For The People; What if Hayes Won Bigger?

[sampleswift]

What if, in 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won by a bigger margin and the compromise of 1876 didn't happen? Would Reconstruction still have continued? How would it have affected America?

Sample chapter:
The results came in. Despite everything, Hayes pulled off a win. This happened due to the freedmen, who turned many of the Southern states Republican. Tilden and the Democrats seethed as their attempts to end Reconstruction ended yet again. As Hayes won, he had to take into account the state of the United States of America. The country needed funds and an economic recovery, and there was Reconstruction to handle. He was said to have asked, "What If we made a more perfect union and made sure we honored that all men were created equal?".

 

[Mikestone8]

Reconstruction was already dead in the water.

Bt the end of 1876 all southern states had been "redeemed" save LA and SC, where Republican governors were hanging on by their fingertips. Their electoral votes alone wold have been insufficient to change the outcome in 1884 (even if the Reps held on there that long) so Cleveland still gets in, and he'll withdraw the troops if they haven't been withdrawn already.

This is assuming that the GOP still wins in 1880, which, if they are plodding on with an unpopular reconstruction policy, is not guaranteed.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I think the POD is that reconstruction is more successful and fewer states are redeemed.

Second term for Hayes at least.

 

[sampleswift]

I think the POD is that reconstruction is more successful

Ok will build on that

 

[Mikestone8]

I think the POD is that reconstruction is more successful and fewer states are redeemed.

Of course that requires an explanation of why reconstruction has been more successful.

OTL Grant did pretty much everything he could have done, but was quite unable to stem the tide.

 

[Maniakes]

Of course that requires an explanation of why reconstruction has been more successful.

OTL Grant did pretty much everything he could have done, but was quite unable to stem the tide.

A few ideas I can think of that might lead to a more successful reconstruction, at least in terms of delaying the Redeemers taking power:

• Get Radical Reconstruction rolling earlier by getting Johnson out of the way. Either have impeachment succeed (House impeachment managers don't botch the trial, have someone more popular than Wade in line as Johnson's successor, etc) or go earlier and have Lincoln keep Hamlin as his running mate in 1864 instead of replacing him with Johnson.
• Draft Section 3 of the 14th Amendment more aggressively. As written OTL, it excluded most pre-war politicians or military officers who had supported the Confederacy from holding State or Federal office, unless and until a 2/3 majority of both houses of Congress voted to waive the exclusion. An early draft of the amendment (passed by the House but not the Senate) would also have disenfranchised and disqualified as candidates "all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late rebellion" from elections to federal office until July 1870.
• Delay or reduce the scope of the General Amnesty Act of 1872 (passed by a supermajority of a Republican-majority Congress and signed into law by Grant IOTL, so this is probably going to be hard to derail), which lifted the 14th Amendment exclusion from all but a relative handful of top-level politicians.

 

[Mikestone8]

A few ideas I can think of that might lead to a more successful reconstruction, at least in terms of delaying the Redeemers taking power:

• Get Radical Reconstruction rolling earlier by getting Johnson out of the way. Either have impeachment succeed (House impeachment managers don't botch the trial, have someone more popular than Wade in line as Johnson's successor, etc) or go earlier and have Lincoln keep Hamlin as his running mate in 1864 instead of replacing him with Johnson./quote]

None of which changes the basic fact that white southerners were strongly opposed to black rights, while most northerners were only very mildly interested if at all. This remains true no matter whn reconstruction starts. If it commences two years sooner it starts getting undone two years sooner, that's aabout all.

Draft Section 3 of the 14th Amendment more aggressively. As written OTL, it excluded most pre-war politicians or military officers who had supported the Confederacy from holding State or Federal office, unless and until a 2/3 majority of both houses of Congress voted to waive the exclusion. An early draft of the amendment (passed by the House but not the Senate) would also have disenfranchised and disqualified as candidates "all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late rebellion" from elections to federal office until July 1870.

In most states "redemption" only got underway from about 1870, so this makes little difference even if it somehow gets though the Senate, which it wouldn't. .

Delay or reduce the scope of the General Amnesty Act of 1872 (passed by a supermajority of a Republican-majority Congress and signed into law by Grant IOTL, so this is probably going to be hard to derail), which lifted the 14th Amendment exclusion from all but a relative handful of top-level politicians.

Four states were already "redeemed" before this measure was passed, so presumably the Redeemers were able to find other candidates who weren't disqualified by the 14A - and the political and racial views of those not disqualified were pretty much the same as of those who were.

BTW all of these were Congressional decisions, not Presidential ones, and the first two occurred before Grant took office. So what have they to do with him?

 

[Maniakes]

BTW all of these were Congressional decisions, not Presidential ones, and the first two occurred before Grant took office. So what have they to do with him?

Didn't mean to imply they were specific to Grant: as far as I know, he only had a direct hand in the Amnesty Act. I was responding more to the first part of your previous post than the second.

