Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===Violence===
In the lower South, violence increased as new insurgent groups arose, including the Red Shirts in Mississippi and the Carolinas, and the White League in Louisiana. The disputed election in Louisiana in 1872 found both Republican and Democratic candidates holding inaugural balls while returns were reviewed. Both certified their own slates for local parish offices in many places, causing local tensions to rise. Finally, federal support helped certify the Republican as governor.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Slates for local offices were certified by each candidate. In rural [[Grant Parish]] in the [[Red River of the South|Red River Valley]], freedmen fearing a Democratic attempt to take over the parish government reinforced defenses at the small Colfax courthouse in late March. White militias gathered from the area a few miles outside the settlement. Rumors and fears abounded on both sides. William Ward, an African American Union veteran and militia captain, mustered his company in [[Colfax, Louisiana|Colfax]] and went to the courthouse. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, the Whites attacked the defenders at the courthouse. There was confusion about who shot one of the White leaders after an offer by the defenders to surrender. It was a catalyst to mayhem. In the end, three Whites died and 120–150 Blacks were killed, some 50 that evening while being held as prisoners. The disproportionate numbers of Black to White fatalities and documentation of brutalized bodies are why contemporary historians call it the [[Colfax Massacre]] rather than the Colfax Riot, as it was known locally.{{sfnp|Lemann|2007|pp=15–21}}

This marked the beginning of heightened insurgency and attacks on Republican officeholders and freedmen in Louisiana and other Deep South states. In Louisiana, Judge T. S. Crawford and District Attorney P. H. Harris of the 12th Judicial District were shot off their horses and killed by ambush October 8, 1873, while going to court. One widow wrote to the Department of Justice that her husband was killed because he was a Union man, telling "the efforts made to screen those who committed a crime".<ref>''US Senate Journal'', January 13, 1875, pp.&nbsp;106–107.</ref>

Political violence was endemic in Louisiana. In 1874, the White militias coalesced into [[paramilitary organizations]] such as the [[White League]], first in parishes of the Red River Valley. The new organization operated openly and had political goals: the violent overthrow of Republican rule and suppression of Black voting. White League chapters soon rose in many rural parishes, receiving financing for advanced weaponry from wealthy men. In the [[Coushatta Massacre]] in 1874, the White League assassinated six White Republican officeholders and five to 20 Black witnesses outside [[Coushatta]], [[Red River Parish]]. Four of the White men were related to the Republican representative of the parish, who was married to a local woman; three were native to the region.<ref>{{cite journal |url= http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html |first=Danielle |last=Alexander |title=Forty Acres and a Mule: The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction |journal=[[Humanities (journal)|Humanities]] |date=January–February 2004 |volume=25 |issue=1 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080916095443/http://neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html |archive-date=September 16, 2008 |access-date=April 14, 2008}}</ref>

[[File:Harpers1874LouisianaOutrage.jpg|right|thumb|White Leaguers attacking the New Orleans integrated police force and state militia, Battle of Liberty Place, 1874]]
Later in 1874 the White League mounted a serious attempt to unseat the Republican governor of Louisiana, in a dispute that had simmered since the 1872 election. It brought 5,000 troops to New Orleans to engage and overwhelm forces of the metropolitan police and state militia to turn Republican Governor [[William P. Kellogg]] out of office and seat [[John McEnery (Louisiana politician)|John McEnery]]. The White League took over and held the state house and city hall, but they retreated before the arrival of reinforcing federal troops. Kellogg had asked for reinforcements before, and Grant finally responded, sending additional troops to try to quell violence throughout plantation areas of the Red River Valley, although 2,000 troops were already in the state.{{sfnp|Foner|1990|p=555–556}}

Similarly, the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]], another paramilitary group, arose in 1875 in Mississippi and the Carolinas. Like the White League and White Liner rifle clubs, to which 20,000 men belonged in North Carolina alone, these groups operated as a "military arm of the Democratic Party", to restore White supremacy.<ref name="George C. Rable 1984, p.132">{{cite book |last=Rable |first=George C. |title=But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction |date=1984 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780820307107 |location=Athens |page=132}}</ref>

Democrats and many Northern Republicans agreed that Confederate nationalism and slavery were dead—the war goals were achieved—and further federal military interference was an undemocratic violation of historical Republican values. The victory of [[Rutherford B. Hayes]] in the hotly contested [[1875 Ohio gubernatorial election]] indicated his "let alone" policy toward the South would become Republican policy, as happened when he won the [[1876 Republican National Convention|1876 Republican nomination]] for president.<ref>{{Cite web |title=1876 Acceptance Speech |url=https://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/1876-acceptance-speech/ |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums |language=en}}</ref>

This shift in federal attitude marked the beginning of a retreat from actively enforcing the Reconstruction policies in the south. As federal commitment declined, white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Shirts escalated their violent campaigns to suppress Black political participation. These acts of violence also aimed to dismantle Republican led governments and cause instability. Actions from these groups proved that a federal response was needed in order to sustain Reconstruction.  

