From the technical point of view reconstruc tion was now complete, but the consequences of what has come to he generally recognized as a mistaken policy were destined during the ensuing years to be far-reaching in their effects upon the reconstructed States. As a result of the dis franchisement of large classes of whites and the enfranchisement of the negro race, which out numbered the whites in some of the Southern States, the local and commonwealth governments fell into the hands of unscrupulous adventurers from the North and West, who controlled the colored vote and excluded the native whites from participation in the administration of the gov ernment. Negroes who but a few years earlier were in slavery now filled up the Legislatures, held many of the executive offices, many of the minor judicial positions, and in some cases oc cupied seats on the benches of the higher courts. An era of extravagance, amounting to outright plunder in some States, now set in. Legislative sessions were frequent and long drawn out, the members voting themselves a large per diem as compensation for their services. Bulky codes were enacted and numerous offices, amounting to sinecures in many cases, were created for the benefit of the 'carpetbaggers,' who now came in great numbers to the South. The rate of tax ation everywhere was increased out of all pro portion to the ability of the people to pay in their then impoverished condition. In Alissis sippi the rate rose from one mill on the dollar to fourteen, and resulted in the confiscation of one sixth of the entire land of the State for non payment of taxes. In most of the States large debts were created for projected improvements, many of which were never carried out. to Louisiana and South Carolina a wholesale sys tem of plunder Was inaugurated. In the latter State the public debt was increased from $5,000, 000 in 1S68 to $18,000,000 in 1872, with little to show for it. The tax levy of $500,000 a year was raised to $2,000.000, although the value of taxable property had decreased from $400,000, 000 to $200,000,000. Soon disorders began to arise in all the Southern States, and presently the Ku-Klux Klan (q.v.) was organized to ter rorize the negroes and exclude them from the en joyment of their newly acquired political rights. The disorder became so great that Congress was called upon to take action to preserve order and protect the blacks. By the so-called Enforcement Act of 1870 the Federal courts were given juris diction of a series of offenses committed with the intention of denying equal rights to any citizen of the United States. The Federal district at torneys DOW bestirred themselves throughout the South, and many indictments were found under the act, but few convictions followed. In the
following year Congress passed the so-called Ku Klux Act, which authorized the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and employ military force for the suppression of violence in any community. Acts were also passed pro viding for Federal supervision of elections, and finally, in 1875, an act was passed to secure equality of treatment to negroes in theatres, railway cars, hotels, and other public places. This act, however, as well as the chief provision of the Ku-Klux Act, was declared by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, not being within the power of Congress. As the extravagance and corruption of the carpetbag governments in creased, the determination of the whites to re gain control of affairs became fixed. The with drawal of the military forces from the South left the reconstruction governments without power to maintain themselves. Already by 1870 North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, and Virginia had been 'reclaimed' from the Republi cans. Meantime the wholesale removal of po litical disabilities by Congress restored to public life many old and respected citizens of the South. This, together with the division of the Southern Republicans into conservative and radical wings, the former coalescing with the Democrats, made possible Democratic success. Jn 1874 Alabama and Arkansas went Democratic, and the carpet bag governments in those States came to an end. In the following year a great campaign was waged in Mississippi not unaccompanied by vio lence, intimidation, and even riots, but which resulted in the defeat of the Republicans. The 'Mississippi plan' was applied with success, in 1876, to the three remaining States of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. The 'redemption' of the Southern States was now complete, and was followed by a general emigration of the `carpetbaggers' to the States of the North and West. The subsequent virtual disfranchisement of the negro race in the South marks the final recession from the status established by the process of reconstruction.
Consult: Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York, ISM) ; Burgess, Reconstruction nnd the Constitution (New York, 1902) ; Andrews, The United States During the Last Quarter of a Century (New York, 1896, 2 vols.) ; Scott, Reconstruction in Civil liar (Bos ton, 1895) ; Political History of the Rebellion (Washington, 1864) ; id., Political History of 1?econstruction (Washington. 1871) ; Herbert, Why the Solid South? (Baltimore, 1890) ; Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legisla tion; McCarthy, Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruc tion (New York, 1901) ; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress (Norwich, Conn., 1884). Consult also a series of excellent articles in the Atlantic Monthly, vols. lxxxvii and lxxxviii.