The Reconstruction era was a period in
American history
The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...
following the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
(1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877, also known as the Wormley Agreement or the Bargain of 1877, was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among members of the United States Congress, to settle the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election between Ruth ...
. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloody Civil War, bring the former
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
states back into the United States, and to redress the political, social, and economic legacies of slavery.
During the era,
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
abolished slavery, ended the remnants of
Confederate secession in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, and passed the
13th,
14th
14 (fourteen) is a natural number following 13 (number), 13 and preceding 15 (number), 15.
In relation to the word "four" (4), 14 is spelled "fourteen".
In mathematics
* 14 is a composite number.
* 14 is a square pyramidal number.
* 14 is a s ...
, and
15th
15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 (number), 14 and preceding 16 (number), 16.
Mathematics
15 is:
* A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and .
* A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky ...
Amendments to the Constitution (the
Reconstruction Amendments
The , or the , are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. The amendments were a part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South which occ ...
) ostensibly guaranteeing the newly freed slaves (
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
) the same civil rights as those of whites. Following a year of violent attacks against Blacks in the South, in 1866 Congress
federalized the protection of civil rights, and placed formerly secessionist states under the control of the
U.S. military
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
, requiring ex-Confederate states to adopt guarantees for the civil rights of freedmen before they could be readmitted to the Union. In nearly all ex-Confederate states, Republican coalitions set out to transform Southern society. The
Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...
and the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
both aimed to implement a post-slavery
free labor
The free-produce movement was an international boycott of goods produced by slave labor. It was used by the abolitionist movement as a non-violent way for individuals, including the disenfranchised, to fight slavery.
In this context, ''free'' si ...
economy, protect the legal rights of freedmen, negotiate labor contracts, and helped establish networks of schools and churches. Thousands of
Northerners ("
Carpetbagger
In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the lo ...
s") came to the South to serve in the social and economic programs of Reconstruction.
Fighting against suffrage and full rights for freedmen, and in favor of giving the returning Southern states relatively free rein over former slaves, were the white "
Redeemers
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Par ...
"; Southern
Bourbon Democrat
Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States in the later 19th century (1872–1904) to refer to members of the Democratic Party who were ideologically aligned with fiscal conservatism or classical liberalism, especially those who suppo ...
s; Vice President
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
, a Southerner who assumed the presidency after the
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
; and especially the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, which intimidated, terrorized, and murdered freedmen and Republicans, including Arkansas Congressman
James M. Hinds
James M. Hinds (December 5, 1833 – October 22, 1868) was the first U.S. Congressman assassinated in office. He served as member of the United States House of Representatives for Arkansas from June 24, 1868 until his assassination by the ...
, throughout the former Confederacy.
Republican President
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
(1869–1877) succeeded Johnson and supported congressional Reconstruction and the protection of African Americans in the South, but eventually support for Reconstruction declined in the North with "
Liberal Republicans" joining Democrats in calling for a withdrawal of the Army from the South. In 1877, as part of a congressional compromise to elect a Republican as president after a disputed
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
, federal troops were withdrawn from the three Southern states where they remained.
Among the many "shortcomings and failures" of Reconstruction were the failure to protect freed blacks from Ku Klux Klan violence prior to 1871, starvation, disease and death, brutal treatment of Union soldiers, and the offering of reparations to former slaveowners but
not to former slaves. However, Reconstruction did succeed in restoring the federal Union, limiting reprisals against the South directly after the war, establishing the constitutional rights to national birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection of the laws, and male suffrage regardless of race, and a framework for eventual legal equality for Black people.
Dating the Reconstruction era
In different states, Reconstruction began and ended at different times. Generally, scholars periodize federal Reconstruction as starting in the 1860s and ending in the late 19th century. The most conventional starting date is 1865, the year the Civil War ended. However, in his landmark monograph ''Reconstruction'', historian
Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
dates the beginning of the Reconstruction of the South to 1863, starting with the
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...
,
Port Royal Experiment
The Port Royal Experiment was a program begun during the American Civil War in which former slaves successfully worked on the land abandoned by planters. In 1861 the Union captured the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and their main ha ...
