The Compromise of 1877 ended the hotly contested 1876 presidential election (only 1 electoral college vote divided them) between Hayes, a Republican, and Tilden, a southern Democrat and also ended Reconstruction. In exchange for removing the last of the federal troops (which provided federal government oversight to make sure that the former Confederate states implemented the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (a.k.a. The Civil War Amendments) and which was designed by the Radical Republicans to also punish the South for starting the Civil War by seceding (breaking away) from the Union because they had incorrectly assumed that Lincoln was going to abolish slavery upon becoming president in 1860), Hayes got the W.H. Although Lincoln thought slavery was bad prior to the Civil War, he did not publicly express a desire to abolish it until approximately 3 years later, with the Emancipation Proclamation which he announced during the Civil War (1861-65). He declared that all slaves should be set free in the South with this Proclamation; however, it was ignored in the South (this is why Juneteenth (June 19th) is celebrated–Black slaves in Galveston, TX, etc., were informed that they were free, app. 2 years after The Emancipation Proclamation–“Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived at Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.” (https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-holidays-juneteenth-lifestyle-f8648a23f2f6bdb2db3d648458828651): https://www.npr.org/2011/02/21/133372512/tracing-president-lincolns-thoughts-on-slavery.
Getting back to ending Reconstruction, the former Confederate states had to also swear allegiance to the Union and to implementing the The Civil War Amendments before formally becoming part of the Union again. Those who implemented the 3 Civil War Amendments sooner and had sworn allegiance sooner were occupied for less time. Without federal oversight, southern states were free to enact laws (Black Codes: “…laws that required African Americans to sign yearly labour contracts and in other ways sought to limit the freedmen’s economic options and reestablish plantation discipline. African Americans strongly resisted the implementation of these measures, and they seriously undermined Northern support for Johnson’s policies” (https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history) and later Jim Crow laws) with Andrew Johnson’s support and with the former Confederates regaining control over the South and over the Democratic party; these laws treated Blacks and other racial/ethnic minorities as second-class citizens. These laws were designed to circumvent the Civil War Amendments, thus denying these minorities equality in reality. For example, The Black Codes of 1865 and 1866 essentially re-enslaved Blacks as these Codes permitted any Black males who did not have jobs to be charged with vagrancy and to then be placed in prisons where they would be leased out by companies to partially rebuild the South: https://www.britannica.com/topic/black-code This practice was known as “convict leasing”; some form of “convict leasing” continues today in some prisons. With The Compromise of 1877, the federal government had agreed to rebuild roads and railroads, which had been destroyed during The Civil War, and to build schools. The Supreme Court gave these southern states legal cover for their laws with their rulings which kept the Civil Rights Act of 1875 from being implemented and the Supreme Court ruling of 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson, which ruled that “separate but equal” was legal as long as the separate accommodations were equal, which they were not. https://www.npr.org/2011/02/24/133960082/the-supreme-courts-failure-to-protect-civil-rights
Occasionally, the Supreme Court, especially in the 20th century, has undone a few of their prior rulings. Plessy was essentially overturned with the S.C. ruling of 1947 Mendez v. Westminster and 1954 Brown v. Board of Education.
Instructions: After reading the Reconstruction (Post Civil War) ppt., in addition to the website and video link below, please tell me what the failures of Reconstruction were, more specifically, how these failures caused the approximately 100-year period of Jim Crow laws in the South. (Also, if you are able to–not required–a) take the “Impossible Literacy Test (Louisiana)” (google these key words; then google, “Answers to the Impossible Literacy Test”); and b) watch XIII, a documentary on Netflix alleging how slavery exists in the modern-day criminal justice system and thus the need, some contend, for criminal justice reform):
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction
The Civil War and its Legacy video: http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction/videos/the-civil-war-and-its-legacy