None of which changes the basic fact that white southerners were strongly opposed to black rights, while most northerners were only very mildly interested if at all. This remains true no matter whn reconstruction starts. If it commences two years sooner it starts getting undone two years sooner, that's aabout all.

"White southerners" was not a monolithic category. There was a politically-active minority of white southerners (the "Scalawags") who supported the reconstruction governments. IOTL, the reconstruction coalition (Scalawags, Carpetbaggers, and Freedmen) fell apart because getting a solidly reliably majority required at least one and maybe both of 1) the government to keep a lid on organized suppression of black voters (they tried IOTL, and had some temporary success, but as you note Northerners lacked the political will to sustain this), and 2) continued disenfranchisement of ex-Confederates (there wasn't a lasting majority for this, even among the reconstruction coalition, as it was contrary to the principal of universal suffrage). And they needed to win every election cycle: once the Reconstruction coalition lost a round of elections to Redeemers, the Redeemers had no qualms at all about disenfranchising (through roundabout ways like literacy tests and the grandfather rule to get around the 14th and 15th amendments) Black voters, and possibly the Carpetbaggers as well.

The other path to sustaining the reconstruction coalition would have been to use machine politics to build patronage networks and expand the ranks of the Scalawags, but that takes time they didn't have. Especially since they'd need to out-patronage the Redeemers, who included a lot of people who retained substantial personal wealth and social clout even if they were temporarily barred from direct political participation. And while I think there were proposals to confiscate landholdings from ex-Confederates and redistribute it, those proposals never got any real traction, and I don't see a plausible POD changing that.

My take is that the ticking clock Reconstruction faced was two main factors: exhaustion of Northern support for enforcement at the points of Federal bayonets, and ex-Confederates mustering the resources and confidence to mount an effective political challenge. The first I think is largely static, with support falling off as the end of the war gets further in the past. The second also relates to the end of the war, but yes, I can see earlier Radical Reconstruction driving the Redeemers to get organized faster. So starting Radical Reconstruction earlier might buy the Reconstruction Coalition an extra year or two (if that) to build up a patronage system, but it still probably wouldn't have been enough.

In most states "redemption" only got underway from about 1870, so this makes little difference even if it somehow gets though the Senate, which it wouldn't.

True, on both counts. For this to be an effective barrier to the Redeemers would require an even harsher set of provisions than the OTL House draft: you'd need to bar former Confederates from state and federal office both (the final enacted version has a narrower restriction for both, while the House draft had a broader restriction but only for federal office), and you'd need the limit to extend past 1870. Basically, you'd need to combine the strictest features of both the House and Senate versions. And I agree that it's very unlikely (not necessarily impossible, but very unlikely) for that get through both houses without something else (not sure what) driving a political climate significantly more favorable to radical reconstruction.

 

[Virginia Liberal]

By 1876 the civil war was a decade in the history books and the north was tired of enforcing reconstruction on the south. As is the American tendency they had found something new and shiny to aim for conquering and taming the western lands.

 

[Mikestone8]

Didn't mean to imply they were specific to Grant: as far as I know, he only had a direct hand in the Amnesty Act. I was responding more to the first part of your previous post than the second.

Sorry about that. I was getting my threads mixed up as I'm also following the one about making Grant a great President.

My take is that the ticking clock Reconstruction faced was two main factors: exhaustion of Northern support for enforcement at the points of Federal bayonets, and ex-Confederates mustering the resources and confidence to mount an effective political challenge. The first I think is largely static, with support falling off as the end of the war gets further in the past. The second also relates to the end of the war, but yes, I can see earlier Radical Reconstruction driving the Redeemers to get organized faster. So starting Radical Reconstruction earlier might buy the Reconstruction Coalition an extra year or two (if that) to build up a patronage system, but it still probably wouldn't have been enough.

And it wasn't just a question of tiredness. Over time, Reconstruction also came to seem unnecessary.

This, I feel, is something a lot of contributors misunderstand. Growing up in or after the Civil Rights era, they talk about upholding Black rights as if this were an end in itself. But for most Northerners in the 1860s and 70s it wasn't. The concern was that if ex-Rebels were allowed to retain power in the South, they would continue disloyal to the United States, and even perhaps attempt another rebellion. Hence the promotion of Black suffrage in order to prevent this. But within a few years it became clear that the South had given up on the idea of secession and was indeed reasonably loyal. This being so, there was no real need to annoy them by patronising the Blacks. No doubt the Republicans would have welcomed a southern electoral vote or two, but as 1860 had shown and many later elections would confirm, they didn't really need these, and energetic pursuit of them could irritate voters in key northern states. So the whole thing was quietly dropped and the southerners allowed to have their Jim Crow - just as, had they not forced the issue by seceding, they would have been allowed to keep slavery itself for many decades to come.