Ch. 17 4 pp

Why It MattersWe had survived our worst war, but the end of the Civil War left Americans to deal with a set of pressing issues. The status of some 3.5 million former enslaved people had yet to be decided. Nor had the terms by which the former Confederate states would rejoin the Union been decided. How Americans would handle these issues would shape the future of our country.

The Impact TodayDebate over the rightful power of the federal government and the states continues to this day. Americans continue to wrestle with the problem of providing civil rights and equal opportunity to all citizens.

Chapter Objectives

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• Cite the changes that occurred in the South during the last years of Reconstruction.

• Describe how African Americans were denied their rights.

Section 4: Change in the South


Guide to Reading

Democrats steadily regained control of Southern governments as support for Radical Reconstruction policies decreased.

• reconciliation

Main Idea

Key Terms

• commission • cash crop • poll tax • literacy test

• grandfather clause

• segregation

• lynching


Reconstruction Declines• As Southern Democrats began to regain

political and economic control in the South, support for Radical Reconstruction policies decreased.

(pages 513–515)(pages 513–515)

• Many Northerners also began believing in the end of Reconstruction.

• They thought it was holding back Southern economic expansion.


• Grant was reelected in the 1872 presidential election despite division in the Republican Party.

• Reports of corruption in Grant’s administration and in Reconstruction programs caused a group of Republicans to form the Liberal Republicans.

• They nominated Horace Greeley.

• Although Greeley also had the support of many Democrats, Grant won.

Reconstruction Declines (cont.)

(pages 513–515)(pages 513–515)


• Congress passed the Amnesty Act in May 1872 that pardoned most former Confederates.

• This caused the political balance in the South to change and allowed Democrats to regain power.

• During the 1872 election, Liberal Republicans called for expanded amnesty for white Southerners.


(pages 513–515)(pages 513–515)


• Democrats regained control of state governments in Virginia and North Carolina.

• The Ku Klux Klan and other violent groups terrorized Republican voters, thus helping Democrats take power.

• The Democrats used threats to pressure white Republicans to become Democrats.

• They also used violence to persuade African Americans not to vote.

• By 1876 Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were the only Southern states to remain Republican.


(pages 513–515)(pages 513–515)


• Scandals and corruption charges weakened the Republican Party.

• The nation was also in an economic depression. Blame fell on theRepublicans.

• In the 1874 congressional elections, the Democrats won control of a part of the federal government.

• They gained Senate seats and won control of the House.

• This weakened Congress’s commitment to Reconstruction and to protecting the rights of newly freed African Americans.


(pages 513–515)(pages 513–515)


The End of Reconstruction• The disputed election of 1876 confirmed the

Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes the winner four months after the election.

(pages 515–517)(pages 515–517)

• Samuel Tilden, the Democrat, appeared the winner, but disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina changed the result.

• A special commission was appointed to resolve the election.


• It awarded all 20 disputed electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the required majority for victory.

• Congress confirmed the commission’s findings, so Hayes became president although he had fewer popular votes than Tilden did.

The End of Reconstruction (cont.)

(pages 515–517)(pages 515–517)


• Congressional leaders made a deal to settle the election.

• This was the Compromise of 1877.

• It said that the new government would give more aid to the South and withdraw all remaining troops while the Democrats promised to maintain the rights of African Americans.


(pages 515–517)(pages 515–517)


• Hayes sent a clear message in his Inaugural Address that Reconstruction was over.

• The federal government would no longer attempt to reshape Southern society or help African Americans.


(pages 515–517)(pages 515–517)


Change in the South• By the 1880s the country saw the rise of the “New South.”

(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)

• Industry developed based on the region’s resources of cotton, tobacco, lumber, coal, iron, and steel.

- The textile industry advanced.

- Instead of shipping cotton to the North and Europe, the South built its own textile mills.

- The tobacco industry grew. James Duke’s company, Duke’s American Tobacco Company, eventually controlled almost all tobacco manufacturing in the nation.


Change in the South (cont.)

(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)

- The iron and steel industry also grew.

- Alabama had deposits of iron ore.

- By 1890 Southern mills produced nearly 20 percent of the nation’s iron and steel.


• The following factors helped this growth:


(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)

- a cheap and reliable workforce of people who worked long hours for low pay

- the railroad rebuilding of destroyed track caused a railroad boom; between 1880 and 1890, the miles of track doubled


• A new ruling party, the Democrats, took over.

• Many of these people were merchants, bankers, industrialists, and other business leaders who supported economic development and opposed Northern interference.

• They were conservatives.

• They called themselves “Redeemers” because they saved themselves from Republican rule.


(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)


• Policies included lower taxes, less public spending, and reduced government services.

• Many social services that had started during Reconstruction were cut or eliminated, including public education.


(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)


• The South still remained primarily a rural economy even as it developed some industry.

• It sank deeper into poverty and debt as time went on.


(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)

- Some plantations, although not many, were broken up.

- When divided, the land was used for sharecropping and tenant farming, which were not profitable.



(pages 517–518)(pages 517–518)

- Reliance on sharecropping and cash crops, or crops that could be sold for money, hampered the development of a more modern agricultural economy.

- An oversupply of the biggest cash crop, cotton, forced prices down.

- With less money, farmers had to buy on credit and pay high prices for their foodand supplies.

- Thus, their debt increased.


A Divided Society• Reconstruction was a success and a failure.

(pages 519–520)(pages 519–520)

• It helped the South recover and begin rebuilding.

• However, the South remained a rural economy that was very poor.

• African Americans did not have true freedom because the South created a segregated society, separating them from whites.


• Southern states imposed voting restrictions even though the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited any state from denying the right to vote because of race.

A Divided Society (cont.)

(pages 519–520)(pages 519–520)

- Many states required people to pay a poll tax before voting.

- Because many African Americans and poor whites could not afford to pay the tax, they could not vote.

- Many states required prospective voters to also take a literacy test.

- Because African Americans had little education, they could not pass the test and therefore could not vote.



(pages 519–520)(pages 519–520)

- Some states passed a grandfather clause to enable some whites who may not have been able to pass the test to be able to vote.

- The law said that if their fathers or grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction, they were also allowed to vote.

- African Americans were excluded because they did not gain the right to vote until 1867.


• The South became a segregated society.

• Many states passed Jim Crow laws, which were laws that required African Americans and whites to be separated in almost every public place and facility.

• The facilities were separate but not equal.

• Southern states spent more money on schools and facilities for whites than for African Americans.

• This segregation lasted for more than 50 years.


(pages 519–520)(pages 519–520)


• Violence against African Americans increased.

• Threats of violence and the voting laws caused African American voting to drop.

• Mob lynching, or killing African Americans by hanging, increased.

• If African Americans were suspected of committing crimes or did not behave as whites expected them to, they were lynched.


(pages 519–520)(pages 519–520)

Ch. 17 4 pp

Education