scandals. Even during the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson in the spring of 1868, Congressional Republicans, including Kansas Senator Edmund Ross, were widely suspected of corruption. Although these powerful politicians all denied wrongdoing and were not charged with any crimes, Democrats seized upon these allegations as proof that the Republicans could not be trusted and that Reconstruction must be ended.
Panic of 1873
Another factor that reduced Congressional and public interest in Reconstruction was the economic crisis known as the Panic of 1873.