, and the earnest debate of Reconstruction policies during the Civil War. Some other historians follow this 1863 periodization.
1861 has also been given as a starting date, interpreting Reconstruction as beginning "as soon as the Union captured territory in the Confederacy" and had early discourse about and experimentation with Reconstruction policies.
The conventional ending for Reconstruction is 1877, when the federal government withdrew the last troops stationed in the South as part of the Compromise of 1877.
However, some scholars offer later dates, such as 1890, when Republicans failed to pass the Federal Elections Bill and secure black voters' rights.
Overview
As Confederate states came under control of the U.S. Army, President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
set up reconstructed governments in
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
,
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
, and
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
during the war. A
restored government of Virginia
The Restored (or Reorganized) Government of Virginia was the Unionist government of Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865) in opposition to the government which had approved Virginia's seceding from the United States and joini ...
operated starting 1861 in parts of the state and also acted to create the new state of
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
. Lincoln experimented by giving land to black people in
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
. By fall 1865, new President
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
declared the war goals of national unity and the ending of slavery achieved and Reconstruction completed. Republicans in Congress, refusing to accept Johnson's lenient terms, rejected and refused to seat new members of Congress, some of whom had been high-ranking Confederate officials a few months before. Johnson broke with the Republicans after vetoing two key bills that supported the
Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...
and provided federal civil rights to the
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
. The 1866 Congressional elections turned on the issue of Reconstruction, producing a
sweeping Republican victory in the North and providing the
Radical Republicans
The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...
with sufficient control of Congress to override Johnson's vetoes and commence their own "Radical Reconstruction" in 1867.
That same year, Congress removed civilian governments in the South and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army (except in Tennessee, where anti-Johnson Republicans were already in control). The Army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while Whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote and were not permitted to run for office.
In 10 states, coalitions of freedmen, recent Black and White arrivals from the North, and White Southerners who supported Reconstruction cooperated to form
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
, biracial state governments. They introduced various Reconstruction programs including funding
public schools, establishing charitable institutions, raising taxes, and funding public improvements such as improved railroad transportation and shipping.
In the 1860s and 1870s, the terms "Radical" and "conservative" had distinct meanings. "Conservative," used in a relativistic sense in regards to the context of the time period, was the name of a faction, often led by the
planter class
The planter class, known alternatively in the United States as the Southern aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste of pan-American society that dominated 17th and 18th century agricultural markets. The Atlantic slave trade permitted p ...
. Conservative opponents called the Republican regimes corrupt and instigated violence toward freedmen and Whites who supported Reconstruction. Most of the violence was carried out by members of the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
(KKK), a secretive terrorist organization closely allied with the Southern Democratic Party. Klan members attacked and intimidated black people seeking to exercise their new civil rights, as well as Republican politicians in the South favoring those civil rights. One such politician murdered by the Klan on the eve of the 1868 presidential election was Republican Congressman
James M. Hinds
James M. Hinds (December 5, 1833 – October 22, 1868) was the first U.S. Congressman assassinated in office. He served as member of the United States House of Representatives for Arkansas from June 24, 1868 until his assassination by the ...
of Arkansas. Widespread violence in the South led to
federal intervention
Federal intervention () is a power attributed to the federal government of Argentina, by which it takes control of a province in certain extreme cases. Intervention is declared by the President with the assent of the National Congress. Article 6 ...
by President
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
in 1871, which suppressed the Klan. Nevertheless, White
Democrats, calling themselves "
Redeemers
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Par ...
", regained control of the South state by state, sometimes using fraud and violence to control state elections. A deep national economic depression, which followed the
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Lon ...
, led to major Democratic gains in the North, the collapse of many railroad schemes in the South, and a growing sense of frustration in the North.
The end of Reconstruction was a staggered process, and the period of Republican control ended at different times in different states. With the
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877, also known as the Wormley Agreement or the Bargain of 1877, was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among members of the United States Congress, to settle the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election between Ruth ...