Historians such as Daniel Byman argue that the failure of Reconstruction was driven not merely by political compromise alone, but by the federal government’s inability to suppress a campaign of racial terrorism. White supremacist groups used assassinations, beatings, arson, and coordinated intimidation to eliminate Black leadership and frighten freedmen away from voting. These were not isolated acts of violence, but part of a deliberate strategy to destroy Reconstruction. “The goal of this violence was not random terror,” Byman writes, “but targeted political control,” emphasizing that the collapse of Reconstruction was a calculated success for white supremacists, not an accidental failure.<ref name=":4" />
[[File:Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon.jpg|thumb|A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) on March 4, 1869. Image is of Arad Simon Lakin ("Ohio") and Noah B. Cloud hanging from the tree. March 4, 1869 is the day Horatio Seymour, a Democrat, will supposedly become President. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ''Independent Monitor,'' Sept. 1, 1868. The cartoonist had actual local politicians in mind. A full-scale scholarly history analyzes the cartoonː Guy W. Hubbs, ''Searching for Freedom after the Civil War: Klansman, Carpetbagger, Scalawag, and Freedman'' ̈(2015)]]

Federal enforcement measures such as the Enforcement Acts and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 were inconsistently applied and increasingly unpopular in the North. As Byman notes, “The lack of an enduring presence enables insurgents to simply wait out government forces,” likening the situation to failed modern counterinsurgency efforts. By the time of the Compromise of 1877, federal troops had been withdrawn from most of the South. This effectively signaled the end of Reconstruction enforcement. This resulting power vacuum allowed extremist groups to seize control of local governments and reimpose white supremacy.<ref name=":4" />

Historian Sarah Sullivan further argues that the violence of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction has been historically underestimated. Drawing from congressional hearings and testimonies, she documents how Klan members operated with impunity. They often targeted Black communities under the pretext of punishing “criminal behavior.” In reality, such crimes were often as simple as voting Republican or pursuing interracial relationships. “Blacks who contended for their rights and were not much afraid were deemed ‘very bad negroes’, a label that often resulted in death,” Sullivan writes, illustrating how assertions of basic rights could lead to lynching.<ref name=":3" />  

The Klan’s brutality extended to public torture, whipping, and murder, including the spectacle-style killings later associated with the Jim Crow era. Sullivan writes, “Lynchings done by the Ku Klux Klan acted under the pretext of all three…justice, race, and tradition…establishing a pattern of violence that persisted for decades.” These actions had a chilling effect on Black communities, where families were often too afraid to testify or report crimes. White Democratic lawmakers, some aligned with the Klan, frequently obstructed investigations. contributing to a culture of impunity.  Together, Byman and Sullivan demonstrated that the failure of Reconstruction was not a passive collapse, but a result of federal negligence. This negligence allowed for the increase of insurgent violence. As Byman explains, “White supremacists opposed to Reconstruction effectively mobilized their community, using terrorism as an intimidation tactic to undermine Black political power and force uncommitted white Southerners to their side.” Without federal protection, even Black citizens who attempted to participate in public life faced extreme danger. Sullivan’s research shows how that fear became an effective substitute for law, eroding democratic institutions at a local level.<ref name=":4" /> In the end, the collapse of Reconstruction was a warning. The story of its failure is ultimately the story of how democracy can unravel when governments tolerate political violence. The withdrawal of troops and the abandonment of Reconstruction allowed terror to dictate power in the South. This not only dismantled the gains made after emancipation but laid the foundation for systemic racial injustice that persisted well into the 20th century.
[[File:Worse than Slavery (1874), by Thomas Nast.jpg|thumb|This cartoon, drawn by Thomas Nast and published in ''Harper’s Weekly'' in 1874 shows how life for African Americans after the Civil War had become even more dangerous than during slavery. It highlights the brutal violence and lawlessness unleashed by groups like the KKK once the government stopped protecting freed people. A depiction of a burning schoolhouse is shown in the shield.]]

An explosion of violence accompanied the campaign for [[Mississippi Plan|Mississippi's 1875 election]], in which Red Shirts and Democratic rifle clubs, operating in the open, threatened or shot enough Republicans to decide the election for the Democrats. Hundreds of Black men were killed. Republican Governor [[Adelbert Ames]] asked Grant for federal troops to fight back; Grant initially refused, saying public opinion was "tired out" of the perpetual troubles in the South. Ames fled the state as the Democrats took over Mississippi.{{sfnp|Foner|1988|p=606}}

The campaigns and elections of 1876 were marked by additional murders and attacks on Republicans in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. In South Carolina the campaign season of 1876 was marked by murderous outbreaks and fraud against freedmen. Red Shirts paraded with arms behind Democratic candidates; they killed Blacks in the [[Hamburg Massacre|Hamburg]] and [[Ellenton, South Carolina|Ellenton]], South Carolina massacres. One historian estimated 150 Blacks were killed in the weeks before the 1876 election across South Carolina. Red Shirts prevented almost all Black voting in two majority-Black counties.{{sfnp|Lemann|2007|p=174}} The Red Shirts were also active in North Carolina.

A 2019 study found that counties that were occupied by the U.S. Army to enforce enfranchisement of emancipated slaves were more likely to elect Black politicians. The study also found that "political murders by White-supremacist groups occurred less frequently" in these counties than in Southern counties that were not occupied.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Chacón |first1=Mario L. |last2=Jensen |first2=Jeffrey L. |title=Democratization, De Facto Power, and Taxation: Evidence from Military Occupation during Reconstruction |journal=World Politics |volume=72 |pages=1–46 |doi=10.1017/S0043887119000157 |issn=0043-8871 |date=2020|s2cid=211320983 }}</ref>