Why did the Reconstruction Period come to an end?

Civil War Reconstruction is one of those rare instances in
U.S, History by which one can neatly place an "era" of time neatly into an exact
beginning and ending date. This is due to the fact that Reconstruction begins when the
war ended at the surrender at Appomattox in 1865 and it officially ended upon the
ratification of the U.S. Congressional compromise in
1877.

Essentially the compromise is the solution to the
"controversial" presidential election of 1876. In this election neither the Democratic
nominee James Tilden or the incumbent Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes were able
to win because no one had earned more than half of the electoral necessary to carry
victory. The U.S. Constitution grants power to the U.S. House of Representatives to
solve such issues but it does provide specifics; it essentially empowers the House to
create such parameters to choose the President if the electoral college to do so. Due to
the continued contentiousness between northern and southern states since the Civil War
the Democrats, for the most part, represented the interests of the South and the
Republicans that of the North. In an effort to allow "fairness" the U.S. House created a
committee of fifteen to solve the outcome of this presidential
election.

The Committee of Fifteen, as they have since been
known as, was made up of seven Democrats, seven Republicans and a member of the Supreme
Court (who happened to be appointed by a Republican President). The results of the work
of this committee was the Compromise of 1877. The compromise, in brevity, made the
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the president and in return the Democrats got Military
Reconstruction to end along with the removal of all troops that had been enforcing
national law since the conclusion of the Civil War in occupational manner in the former
Confederacy. This compromise ultimately ended Civil Reconstruction as we know
it.