, military intervention in Southern politics ceased, and Republican control collapsed in the last three state governments in the South. This was followed by a period which White Southerners labeled "Redemption", during which White-dominated state legislatures enacted
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
,
disenfranchising
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
most Black people and many poor Whites through a combination of constitutional amendments and election laws beginning in 1890. The White Southern Democrats' memory of Reconstruction played a major role in imposing the system of
White supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
and
second-class citizen
A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically and actively discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or a legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, ...
ship for Black people using laws known as Jim Crow laws.
Three visions of Civil War memory appeared during Reconstruction:
* The ''reconciliationist'' vision was rooted in coping with the death and devastation the war had brought;
* the ''
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
'' vision demanded strict segregation of the races and the preservation of political and cultural domination of Blacks by Whites; any right to vote by Blacks was not to be countenanced; intimidation and violence were acceptable means to enforce the vision;
* the ''
emancipationist'' vision sought full freedom, citizenship, male
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
, and constitutional equality for
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
.
Purpose
Reconstruction addressed how the 11
seceding rebel states in the South would regain what the Constitution calls a "
republican form of government
A republic () is a "sovereign state, state in which Power (social and political), power rests with the people or their Representative democracy, representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of gov ...
" and be re-seated in Congress, the civil status of the former leaders of the Confederacy, and the constitutional and legal status of
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
, especially their civil rights and whether they should be given the right to vote. Intense controversy erupted throughout the South over these issues.
Passage of the
13th,
14th
14 (fourteen) is a natural number following 13 (number), 13 and preceding 15 (number), 15.
In relation to the word "four" (4), 14 is spelled "fourteen".
In mathematics
* 14 is a composite number.
* 14 is a square pyramidal number.
* 14 is a s ...
, and
15th Amendments is the constitutional legacy of Reconstruction. These
Reconstruction Amendments
The , or the , are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. The amendments were a part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South which occ ...
established the rights that led to
Supreme Court rulings in the mid-20th century that struck down
school segregation School segregation is the division of people into different groups in the education system by characteristics such as race, religion, or ethnicity. See also
*''D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic''
*School segregation in the United States
*Single- ...
. A "Second Reconstruction", sparked by the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, led to civil-rights laws in 1964 and 1965 that ended legal segregation and re-opened the polls to Blacks.
The laws and
constitutional amendment
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, t ...
s that laid the foundation for the most radical phase of Reconstruction were adopted from 1866 to 1871. By the 1870s, Reconstruction had officially provided freedmen with equal rights under the Constitution, and Blacks were voting and taking political office. Republican legislatures, coalitions of Whites and Blacks, established the first public school systems and numerous charitable institutions in the South. White
paramilitary organization
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
s, especially the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
(KKK) as well as the
White League
The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was a white paramilitary terrorist organization started in the Southern United States in 1874 to intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent Republican Party political organizing. Its f ...
and
Red Shirts, formed with the political aim of driving out the Republicans. They also disrupted political organizing and terrorized Blacks to bar them from the polls. President Grant used federal power to effectively shut down the KKK in the early 1870s, though the other, smaller groups continued to operate. From 1873 to 1877, classically liberal, pro-
civil service reform whites (calling themselves "
Redeemers
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Par ...
") regained power in the Southern states. They constituted the
Bourbon wing of the national Democratic Party.
In the 1860s and 1870s, leaders who had been
Whigs were committed to economic modernization, built around railroads, factories, banks, and cities. Most of the "Radical" Republicans in the North were men who believed in
integrating African Americans by providing them civil rights as citizens, along with free enterprise; most were also modernizers and former Whigs. The "
Liberal Republicans" of 1872 shared the same outlook except that they were especially opposed to the corruption they saw around President Grant, and believed that the goals of the Civil War had been achieved, and that the federal military intervention could now end.
Material devastation of the South in 1865
![Broad Street Charleston South Carolina 1865](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Broad_Street_Charleston_South_Carolina_1865.jpg)
Reconstruction played out against an economy in ruins. The Confederacy in 1861 had 297 towns and cities, with a total population of 835,000 people; of these, 162, with 681,000 people, were at some point occupied by Union forces. 11 were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the 11 contained 115,900 people according to the 1860 Census, or 14% of the urban South. The number of people who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1% of the Confederacy's combined urban and rural populations. The rate of damage in smaller towns was much lower—only 45 courthouses were burned out of a total of 830.
