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HISTORY Between 1868 and the Compromise Of 1877 , in the process known as Redemption , Redeemers won many state and local offices by appealing to white voters who had been Scalawags. They also gained a share of the black vote. Their program emphasized opposition to the Radical Republican system that they considered to be corrupt and a violation of true republican principles. Once in power, they typically cut government spending; shortened legislative sessions; lowered politicians' salaries; scaled back public aid to railroads and corporations; and reduced support for public education. They also passed laws requiring blacks to sign labor contracts and imposed Poll Tax es and taxes on tools and farm animals, measures that placed an additional burden on Tenant Farmer s and Sharecroppers both black and white. The Redeemers' policies inhibited regional economic development and exacerbated the class strife and racial violence that followed the American Civil War. The process of stripping blacks of their rights in the wake of the Compromise was a gradual one. African American s continued to vote in significant numbers well into the 1880s and black Congressmen continued to be elected, albeit in ever smaller numbers, until the 1890s. George Henry White , the last Southern black of the post-Reconstruction period to serve in Congress, retired in 1901, leaving Congress completely white. In the 1890s, the Redeemers and Bourbon Democrats faced their biggest challenge with the Agrarian Revolt , when their control of the South was threatened by the Farmers Alliance , the effects of Bimetallism and the newly-created People's Party . As a consequence, William Jennings Bryan took control of the national Democratic Party nationwide, even though the Populists were defeated in every state. HISTORIOGRAPHY In the years immediately following Reconstruction, most blacks and former anti-slavery activists held the view that it had been a noble experiment. By the turn of the century, however, historians had come to see Reconstruction as a tragedy. The chief manifestation of what historian Claude Bowers called "the Tragic Era" was the extension of suffrage to Freedmen, a policy that led to misgovernment and corruption. Since the freed slaves had no education and no political experience, granting them voting rights was so disastrous that the South had to be "redeemed". Reconstruction, in short, violated the values of "republicanism", leading later generations to view the Radical Republicans as "extremists". This interpretation of events was the hallmark of the Dunning School which dominated most historical work from 1900 to the 1960s. Beginning in the 1950s, historians such as C. Vann Woodward and Howard K. Beale attacked the "redemptionist" interpretation of Reconstruction, calling themselves revisionists and claiming that the Dunning School had made any number of errors. Since then the Neoabolitionist historians led by Eric Foner have moved the Freedmen and their struggle center-stage. They claim that political and financial corruption were not rampant and that the violation of the republican principles was the white racism of the Redeemers, denying blacks their Civil Rights , including their right to vote {Link without Title} . SEE ALSO REFERENCES Secondary sources
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