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.They did so but only under duress and throughoutthe South freed blacks could exercise civil rights only where federaltroops were stationed to protect them.But in the north the public78 WAR AND EMPIREtired of the seemingly endless occupation, weary of those wavingthe bloody shirt of the rebellion and calling for further punishmentof the South, and demanded that the troops be brought home onceand for all.THE COMPROMISE OF 1877: SELLING THE FREEDMEN OUTIn 1876 the former states in rebellion were finally allowed to vote inpresidential elections.The election of that year was by far the mostcorrupt and contentious in American history.Lincoln was the firstRepublican president and the Republican Party ruled in Washington.No white southerner would vote for a party so identified withdefeat and occupation.Although many northern whites, known ascarpetbaggers, moved into the South their numbers were not enoughto overcome the opposition of white southerners to Republicanrule.While freed blacks certainly identified with the Republicans,most were effectively disenfranchised by the Ku Klux Klan andother terrorist organizations.The Klan had been founded by bitterconfederate veterans at the close of the war who were committedto white supremacy despite defeat.Thus, in the key election of1876 white terrorists prevented many blacks and northern whitesfrom ever reaching the polls.By these corrupt measures Democratsclaimed victory.Republicans objected and the result was that in three key states(Florida was one) dangerous disputes arose over which party hadactually won electoral votes.The argument grew so violent thatcivil war was brewing again in some areas.Northerners were in nomood to resume hostilities and so pressure mounted to resolve theissues.At first it was proposed that Congress rule on the matter,but since it was dominated by Republicans that was not acceptable.Then the problem was tossed to the Supreme Court but the samedilemma obtained there.A special commission was appointed but itsmembership contained eight Republicans and seven Democrats.Thepolitical stalemate threatened to break out into renewed warfare inthe South and so a great compromise was reached behind closeddoors in smoke and whisky filled rooms.If Democrats would giveup their claims and allow Rutherford B.Hayes (known thereafter as his fraudulency ) to assume the presidency, he would subsequentlyremove all federal troops from the South.The return to self-rule andwhite supremacy, rather than who occupied the White House, wasof far greater importance to southerners and so the compromisewas accepted.FROM ASHES TO EMPIRE 79Virtually on the day that Union forces left the South, the KuKlux Klan took over and the former slaves were stripped of civiland political rights and most were reduced virtually to the samestatus as under slavery.Though technically free they had no landand no means to self-sufficiency and were at the mercy largely oftheir former masters.Most became tenant farmers or remained asdomestic servants.Unable to vote and alter their circumstancesthe majority of blacks remained trapped in debt servitude.Tenantswere bound to the land by debt incurred when tools, seeds andlivestock were loaned by landowners at usurious rates.Very fewwere able to get out of debt and profi t to the point where theycould buy land outright for themselves.When courageous freedmenand women attempted to exercise their newly promised rights theywere faced with the Nazi-like evil of the Klan.One prominentpolitician and abolitionist, Carl Schurz, wrote to President AndrewJohnson that:Dead bodies of murdered Negroes were found on or near highwaysand byways.Gruesome reports came from the hospitals reportsof colored men and women whose ears had been cut off, whoseskulls had been broken by blows, whose bodies had been slashedby knives or lacerated by scourges
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