[Paskoff, Paul F. 2008. "Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War's Destructiveness in the Confederacy". '']Civil War History
''Civil War History'' is an academic journal of the American Civil War. It was established in 1955 at the State University of Iowa and is published quarterly by Kent State University Press. Topics covered in this journal include slavery and aboliti ...
'' 54(1):35–62. .
Farms were in disrepair, and the
prewar stock of horses, mules, and cattle was much depleted; 40% of the South's livestock had been killed. The South's farms were not highly mechanized, but the value of farm implements and machinery according to the
1860 Census was $81 million and was reduced by 40% by 1870. The
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
lay in ruins, with little railroad or
riverboat
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury un ...
service available to move crops and animals to market. Railroad mileage was located mostly in rural areas; over two-thirds of the South's rails, bridges, rail yards, repair shops, and rolling stock were in areas reached by Union armies, which systematically destroyed what they could. Even in untouched areas, the lack of maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy over-use, and the deliberate relocation of equipment by the Confederates from remote areas to the war zone ensured the system would be ruined at war's end.
Restoring the infrastructure—especially the railroad system—became a high priority for Reconstruction state governments.
The enormous cost of the Confederate war effort took a high toll on the South's economic infrastructure. The direct costs to the Confederacy in
human capital
Human capital is a concept used by social scientists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a substantial ...
, government expenditures, and physical destruction from the war totaled $3.3 billion. By early 1865, high inflation made the
Confederate dollar
The Confederate States dollar was first issued just before the outbreak of the American Civil War by the newly formed Confederacy. It was not backed by hard assets, but simply by a promise to pay the bearer after the war, on the prospect of Sou ...
worth little. When the war ended, Confederate currency and bank deposits were worth zero, making the banking system a near-total loss. People had to resort to bartering services for goods, or else try to obtain scarce Union dollars. With the emancipation of the Southern slaves, the entire economy of the South had to be rebuilt. Having lost their enormous investment in slaves, White
plantation owners
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
had minimal capital to pay freedmen workers to bring in crops. As a result, a system of
sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
was developed, in which landowners broke up large
plantations
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
and rented small lots to the freedmen and their families. The main feature of the Southern economy changed from an elite minority of landed gentry slaveholders into a
tenant farming
A tenant farmer is a person (farmer or farmworker) who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, ...
agriculture system.
The end of the Civil War was accompanied by a large migration of new freed people to the cities. In the cities, Black people were relegated to the lowest paying jobs such as unskilled and service labor. Men worked as rail workers, rolling and lumber mills workers, and hotel workers. The large population of slave artisans during the
antebellum
Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to:
United States history
* Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States
** Antebellum Georgia
** Antebellum South Carolina
** Antebellum Virginia
* Antebellum ar ...
period had not been translated into a large number of freedmen artisans during Reconstruction.
Black women were largely confined to domestic work employed as cooks, maids, and child nurses. Others worked in hotels. A large number became laundresses. The dislocations had a severe negative impact on the Black population, with a large amount of sickness and death.
Over a quarter of Southern White men of military age—the backbone of the South's White workforce—died during the war, leaving countless families destitute. Per capita income for White Southerners declined from $125 in 1857 to a low of $80 in 1879. By the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the South was locked into a system of poverty. How much of this failure was caused by the war and by previous reliance on agriculture remains the subject of debate among economists and historians.
Restoring the South to the Union
![Lincoln and Johnsond](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Lincoln_and_Johnsond.jpg)
During the Civil War, the
Radical Republican
The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...
leaders argued that slavery and the
Slave Power had to be permanently destroyed. Moderates said this could be easily accomplished as soon as the
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
surrendered and the Southern states repealed secession and accepted the
Thirteenth Amendment–most of which happened by December 1865.
