ABSTRACT
While the Democratic Party was the sea because of its hostility to black interests, the Republican Party was the deck because it had earned the loyalty of black voters with a series of far reaching, indeed radical, reforms that addressed their concerns for freedom and equality. Beginning with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, these reforms included three constitutional amendments (the Thirteenth abolishing slavery, the Fourteenth requiring the states to treat all persons fairly and equally and the Fifteenth prohibiting the states from denying the vote to black men), three civil rights acts between 1866 and 1875 (the last prohibiting racial discrimination in public conveyances and accommodations) and three civil rights enforcement acts between 1870 and 1875. Partly in pursuance of these acts, the U.S. Army was stationed in the southern states to secure at the “points of bayonets” these newly secured rights.
