The tactic of reclaiming white dominance by violence was augmented in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s by more creative measures, such as restrictive Black Codes and the disenfranchisement of African Americans through poll taxes, literacy tests, and election fraud.5 Even so, Northern Republicans could not rally enough white support to continue Reconstruction in earnest.6 Southern manipulation of the legal system and a series of backroom political dealings doomed Reconstruction to failure. As America moved through the Gilded Age, Northerners increasingly looked the other way as over eight million
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