Reconstruction was an imposition by the North: A Republican administration had liberated and enfranchised freed slaves, allowing them to vote and send even black representatives to Congress. The Freedman's Bureau offered them education and legal aid. To white southerners, this was a huge overturning of their societal order, and they resisted with not only violence ( by groups such as the Klu Klux Klan) but , but politically as well, when Southern whites were able to regain government positions. At first the North met the violence with arms, sending in troops and suppressing the Klan. But after several years it essentially gave up defending the Freedmen. Armed intervention in the South was costly, and in 1873 there was start of the Long Depression lasting until 1877, that cost such an expensive project popular support. White southern politicians could not be suppressed, once they were elected, and by presenting a unified voting block managed to become an effective force in stymieing the Freedman's Bureau and instituting repressive Black Codes in their states. Lastly, although he was the most popular politician in the US, and could conceivably have rallied popular support for the Freedmen and worked against Congress, President Grant was not an intrepid politician. His administration suffered many scandals, and he went from being a man with hope and ideals to a stolid bureaucrat simply putting in time at the office.

The Tilden/Hayes election is often described as the end of Reconstruction. And it was certainly a surrender: in exchange for allowing the Republicans to steal the election and give it to Hayes, Southern Democrats obtained a totally free hand in their states, an end to Northern involvement- which would have been their chief goal had they won the presidency. But by the end of Grant's presidency in 1877, the North was ready to abandon the Freedmen anyway.

Foner: Reconstruction