The United States has always been an experiment in ideals. Whether Americans have lived up to them at any given point is a different question, but the idea of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has guided the country through crises that might have ended it long ago.
One of the nation’s darkest chapters came in the aftermath of the Civil War, when leaders of the defeated Confederacy refused to accept federal authority and instead waged a sustained campaign to recapture power. The betrayal happened not on battlefields, but in legislative halls, shadowy backrooms, and the streets of newly freed communities.
In 2020, Americans saw the same unsettling parallels in Donald Trump’s refusal to concede his election defeat, which was followed by his subsequent attempts to delegitimize President Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump’s strategy was a page from the Confederate playbook to sabotage the American democracy, to win the war with corrupt laws that they lost with bullets in order to regain their oppressive power.
In the immediate wake of the Civil War, Confederate leaders recognized that while their armies had fallen, the struggle to preserve a racially stratified Southern society did not have to end. The old power structure reasserted itself in ways often less dramatic than an armed conflict but equally destructive to the rule of law.
A LEGAL NETWORK OF CONTROL
Southern states quickly passed what became known as Black Codes. Those laws aimed to keep African Americans tethered to plantation labor, minimize their mobility and restrict economic opportunities. Though slavery was officially abolished, the Black Codes were designed to make sure former slaves remained at the bottom of society.
Those oppressive statutes flew in the face of federal authority. In Washington, Reconstructionists struggled to enforce new constitutional amendments intended to guarantee citizenship and voting rights for African Americans.
States that had been in open rebellion only months before took advantage of lenient policies under President Andrew Johnson. As a result, men who had supported secession were pardoned, returned to local and state offices, and used their positions to defy or sidestep federal mandates aimed at creating a more equitable society.
VIOLENCE AND INTIMIDATION
When legal avenues did not suffice, White Supremacists resorted to terror. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1865, emerged to sow fear among African Americans and Republican allies. Voters were threatened, politicians were beaten and entire communities were left in fear.
The systematic campaign of terror sought to derail the promises of Reconstruction by punishing anyone who tried to exercise newly won rights. In effect, local Confederate sympathizers turned domestic terrorism into a political tool. The aim was clear, to sabotage the federal government’s efforts to uphold equal rights.
REDEEMER TAKEOVER
By the early 1870s, those efforts began to yield tangible results. So-called Redeemer Democrats, preaching White Supremacy under the banner of “restoring order,” rallied White voters and leveraged violence to reclaim control of Southern legislatures. Once in office, they slashed programs meant to help freedmen, undermined the new constitutional amendments, and clawed back the power they had lost on the battlefield.
GRANT’S COUNTEROFFENSIVE
President Ulysses S. Grant took office in 1869 with a mandate to enforce Reconstruction. He employed several federal tools to limit the damage inflicted by Confederate loyalists.
The Enforcement Acts (1870–1871) specifically targeted the Ku Klux Klan’s rampage. For a brief period, federal marshals and troops disrupted the Klan’s operations, resulting in arrests that curtailed the group’s violence.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Grant’s creation of the Department of Justice provided the federal government with a stronger prosecutorial arm to confront voter suppression and racially motivated violence. This marked one of the first times the federal government directly intervened to protect civil rights in local jurisdictions.
FEDERAL TROOPS AND OVERSIGHT
In some states, Grant deployed troops to maintain order and guarantee that African Americans and their Republican allies could vote safely. The presence of the U.S. military offered tangible security, though it fueled resentment among white Southerners who labeled federal troops an occupying force.
Despite these measures, Grant and his allies faced diminishing support in the North. War-weary Americans grew impatient with continuing federal oversight, and economic woes like the Panic of 1873 shifted national priorities away from Reconstruction.
The result was the end of federal occupation in the South and the eventual rise of Jim Crow laws, which would lock African Americans out of political power for generations.
A MODERN MIRROR
The Civil War and its aftermath may seem like distant history, but the architecture of defiance by claiming fraud, delegitimizing opponents, and leveraging cultural grievances was revived in our own time with Trump’s efforts to undermine the Biden Administration.
QUESTIONING LEGITIMACY AND SOWING DISTRUST
Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results echoed the Confederate playbook of dismissing federal authority. Through more than 60 lawsuits, the former president and his allies challenged vote counts in swing states. Judges, some appointed by Trump, found no evidence of widespread fraud. Still, his allegations undercut confidence in the election process.