President Lincoln was the leader of the moderate Republicans and wanted to speed up Reconstruction and reunite the nation painlessly and quickly. Lincoln formally began Reconstruction on December 8, 1863, with his
ten percent plan
The ten percent plan, formally the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (), was a United States presidential proclamation issued on December 8, 1863, by United States President Abraham Lincoln, during the American Civil War. By this point i ...
, which went into operation in several states but which Radical Republicans opposed.
1864: Wade–Davis Bill
Lincoln broke with the Radicals in 1864. The
Wade–Davis Bill
The Wade–Davis Bill of 1864 () was a bill "to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government," proposed for the Reconstruction of the South. In opposition to President Abraham Linco ...
of 1864 passed in Congress by the Radicals was designed to permanently disfranchise the Confederate element in the South. The bill asked the government to grant African American men the right to vote and that anyone who willingly gave weapons to the fight against the United States should be denied the right to vote. The bill required voters, fifty percent of white males, to take the "
ironclad oath" swearing that they had never supported the Confederacy or been one of its soldiers. This oath also entailed having them to swear a loyalty to the Constitution and the Union before they could have state constitutional meetings. Lincoln blocked it. Pursuing a policy of "malice toward none" announced in his second inaugural address, Lincoln asked voters only to support the Union in the future, regardless of the past. Lincoln
pocket veto
A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver that allows a president or other official with veto power to exercise that power over a bill by taking no action (keeping it in their pocket), thus effectively killing the bill without affirmatively vetoing i ...
ed the Wade–Davis Bill, which was much more strict than the ten percent plan.
Following Lincoln's veto, the Radicals lost support but regained strength after
Lincoln's assassination
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Shot in the head ...
in April 1865.
1865
On January 16, 1865, General
William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...
issued
Special Field Orders No. 15
Special Field Orders, No. 15 (series 1865) were military orders issued during the American Civil War, on January 16, 1865, by General William Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi of the United States Army. They p ...
. It gave back about 400,000 confiscated acres of land in Georgia and South Carolina in plots of forty acres each to recently freed African American families and white southern Unionists.
The war ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to the Union Army, and six days later President Abraham Lincoln was shot.
Upon
Lincoln's assassination
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Shot in the head ...
in April 1865, vice president
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
became president. Radicals considered Johnson to be an ally, but upon becoming president, he rejected the Radical program of Reconstruction. He was on good terms with ex-Confederates in the South and ex-
Copperheads in the North. He appointed his own governors and tried to close the Reconstruction process by the end of 1865.
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
vehemently opposed Johnson's plans for an abrupt end to Reconstruction, insisting that Reconstruction must "revolutionize Southern institutions, habits, and manners .... The foundations of their institutions ... must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain." Johnson broke decisively with the Republicans in Congress when he vetoed the
Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act may refer to several acts of the United States Congress, including:
* Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves by stating that any person born in the United States regardless of race is an American ci ...
on March 27, 1866. While Democrats celebrated, the Republicans rallied, passed the bill again, and overrode Johnson's repeat veto.
Full-scale political warfare now existed between Johnson (now allied with the Democrats) and the Radical Republicans.
Since the war had ended, Congress rejected Johnson's argument that he had the war power to decide what to do. Congress decided it had the primary authority to decide how Reconstruction should proceed, because the Constitution stated the United States had to guarantee each state a
republican form of government
A republic () is a "sovereign state, state in which Power (social and political), power rests with the people or their Representative democracy, representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of gov ...
. The Radicals insisted that meant Congress decided how Reconstruction should be achieved. The issues were multiple: Who should decide, Congress or the president? How should republicanism operate in the South? What was the status of the former Confederate states? What was the citizenship status of the leaders of the Confederacy? What was the citizenship and suffrage status of freedmen?
After the war ended President Andrew Johnson gave back most of the land to the former white slave owners.
1866
By 1866, the faction of
Radical Republicans
The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...
led by Congressman
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
and Senator
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of th ...
was convinced that Johnson's Southern appointees were disloyal to the Union, hostile to loyal Unionists, and enemies of the Freedmen. Radicals used as evidence outbreaks of
mob violence
A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people.
Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...
against Black people, such as the
Memphis riots of 1866
The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political and social racism following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reco ...
and the
New Orleans massacre of 1866
The New Orleans Massacre of 1866 occurred on July 30, when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black Freedmen was set upon by a mob of white rioters, many of whom had been soldiers of the recently defeated Confederate States of America, leading t ...
. Radical Republicans demanded a prompt and strong federal response to protect freedmen and curb Southern racism.
Stevens and his followers viewed secession as having left the states in a status like new territories. Sumner argued that
secession
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
had destroyed statehood but the Constitution still extended its authority and its protection over individuals, as in
existing U.S. territories. The Republicans sought to prevent Johnson's Southern politicians from "restoring the historical subordination of Negroes". Since slavery was abolished, the
Three-fifths Compromise no longer applied to counting the population of Blacks. After the 1870 Census, the South would gain numerous additional representatives in Congress, based on the full population of freedmen.
[All Blacks would be counted in 1870, whether or not they were citizens.] One Illinois Republican expressed a common fear that if the South were allowed to simply restore its previous established powers, that the "reward of treason will be an increased representation".
The election of 1866 decisively changed the balance of power, giving the Republicans two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress, and enough votes to overcome Johnson's vetoes. They moved to
impeach Johnson because of his constant attempts to thwart Radical Reconstruction measures, by using the
''Tenure of Office Act''. Johnson was acquitted by one vote, but he lost the influence to shape Reconstruction policy. The Republican Congress established
military districts in the South and used
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
personnel to administer the region until new governments loyal to the Union—that accepted the Fourteenth Amendment and the right of freedmen to vote—could be established. Congress temporarily suspended the ability to vote of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 former Confederate officials and senior officers, while constitutional amendments gave full citizenship to all African Americans, and suffrage to the adult men.
With the power to vote, freedmen began participating in politics. While many enslaved people were illiterate, educated Blacks (including
fugitive slaves
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called free ...
) moved down from the North to aid them, and natural leaders also stepped forward. They elected White and Black men to represent them in constitutional conventions. A Republican coalition of freedmen, Southerners supportive of the Union (derisively called "scalawags" by White Democrats), and Northerners who had migrated to the South (derisively called "carpetbaggers")—some of whom were returning natives, but were mostly Union veterans—organized to create constitutional conventions. They created new state constitutions to set new directions for Southern states.
Suffrage
![Grand Army of the Republic by Swatjester](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic_by_Swatjester.jpg)
Congress had to consider how to restore to full status and representation within the Union those Southern states that had declared their independence from the United States and had withdrawn their representation.
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
for former Confederates was one of two main concerns. A decision needed to be made whether to allow just some or all former Confederates to vote (and to hold office). The moderates in Congress wanted virtually all of them to vote, but the Radicals resisted. They repeatedly imposed the ironclad oath, which would effectively have allowed no former Confederates to vote. Historian
Harold Hyman
Harold Melvin Hyman (born July 24, 1924) is an historian of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era at Rice University. He is emeritus William P. Hobby professor at Rice.
Hyman has a bachelor's degree from the University of California ...
says that in 1866 congressmen "described the oath as the last bulwark against the return of ex-rebels to power, the barrier behind which
Southern Unionists
In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loy ...
and Negroes protected themselves".
Radical Republican leader
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
proposed, unsuccessfully, that all former Confederates lose the right to vote for five years. The compromise that was reached disenfranchised many Confederate civil and military leaders. No one knows how many temporarily lost the vote, but one estimate placed the number as high as 10,000 to 15,000. However, Radical politicians took up the task at the state level. In Tennessee alone, over 80,000 former Confederates were disenfranchised.
Second, and closely related, was the issue of whether the 4 million freedmen were to be received as citizens: Would they be able to vote? If they were to be fully counted as citizens, some sort of representation for apportionment of seats in Congress had to be determined. Before the war, the population of slaves had been counted as
three-fifths of a corresponding number of free Whites. By having 4 million freedmen counted as full citizens, the South would gain additional seats in Congress. If Blacks were denied the vote and the right to hold office, then only Whites would represent them. Many, including most white Southerners,
Northern Democrats
The Northern Democratic Party was a leg of the Democratic Party during the 1860 presidential election, when the party split in two factions because of disagreements over slavery. They held two conventions before the election, in Charleston and ...
