The end of the Civil War brought the ordeal of Reconstruction. The task was to rebuild the South, which was physically devastated by war and socially revolutionized by emancipation. Spanning from 1865 to 1877, Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877, in which Hayes promised to show concern for Southern interests and end Reconstruction in exchange for the Democrats accepting the fraudulent election results. By removing Union troops from the South, the Republican Party abandoned its commitment to black equality and returned the nation to normal lives. Normal .
life can be defined as slavery/repression for blacks, and supremacy for whites. The statement, "With the end of the Reconstruction we in the south can now return to our normal lives," meant that whites regained the power they had over blacks before the Civil War, and blacks lost the gains they had made during Reconstruction. The revival of the Democrats in the South, the economic dependence of the blacks, and Jim Crow Laws returned whites and blacks to their normal lives. .
White Democrats crept back up the political ladder after the end of Reconstruction and resumed political power in the South, taking away the powers gained by Blacks during Reconstruction. They ruled through intimidation, continuing to suppress blacks from using full-extent of their rights. The white Democrats, by ruling the political system, prevented blacks from casting ballots by adding voter registration laws, literacy exams, and poll taxes. Whites were forced to watch their former slaves hold political offices, but in Post-Reconstruction whites were forcing blacks below them as they regained seat in the political saddle. Pre- Reconstruction blacks no political voice, and after Reconstruction ended, the white Democrats returned blacks to that normalcy. .
As reconstruction ended, the white South made blacks economically dependent, returning blacks to their normal status of inferiority.
