Southern states had voted in the latter…

Southern states had voted in the latter part of 1867 to call conventions, which meet in 1868 and, under domination of Radical Republicans, with Negroes participating, adopt new constitutions similar to those of the North.

Each state must accept the Fourteenth (or, if readmitted after its passage, the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment), intended to ensure civil rights of the freedmen.

Seven Southern states—Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina—satisfy requirements under the Reconstruction Acts and are readmitted into the Union by Congress by June 25.

The newly created state governments are generally Republican in character and are governed by political coalitions of blacks, carpetbaggers (Northerners who have gone into the South), and scalawags (Southerners who collaborate with the blacks and carpetbaggers).

Most Southern whites see the Republican governments of the former Confederate states as artificial creations imposed from without, and the conservative element in the region remains hostile to them.

Southerners particularly resents the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau, which Congress had established to feed, protect, and help educate the newly emancipated blacks.