Similarly, just as postwar Southerners vilified Republicans who supported federal measures, Trump directed his ire at any Republican official who refused to endorse his claims of a stolen election. What followed was a fissure in the GOP, driving out or sidelining those who refused to toe the line, much as Redeemers outmaneuvered Southern Republicans.
INTERFERENCE WITH TRANSITION
By delaying the General Services Administration’s recognition of Biden’s win, Trump disrupted the transfer of power. Federal briefings were postponed or withheld. Crucial preparations, such as planning for COVID-19 response and economic policies, were undermined. While short-lived, this transition gridlock paralleled the Confederate approach of blocking or ignoring federal mandates during Reconstruction.
UNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW
Trump leveraged presidential pardons for allies who had faced federal charges, from Michael Flynn to Steve Bannon. Those criminal acts were the modern-day equivalent of the blanket pardons Andrew Johnson extended to Confederates, enabling them to reassume positions of power they had once misused. Trump’s legal strategies were not always successful, but they sowed confusion, delayed accountability, and kept his base engaged.
THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION
No event crystallized Trump’s approach more than the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Encouraging supporters to “fight like hell,” he stoked the belief that American democracy was under siege, but from the “wrong” side. Although the breach of the Capitol did not last, it revealed the fragility of our institutions when a defeated leader refuses to accept electoral defeat.
For many, it was reminiscent of the moment ex-Confederates decided they would not respect new laws guaranteeing equal rights. As the Klan used violence to stop African Americans from voting, some of Trump’s supporters used violence in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. The scale and context differ, but the principle is the same: if you can’t maintain power through legitimate means, try to do so by other methods.
LESSONS FROM RECONSTRUCTION
During Reconstruction, the presence of federal troops and the pressure exerted by Grant’s Justice Department held White Supremacist violence in check — until political will flagged. Modern parallels show us that the Department of Justice, the courts, and congressional committees play an essential role in investigating abuses of power, no matter how influential the perpetrators are.
When investigations into election interference and violence are allowed to stall, it encourages a culture where political figures operate without consequences. That was precisely what happened when pardoned Confederates returned to their old offices, effectively nullifying the sacrifices made on the battlefield to preserve the Union.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT IS CRUCIAL
In the 1870s, Northern voters lost interest in Reconstruction. That retreat ceded the field to Redeemers who dismantled civil rights initiatives. Today, if the public grows tired of legal battles and investigations into disinformation, the path will open for a new generation of politicians to manipulate electoral processes with minimal scrutiny.
Journalists, educators, and civic groups must keep the narrative in front of voters. People need to understand the real-world consequences of accepting false claims about elections. That is not about punishing a former president, it is about preserving faith in the entire system.
THE NEED FOR UNITY ACROSS PARTY LINES
Reconstruction foundered when moderate Republicans and Northern Democrats wavered in their support. A similar scenario has been unfolding in recent times when officials, who recognize the dangers of anti-democratic rhetoric, cannot unite to preserve norms. Creating state-level and federal safeguards for free and fair elections should be a priority. Both major parties have a stake in ensuring no faction can override a legitimate vote count.
SUSTAINED VIGILANCE
What ended Reconstruction was not a single event, but a gradual erosion of will. Over time, the North’s appetite for the difficult work of transformation waned, leaving Black voters and their allies defenseless in states controlled by former Confederates. Political fatigue has a long and damaging history in the United States. The takeaway is that we must maintain consistent attention to the issues of election integrity and civil liberties.
PREVENTING HISTORY FROM REPEATING
The Confederate playbook succeeded partially because Americans chose to look the other way, convinced the “problem” was contained in the South, or drained by the economic stress of the era. Back then, the federal government’s backing for civil rights faltered before the job was completed. Americans are still grappling with that aftermath, 160 years later.
Many Americans worry that defending democracy has become a full-time effort, and they are right. Democracy thrives only when the population accepts its legitimacy, even if the outcome is disliked. Once one side normalizes rejecting certified results and demonizes those who enforce the law, the door is open to chaos or authoritarianism.
The Confederate resurgence after the Civil War led to nearly a century of Jim Crow oppression and legal disenfranchisement of Black citizens.
If Trump’s behavior after 2020 was a test balloon for how far he can push the boundaries of electoral denial, the January 6 attack was proof that his words had consequences. America’s democracy survived the Civil War and Trump’s first term as president. As Trump’s second term begins, only time will tell if a … “nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
© Photo
Joe Ravi, Orhan Cam, TJ Brown, and Jay Yuan (via Shutterstock)
