Question

to what degree was the Supreme court responsible for undoing the constitutional gains of reconstruction

Answer 1

The US Supreme Court used its power of judicial review to undo some constitutional gains of the reconstruction because during the Reconstruction the Congress made the Southern States give the African Americans several rights such as the right to vote. The US Supreme Court made several decisions that made possible the disenfranchisement of the African Americans and the growth of the Black Codes which restricted several African American rights.

This was possible because in that time the US Supreme Court hesitated to incorporate the bill of rights to a state and local level, this way, the Court decided that the States did not have to respect those basic rights. The case Plessy v. Ferguson is one example.

Answer 2

Beginning in 1873, a series of Supreme Court decisions limited the scope of Reconstruction-era laws and federal support for the so-called Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the 14th and 15th, which gave African Americans the status of citizenship and the protection of the Constitution, including the all-important right to vote. Bill, passed by Radical Republicans in Congress in 1867, that treated Southern states as divided territories. Sometimes called the Military Reconstruction Act or the Reconstruction Act, the First Reconstruction Act divided the South into five districts, each governed by martial law. It was the first of a series of harsher bills that the Radicals passed that year.