pass it.7 The Black Codes and President Johnson's veto of all Reconstruction legislation that was unfavorable to the South causedModerate and Radical Republicans to change their goals from just ending slavery to seeking political equality and voting rightsfor Blacks.8 The new goals, were based on humanitarian and political considerations. Northerners had grown increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the Blacks in the South following numerous well publicized incidents in which innocent Blacks were harassed, beaten, and killed.9 The extension of suffrage to Black males was a political move by the Republicans in Congress who believed that Blacks would form the backbone of the Republican Party in the South, preventing Southern Democrats from winning elections in Southern states, and uphold the Republican majority in Congress after the Southern States rejoined theUnion. As one Congressman from the North bluntly put it, "It prevents the States from going into the hands of the rebels, and giving them the President and the Congress for the next forty years."10 Until the 1890's, this policy of achieving equality through granting political rights to Blacks worked moderately well. During Reconstruction, newly freed slaves voted in large numbers in the South. Of the 1,330,000 people registered to vote under Reconstruction Acts 703,000 were Black and only 627,000 were White.11 Even after 1877, when federal troops were withdrawn12, Jim Crow laws did not fully emerge in the South and Blacks continued to vote in high numbers and hold various state and federal offices. Between 1877 and 1900, a total of ten Blacks were elected to serve in the US Congress.13 Thisoccurred because Southern Democrats forged a unlikely coalition with Black voters against White laborers14. Under this paternalistic order Southern Democrats agreed to protect Blacks political rights in the South in return for Black votes15. But voting and election figure...