, and some Northern Republicans, opposed black voting. The small fraction of Republican voters opposed to black suffrage contributed to the defeats of several suffrage measures voted on in most Northern states. Some Northern states that had
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
s on the subject limited the ability of their own small populations of Blacks to vote.
Lincoln had supported a middle position: to allow some Black men to vote, especially
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
veterans. Johnson also believed that such service should be rewarded with citizenship. Lincoln proposed giving the vote to "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks". In 1864, Governor Johnson said: "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal Negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man."
As president in 1865, Johnson wrote to the man he appointed as governor of Mississippi, recommending: "If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at least two hundred and fifty dollars, and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary
adicals in Congress and set an example the other states will follow."
![FreedmenVotingInNewOrleans1867](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/FreedmenVotingInNewOrleans1867.jpeg)
Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, leaders of the Radical Republicans, were initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate freedmen. Sumner preferred at first impartial requirements that would have imposed literacy restrictions on Blacks and Whites. He believed that he would not succeed in passing legislation to disenfranchise illiterate Whites who already had the vote.
In the South, many poor Whites were illiterate as there was almost no
public education
State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
before the war. In 1880, for example, the White illiteracy rate was about 25% in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia, and as high as 33% in North Carolina. This compares with the 9% national rate, and a Black rate of
illiteracy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
that was over 70% in the South. By 1900, however, with emphasis within the Black community on education, the majority of Blacks had achieved literacy.
Sumner soon concluded that "there was no substantial protection for the freedman except in the franchise". This was necessary, he stated, "(1) For his own protection; (2) For the protection of the white Unionist; and (3) For the peace of the country. We put the musket in his hands because it was necessary; for the same reason we must give him the franchise." The support for voting rights was a compromise between moderate and Radical Republicans.
The Republicans believed that the best way for men to get political experience was to be able to vote and to participate in the political system. They passed laws allowing all male freedmen to vote. In 1867, Black men voted for the first time. Over the course of Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office in the South; some of them were men who had escaped to the North and gained educations, and returned to the South. They did not hold office in numbers representative of their proportion in the population, but often elected Whites to represent them. The question of
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
was also debated but was rejected. Women eventually gained the right to vote with the
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.
From 1890 to 1908, Southern states passed new state constitutions and laws that disenfranchised most Blacks and tens of thousands of poor Whites with new voter registration and electoral rules. When establishing new requirements such as subjectively administered
literacy test
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...
s, in some states, they used "
grandfather clause
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
s" to enable illiterate Whites to vote.
Southern Treaty Commission
The
Five Civilized Tribes
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek ...
that had been relocated to
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
(now part of
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
) held Black slaves and signed treaties supporting the Confederacy. During the war, a war among pro-Union and anti-Union Native Americans had raged. Congress passed a statute that gave the president the authority to suspend the appropriations of any tribe if the tribe is "in a state of actual hostility to the government of the United States ... and, by proclamation, to declare all treaties with such tribe to be abrogated by such tribe".
As a component of Reconstruction, the
Interior Department
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
ordered a meeting of representatives from all
Indian tribes who had affiliated with the Confederacy. The council, the
Southern Treaty Commission, was first held in
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...
in September 1865, and was attended by hundreds of Native Americans representing dozens of tribes. Over the next several years the commission negotiated treaties with tribes that resulted in additional re-locations to
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
and the ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' creation (initially by treaty) of an unorganized
Oklahoma Territory
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...
.
Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction
Preliminary events
![Abraham Lincoln O-77 matte collodion print](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Abraham_Lincoln_O-77_matte_collodion_print.jpg)
President Lincoln signed two
Confiscation Acts The Confiscation Acts were laws passed by the United States Congress during the Civil War with the intention of freeing the slaves still held by the Confederate forces in the South.
