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Interested in more history? click here |
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Retirement and death removed the more outspoken
advocates of civil rights, such as Thaddeus Stevens, who died in 1868, from
Congress. Corruption in the Grant administration divided the Republican party
and helped the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in 1874.
Corruption in the South's Republican government also undercut support for
Reconstruction. Northern outrage over southern intransigence gave way to
helpless resignation or indifference. As early as 1872, many former abolitionists believed
that their aims had been achieved. Slavery had been abolished and citizenship
and voting rights had been established by Constitutional Amendment. Democrats
denounced "foreign" rule of the South by carpetbaggers and attacked
corruption in President Grant's administration. In 1872, "Liberal
Republicans," repelled by the supposed corruption of the radical regimes
in the South, declared that the North had attained its goals and that
Reconstruction should end. Many threw their support to the Democrats. The
nationwide economic depression of 1873 further weakened the Republican party,
and Democrats regained the House of Representatives in 1874. The financial panic of 1873 and the subsequent economic
depression helped bring Reconstruction to a formal end. Across the country,
but especially in the South business failures, unemployment, and tightening credit
heightened class and racial tensions and generated demands for government
retrenchment. Property owners in the South demanded that state budgets
be cut and tax rates lowered. Southern penitentiaries were dismantled and
convicts were leased to private contractors. Spending on public schools and
the care of orphans, the sick, and the insane was sharply reduced. Budgets
for schools for blacks were cut especially heavily. It was the disputed presidential election of 1876 that
brought Reconstruction to a formal end. |
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