The Sequel of Appomattox: A Chronicle of the Reunion of the StatesFleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
History
The Sequel of Appomattox: A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States
Fleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); United States -- History -- 1865-1898
In order to justify the passage of the enforcement acts and to obtain
campaign material for use in 1872, Congress appointed a committee,
organized on the very day when the Ku Klux Act was approved, to
investigate conditions in the Southern States. From June to August,
1871, the committee took testimony in Washington, and in the fall
subcommittees visited several Southern States. Tennessee, Virginia,
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were, however, omitted from the
investigation. Notwithstanding the partisan purpose and methods of the
investigation, the report of the committee and the accompanying
testimony constituted a Democratic rather than a Republican document. It
is a veritable mine of information about the South between 1865 and
1871. The Democratic minority members made skillful use of their
opportunity to expose conditions in the South. They were less concerned
to meet the charges made against the Ku Klux Klan than to show why such
movements came about. The Republicans, concerned mainly about material
for the presidential campaign, neglected the broader phases of the
situation.
Opposition to the effects of reconstruction did not come to an end with
the dissolution of the more famous orders. On the contrary, it now
became public and open and resulted in the organization, after 1872, of
the White League, the Mississippi Shot Gun Plan, the White Man's Party
in Alabama, and the Rifle Clubs in South Carolina. The later movements
were distinctly but cautiously anti-negro. There was most irritation in
the white counties where there were large numbers of negroes. Negro
schools and churches were burned because they served as meeting places
for negro political organizations. The color line began to be more and
more sharply drawn. Social and business ostracism continued to be
employed against white radicals, while the negroes were discharged from
employment or were driven from their rented farms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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