the southern white man regained political power after the civil war by getting in good with Andrew Johnson who was later impeached no not really they gained it by committing themselves to the union.
Chat with our AI personalities
the southern white man regained political power after the civil war by getting in good with Andrew Johnson who was later impeached no not really they gained it by committing themselves to the union.
take power from southern planters
After the war the Southern States enacted black codes as a way to restore the pre-emancipation system of the South. President Johnson also granted pardons to former Confederate soldiers, who then began to gain political power once returning home. Reconstruction was enacted to prevent the Southern States from gaining more political power and to ensure that slavery did not reoccur. Congress also passed more stringent requirements for states seeking readmission.
by being mean to them
In absolute numbers, they didn't. The best estimates of careful scholars are that 360,000 northern men died and 260,000 southern men. As a percentage of the population though, the southern loss was greater. There were four northern men, roughly, for every southern white man. There were 21 million people in the north, and 5.5 million white people in the south.
Reconstruction had absolutely nothing to do with rebuilding Southern infrastructure that was destroyed primarily by the North. Reconstruction and the goal of the radical republicans was to re-build the political male-up of the South to "look like" the north.