Political Developments In The 19th Century

The era of the Civil War brought a multitude of changes that would impact the lives of all Americans. After the conclusion of what would be the bloodiest war of the 19th century, several constitutional and social developments were brought into effect. Such constitutional developments included the Emancipation Proclamation and the Radical Reconstruction of Andrew Johnson. To a similar extent, the passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteed all African American males the right to vote, regardless of any previous condition of servitude. However, in spite of many positive constitutional developments that arose during this era, a combination of legal developments such as Black Codes and Poll taxes, combined with negative social developments such as the Rise of the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacy resulted in an unstable

In response to his beliefs about slavery, President Lincoln was shot by James Earl Booth. Furthermore, hate crimes skyrocketed in the South with the rise of White Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. During the period that Republicans controlled state governments in the South, groups or southern whites organized secret societies to intimidate black and white reformers. The Ku Klux Klan was an “invisible empire” that burned black-owned buildings and flogged and murdered free men to keep them from exercising their voting rights. In addition, lynchings became prevalent in the South and were an effective way of scaring African Americans from voting. Several policies such as Jim Crow Laws, the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes and literacy tests were implemented in the South as a way of preventing any political activity run by African Americans. The despicable acts of the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremists extended to burning the houses of freedmen, and as a result, they were considered to be worse than slavery