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Ian, Britta, and Alexis Feb 16 2010 Ap US History =How The South ‘Won’ Reconstruction= The Civil War changed Southern politics, ruined Southern lands, and upset Southern plantation lifestyle, devastating the South and causing the need for reconstruction. Because the North had won the Civil War, it seemed as though Northern politicians would determine the fate of the South. The North hoped to impose its structure and values on the South through instilling a Republican controlled government, a developed market economy, and a flexible social structure. However, by the end of the process, the white, Democratic South essentially ‘won’ reconstruction by taking control of its own politics and reverting back to economic and social systems based on white supremacy and similar to those of the antebellum South. Throughout Reconstruction, Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats competed for political power over the South. In the end, the South politically ‘won’ reconstruction by undermining Northern politics and by restoring Democratic political power. Having won the Civil War, the North needed to decide how, and under what terms, to readmit the Southern states of the former Confederacy into the Union. The North settled on the Johnson Plan in early 1865, which required each state to write a new constitution abolishing slavery by ratifying the 13th Amendment. Though all Southern states reformed their governments under the Johnson Plan by the end of 1865, the South managed to undermine Northern political power by electing former Confederate leaders as congressional representatives. For example, Georgia elected ex-Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens, as its senator. Simultaneously, Southern states passed a series of laws known as the Black Codes, which were “designed to give whites substantial control over the former slaves,” (406 Brinkley). As a response to Southern political resistance, republican congress extended the Freedmen’s Bureau’s powers and charter and created the 14th Amendment, which defined American citizenship as all people born in the country, regardless of race. The North added the ratification of the 14th Amendment as a requirement under Johnson’s Plan, but again Southern states showed their resistance to Northern political power by refusing to rejoin the Union. By 1866, in an attempt to maintain political control over the South, the North divided the region into five districts, implementing military rule and enfranchisement of blacks until the Southern states formed new constitutions ratifying the 13th, 14th, and 15th (an amendment added in 1869 guaranteeing black suffrage) Amendments. Although the North had political control over the South during this time of military rule, after suffering political corruption, enduring the Panic of 1873, and adhering to the concept of Social Darwinism, the North soon retreated, politically and physically, from the South. This allowed for the “redemption” stage of Reconstruction in which the white, Democratic Southerners were able to ‘redeem’ political control over the South and compete with the Republican Party on a national scale. During redemption, the Southern Democrats worked to reverse the changes made by Northern Republicans because “the white leaders of the New South faced their future with one foot still in the past,” (423 Brinkley). They disenfranchised blacks through terror, violence, poll taxes, literacy and understanding tests, and the Grandfather Clause. In addition, white democrats passed a series of state laws called the Jim Crow Laws, which promoted racial segregation. By the end of Reconstruction, the Northern retirement of political power over the South not only resulted in white, Southern Democrats regaining control over Southern politics, but also resulted in the South regaining control over its economy and society. After regaining political power, the South ‘won’ Reconstruction economically by avoiding Northern economic influence and pursuing their own goals, which for most white Southerners was the reinstitution of an agricultural economy. Perhaps the only victory the Northern politicians clearly won and maintained throughout reconstruction was the abolition of slavery, the foundation of the agrarian economy Southerners looked to redeem. Though, the South even managed to evade this obstacle and successfully reestablished an agrarian, cash crop economy. Though the Freedmen's Bureau made an effort to redistribute land to blacks and poor whites, their success was transient. By the end of the year during which the bureau had permission to work in the South, “Southern plantation owners were returning and demanding the restoration of their property, and President Johnson was supporting their demands,” (411 Brinkley). With the president on its side and the parting of the Freedmen's Bureau, the South had few political obstacles in reverting back to an economic system similar to that of the antebellum period. Though few Southerners owned land, those who did quickly began tenant and sharecropping systems that mirrored slavery: “The new system [of sharecropping] represented a repudiation by blacks of the gang-labor system of the antebellum plantation,” (412 Brinkley). The similarity to slavery was demonstrated physically by the high percentage of blacks who remained working and living on the same farms on which they had been slaves. Though, the devastation of land and the abolition of slavery forced the South to alter its economic structures to a degree. Industrialization in the South increased, particularly textile manufacturing, and leaders such as Henry Grady, editor of the //Atlanta Constitution//, advocated the development of a “vigorous industrial economy,” (421 Brinkley). The crop-lien credit system, centered around locally owned country stores, emerged as well. However, these systems of credit often furthered the distinction between whites and blacks: “blacks who had acquired land during the early years of Reconstruction gradually lost it as they fell into debt,” (413 Brinkley). This debt led to a need for a system in which sharecroppers and tenants could make ‘fast money’. Therefore, the South remained a primarily agrarian-based economy dependent on cash crops, making its class system very similar to that of the antebellum South; those who owned farms maintained power (though now shared with factory owners), those in the backcountry had virtually no power, and blacks were inferior and refused the rights promised to them by recent constitutional amendments. Throughout reconstruction, the white Southerners' aim was the eventual ‘redemption’ of the Old South, and despite strong pressures from the federal government, they successfully created a social system similar to that of the antebellum South. Blacks never achieved social equality; most freedman remained impoverished, uneducated farmers. Northern abolition of slavery was the most devastating change of social reconstruction because it threatened the basic values of the antebellum South for which so many Southerners had fought and died. Therefore, the social priority of most Southern whites was the reestablishment of white supremacy and the segregation of their society. After being forced to ratify the 13th Amendment, the Southern states maintained white superiority by creating the Black Codes: laws that essentially restored freedmen to their former position as slaves by condemning unemployed blacks to plantation labor, setting curfews, and denying them many constitutional rights. Racial violence began as Southern whites lashed out against blacks to prove their superior position. For example, the riots in New Orleans were unorganized results of the racial hate that was so deeply rooted in Southern society. This local legislation and rioting effectively rebuilt similar social doctrine to the Old South. The Southern states reverted to their former social system because many white Southerners still revered the Old South; in a world that was socially falling apart, the Old South seemed to be the only way back to order. Confederate leaders became heroes and Southern art and literature during reconstruction idolized the confederacy as the ‘Lost Cause.’ The sentimentality of old, Southern values justified whites’ work toward racial superiority through terror organizations such as the KKK. The political disenfranchisement of blacks further increased the social gap between black and white Southerners. Southerners enforced segregation through the Jim Crow Laws, which de jure enforced racial segregation in all public facilities, claiming to create two "separate but equal" social systems. Blacks even furthered this segregation by creating their own communities, which included segregated churches and schools. De facto, the Jim Crow Laws led to a social system that was inferior for blacks. The segregation created a divided society where almost all power was in the hands of wealthy, white Democrats: a social system based on terror and racial superiority that reflected the Old South. After the North won the war, Northerners assumed the South would follow in their footsteps. With reconstruction, the North hoped to create a more uniform and unified country by changing Southern politics, economy, and society. However, frustrated after years of unsuccessful reform and haggard by its own debt, political corruption, and inability to work together, the North retreated from the South. Free of Northern control, the South reverted back to political, economic, and social systems similar to those of the antebellum South by maintaining white supremacy, effectively winning reconstruction. From a Northern perspective: “Reconstruction was in the end largely a failure. For in those years, the United States failed in its first serious effort to resolve its oldest and deepest social problem, the problem of race,” (Brinkley 420). Though the South managed to postpone the resolution of this social issue by ‘winning’ reconstruction, the problem of racial inequality would violently resurface almost a century later.