Why did southern republican lose power during 1870?

Answer 1

The General Amnesty Act of 1872 allowed most

former Confederates to serve in public office. Soon

many Democratic ex-Confederates were elected.

Republicans also lost power as a consequence of

Grant's problem-plagued presidency and the Panic

of 1873. In 1876 the Hayes-Tilden presidential race

was so close it took the Compromise of 1877 to

make sure Democats would accept Hayes's

election.

Southern Democrats, called Redeemers, worked

to limit African American rights. The methods they

used included poll taxes, legal segregation, and

Jim Crow laws. They even got help from the

Supreme Court, which ruled in Plessy v.Ferguson

that segregation was legal.

African Americans found their rights restricted in

other ways, too. Most African Americans could not

afford to buy land, so many began sharecropping,

or sharing the crop with landowners. Often only the

landowner profited, while sharecroppers lived in

debt.