Why did 'Reconstruction' (1865-1877) fail?

A combination of economic and socio-political factors account for the failure of Reconstruction, which was signalled definitively following the Hayes Compromise of 1877. However, the most pervasive factor underpinning the difficulty of reconstructing the post-war South was the absence of sustained political will on the part of both the Johnson and Grant administrations to succeed in the endeavour. In particular, both administrations lacked the determination to enshrine black civil rights in law and to facilitate black economic independence. The lack of political will might be explained by the fact that neither administration was fully prepared to re-admit the former Confederate States on Republican terms alone; the federal government was hugely divided on how to resolve the racial and political tensions in the deeply fractured nation. Rather than unite against the injustices of white supremacy which were so ingrained in the South, the federal government offered an olive branch to Southern Democrats in the hope that it would preserve Southern dignity and calm racial tensions. This proved to be a limiting factor in the success of Radical Reconstruction, and ultimately brought about its demise in 1877.


Economic factors:

The Southern agricultural economy was devastated after the Civil War, which prevented African Americans from exploring opportunities away from the fields as cotton pickers (cotton was USA's largest agricultural export in this period). A promise of '40 Acres and a Mule' never materialised, inhibiting African American financial independence and left them highly reliant on the white planter society. Those African Americans who did escape the fields were left to enter industrial jobs in the North for which they were ill-equipped due to a lack of training and knowledge. Entrenched systems of sharecropping and tenant farming left many African Americans impoverished and at the mercy of their former white masters or the more opportunistic 'furnish merchants'.


Political factors:

President Andrew Johnson was egotistical by nature and compared with the deceased Lincoln - one of the finest orators of the 19th century - politically feeble. He used the congressional recess to pardon former Confederate officers and secessionists without scrutiny, and allowed for the removal of Union troops from the South before African Americans were secured on the voting registers of their respective state legislatures. This paved the way for the implementation of 'Black Codes' and effectively made abolition of slavery under the 13th Amendment nominal. Rumours of corruption also plagued the Grant administration and he did little to assuage these rumours by intervening in the Whisky Ring scandal to protect an implicated old friend, Orville Babcock. This divided Grant's party and led to him appeasing a breakaway group of 'Liberal Republicans' who adopted a more lenient stance on the South.


Black Codes:

De facto conditions of African Americans prior to Radical Reconstruction were demeaning and derogatory, leaving them little better off than under the system of slavery. The Slaughterhouse case of 1873 established that the doctrine of States' Rights remained intact; the federal government could only intervene where individual rights under the Constitution were at risk. Thus, the efforts of Congress to improve African American civil rights, by passing federal legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1863 and the 14th Amendment, were limited in practice. The Freedman's Bureau, which did much to improve access to education and accommodation for African Americans following the Civil War, was grossly understaffed and further undermined by the white violence perpetuated by the KKK.


White 'Backlash':

The newly born Radical Reconstruction Governments needed support from a united federal government. The divisions that existed between the president and Congress enabled a white backlash movement to portray Reconstruction as an attack on the white power structure in the South. By disenfranchising former Confederate offices, a sense of resentment helped to ignite a Democrat revival, which was aided by the paramilitary activities of White 'secret societies' such as the Red Shirts and the KKK.