RECONSTRUCTION AND REDEMPTION

Near the End of Reconstruction

As southern states were readmitted into the Union, as former Confederates were granted amnesty and regained their voting rights, and as the Union army gradually withdrew from the South, it became harder for southern Republicans to hold onto power and for African Americans to hold onto their rights.

The Facts Conservatives charged that Republicans

were corrupt. The Ku Klux Klan, organized in 1867,

terrorized blacks and whites who supported them.

In 1870, North Carolina Governor William Holden called out the militia to stop the Klan and began what would be known as the “Kirk-Holden War.”

By the end of that year, Conservatives had regained control of the legislature.

Conservative opposition

History of legislation in North Carolina reveals an amount of fraud wide-spread ruin and dismay failures in crops and a disorganized system of

labor Oppressive Tax System Railroad schemes, without number – a

continued waste of public funds Carpetbaggers conspired against people of NC

with false promises

Ku Klux Klan costumes in North Carolina, 1870.

The rise of the Ku Klux Klan

The Ku-Klux-Klan was an organization conceived in sin, and born in iniquity

based not so much upon any wrongs or oppression that its members were actually suffering at the hands of the members of the newly organized government of the State

Opinions of the KKK South ought to have been left alone to

secede from the Union of these States, and not restrained by the vigorous North

South Carolina ought to have been given loose reins to reconstruct herself, and make her own laws

Put Freedman back into their rightful places “carpet-bagger” as the common foe, and,

as a consequence, let them associate with who they like (would eventually be banished from the South)

KKK Quick Facts

ku-klux-ism--a policy of cowardice, perjury, rapine and murder

organized, having a ritual, signs, grips and passwords

wore masks to conceal their cowardly faces bound each other with a solemn oath not to

reveal the name of any member, nor divulge any secret of the order.

Their name, “Ku-Klux-Klan,” is said to have been suggested to them by the sound made in the act of cocking and discharging the rifles and shot-guns carried by them

Governor Holden speaks out against the Ku Klux Klan

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-civilwar/4812

Article

The Kirk-Holden War passed the “Shoffner Act,” introduced by

Alamance County Republican senator T. M. Shoffner.

The law enabled the governor to declare a county “to be in a state of insurrection (uprising against authority)

call into active service the militia of the state to such an extent as may become necessary

Holden declared martial law in Alamance County on March 7, 1870, and in Caswell County on July 8.

George W. Kirk, who was born and raised in Greene County, Tennessee, to lead the state militia troops (slide continues)

state militia, predominately consisting of men from eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, arrived in Alamance and Caswell Counties in July

arrested over 100 individuals, mostly without incident.

Holden and Kirk ignored writs of habeas corpus that were issued by a state judge

Support originally given by Ulysses S. Grant was taken away, which would lead to Holden’s impeachment

The suspected Klan leaders and members were released in late August, and, in November, Alamance and Caswell Counties were declared to no longer be in a state of insurrection.

The murder of "Chicken" Stephens

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-civilwar/4815

Article

The compromise of 1877

http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877

The Compromise of 1877: was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.