What circumstances allowed the south to fall back into "democratic hands"?

The Southern ambivalence to its values and the republican stance of Lincoln being against the values thus thought made the South fall into the hands of Democrats.

Explanation:

The Democrats of the recent age have a strenuous grasp on the country's south at best but this was not the case in the post civil war US when the South was extremely agitated.

The South was agitated against the republicans due to their own notions of an ideal southern value which was forsaken by the republicans.

So they began voting for candidates from the Democratic party in passive numbers in the elections after the civil war happened in the response to the war time plight