In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the American presidential election, in a controversial election. Meanwhile, the Democrats had assumed the power of all the states that formed the former Confederacy. Such Democrats agreed to accept the results of the election if federal troops occupying such states were removed from the region. As many already considered Confederate nationalism and slave labor as destroyed in the country, Hayes agreed, and removed troops in 1877, ending the Reconstruction.
The Reconstruction left deep wounds in the relations between the old South and North American, that would last approximately a century. In the country's political landscape, the Democrats would have broad political dominance of the South, while the North would be dominated by Republicans. This scenario remained virtually intact until the Great Depression of the 1930s, and would change profoundly only from the 1960s.
