How did the supreme court in the 1870s and 1880s undermined republican reconstruction?

Answer 1

After the Civil War, Americans faced the difficult problem of how to reconstruct both the Union and the individual southern states. Despite significant opposition on the part of northern Democrats aided by andrew-johnson, who succeeded abrahamabraham-lincoln, the Republican party was able to maintain control of the national government. Republicans were deeply committed to protecting the basic rights of the newly freed slaves and of white southern unionists. Closely related was a determination that unreconstructed Confederates not be permitted to resume control of the southern states. But these commitments had to be reconciled with the general desire for a speedy restoration of the Union, for generosity to rebels who demonstrated renewed loyalty, and for the maintenance of a balanced federal system.

Republicans determined to establish a program to secure these goals before they restored southern states to normal relations in the Union. Ultimately, Congress passed a Reconstruction Act (1867) that declared the Johnson‐authorized governments provisional and placed them under military authority until Congress recognized new governments to be established by constitutional conventions and subsequent elections.

These decisions raised the profound constitutional question of the status of the southern states and people upon the close of the war. White Southerners, northern Democrats, and President Johnson were convinced that Republicans were abrogating the rights of the southern states and unconstitutionally subjecting the southern people to military government. As northern Democrats and Johnson lost the political struggle to the Republicans, white southerners appealed to the Supreme Court.

They had some hope of success, because in Ex parteex-parte-milligan(1866) five of the justices opined that Congress could suspend the privilege of habeas-corpus-6corpus and authorize military-trials-and-martial-lawtrials-a key element of military supervision of the South-only when ordinary courts were closed by invasion or insurrection. Moreover, in cummings-v-missouriv. Missouri (1867) and Ex parte Garland (1867) the justices by 5‐to‐4 margins had signaled their distaste for the Republican program by ruling that test-oathsoathscould not be used to bar former rebels from practicing their professions. The "test oath" laws made the ability to take an oath of past loyalty a test for admission to the bar, clergy, or other influential professions.

These decisions led to charges that the Court was continuing its old proslavery ways. Leading Republicans in Congress proposed to strip the Court of the power to review national laws or to require two‐thirds majorities to rule Federal Laws unconstitutional. But in http://www.answers.com/topic/mississippi-v-johnson(1867) and Georgia v. Stanton (1868), the Court refused requests from the Johnson‐organized state governments for injunctions-and-equitable-remediesrestraining the president and his secretary of war from enforcing the Reconstruction Acts (see judicial-review).

The Court exercised judicial-self-restraintrestraint again in Ex parte ex-parte-mccardle(1869), in which southerners challenged the Reconstruction Act's provision for military trials and the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act in general. Although several justices wanted to speed the decision, the majority refused, allowing Congress to repeal the legal provision under which the case had been brought. The Court then agreed that the repeal had destroyed its jurisdiction, even though the case had been pending.

The Court's discretion helped to restore its moral authority as a neutral expositor of law. But despite their concerns, most Republicans never intended to attack the Court as an institution. On the contrary, they recognized that it would be a crucial instrument for carrying out their program to provide federal protection for civil and political rights.