The withdrawal of federal troops from the South signaling the end of Reconstruction is associated with which event?

• A. Compromise of 1865
• B. Bargain of 1877
• C. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• D. Civil Rights Act of 1875

Answer: (B)

The key idea is that the end of Reconstruction is tied to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, which happened as part of the Bargain of 1877. After the Civil War, federal troops kept a presence in Southern states to support Republican governments and protect rights for newly freed African Americans. In the disputed 1876 election, Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden reached an informal agreement—the Bargain of 1877—where Hayes would become president in exchange for removing federal troops from the South. With the troops gone, Southern states quickly rolled back many Reconstruction measures and curtailed Black political and civil rights, marking the effective end of federal enforcement in the region for decades.

The other options don’t fit this specific turning point: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War, not Reconstruction; the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a piece of legislation intended to guarantee rights but did not signal the end of Reconstruction by removing troops; and the Compromise (often referred to as the Bargain) of other years doesn’t describe the event that ended Reconstruction in the same way.