One of the main reasons why reconstruction failed was because of the failure of the Republican Party to maintain control in the South long enough to instill the egalitarian values in the society. Although corruption was widespread at the time but the united alliance of the Democrats with the support of the Southern planters caused corruption to look like a one sided issue, thus causing the Republicans to lose their support. Another reason why republicans failed to maintain its support with the white voters in the South was because Republicans didn't have anything in their platform to appeal to the yeomen and the common people, they were more worried about financial security then racial justices. The failure of the Republicans brought the Democrats into the Deep South and made remained solidly under their control until the late 20th century.
Although the south succeeded in making reconstruction ineffective it had to pay the price, it continued to use manual labor instead of mechanizing and went back to share-cropping ( a method midway between slavery and freedom), the yields remained constant until the 1900's and it failed to diversify its economy paying the price when the world's appetite for cotton dropped.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a c...
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Republican Party Election Day Watcher Ribbon, 1904Some of the black leaders from the reconstruction period were killed by local violence, some were falsely tried, some were ostracized from the society, some were forced to immigrate to the North, the powerful hands of the Southern elite made the black leadership disperse, who never again experienced racial equality in their life.
Reconstruction left a memory of racial equality to the freedmen, to them it seemed as if Yankees had liberated them and then left them to be engulfed again by the curse of the bondage. It gave blacks some rights which would be used a century later to gain...