By the 1870s, northern support for radical reconstruction was fadin. The Supreme Court placed limits on Federal support for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The results of the 1876 presidential election hinged on disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Those were the only three southern states still under Republican control.
Samuel Tilden from New York was the Democratic candidate and had won a majority of the popular vote. Because of the dispute in the three states, Congress set up a bipartisan electoral commission. Supporters of the Republican candidate, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, met with moderate southern Democrats to negotiate an agreement.
If Republicans agreed to end the military occupation of the south, Democrats would accept Hayes as president. This agreement known as the Compromise of 1877. Once Federal troops withdrew, Democrats regained control of all the southern states and Reconstruction came to an end.
In the years that followed, southern Democrats failed to keep their promises to protect African Americans rights. Poll taxes and literacy tests already disenfranchised blacks. Now, southern legislatures passed a series of Jim Crow laws to segregate not just schools, but also transportation and other public facilities. Most of these laws stayed on the books until the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's.