The Confiscation Act of 1861 authorized the confiscation of any C ...
into law, the first on August 6, 1861, and the second on July 17, 1862, safeguarding fugitive slaves who crossed from the Confederacy across Union lines and giving them indirect emancipation if their masters continued insurrection against the United States. The laws allowed the confiscation of lands for colonization from those who aided and supported the rebellion. However, these laws had limited effect as they were poorly funded by Congress and poorly enforced by Attorney General
Edward Bates
Edward Bates (September 4, 1793 – March 25, 1869) was a lawyer and politician. He represented Missouri in the US House of Representatives and served as the U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln. A member of the influential ...
.
[Williams (2006), ''"Doing Less" and "Doing More"'', pp. 54–59.]
In August 1861, Maj. Gen.
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont or Fremont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, military officer, and politician. He was a U.S. Senator from California and was the first Republican nominee for president of the United States in 1856 ...
, Union commander of the Western Department, declared martial law in
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
, confiscated Confederate property, and emancipated their slaves. President Lincoln immediately ordered Frémont to rescind his emancipation declaration, stating: "I think there is great danger that ... the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us—perhaps ruin our fair prospect for Kentucky." After Frémont refused to rescind the emancipation order, President Lincoln terminated him from active duty on November 2, 1861. Lincoln was concerned that the border states would secede from the Union if slaves were given their freedom. On May 26, 1862, Union Maj. Gen.
David Hunter
David Hunter (July 21, 1802 – February 2, 1886) was an American military officer. He served as a Union general during the American Civil War. He achieved notability for his unauthorized 1862 order (immediately rescinded) emancipating slaves ...
emancipated slaves in South Carolina,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, and Florida, declaring all "persons ... heretofore held as slaves ... forever free". Lincoln, embarrassed by the order, rescinded Hunter's declaration and canceled the emancipation.
On April 16, 1862, Lincoln signed a bill into law outlawing slavery in Washington, D.C., and freeing the estimated 3,500 slaves in the city. On June 19, 1862, he signed legislation outlawing slavery in all U.S. territories. On July 17, 1862, under the authority of the Confiscation Acts and an amended Force Bill of 1795, he authorized the recruitment of freed slaves into the U.S. Army and seizure of any Confederate property for military purposes.
Gradual emancipation and compensation
In an effort to keep border states in the Union, President Lincoln, as early as 1861, designed gradual
compensated emancipation
Compensated emancipation was a method of ending slavery, under which the enslaved person's owner received compensation from the government in exchange for manumitting the slave. This could be monetary, and it could allow the owner to retain the s ...
programs paid for by government bonds. Lincoln desired
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, and
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
to "adopt a system of gradual emancipation which should work the extinction of slavery in twenty years". On March 26, 1862, Lincoln met with Senator Charles Sumner and recommended that a special joint session of Congress be convened to discuss giving financial aid to any border states who initiated a
gradual emancipation plan. In April 1862, the joint session of Congress met; however, the border states were not interested and did not make any response to Lincoln or any congressional emancipation proposal. Lincoln advocated compensated emancipation during the
Hampton Roads Conference
The Hampton Roads Conference was a peace conference held between the United States and representatives of the unrecognized breakaway Confederate States on February 3, 1865, aboard the steamboat ''River Queen'' in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discus ...
.
Colonization
In August 1862, President Lincoln met with African American leaders and urged them to colonize some place in
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
. Lincoln planned to free the Southern slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation and he was concerned that freedmen would not be well treated in the United States by Whites in both the North and South. Although Lincoln gave assurances that the United States government would support and protect any colonies that were established for former slaves, the leaders declined the offer of colonization. Many free Blacks had been opposed to colonization plans in the past because they wanted to remain in the United States. President Lincoln persisted in his colonization plan in the belief that emancipation and colonization were both part of the same program. By April 1863, Lincoln was successful in sending Black colonists to
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
as well as 453 to
Chiriqui in Central America; however, none of the colonies were able to remain self-sufficient.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
, a prominent 19th-century American
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
activist, criticized Lincoln by stating that he was "showing all his inconsistencies, his pride of race and blood, his contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy". African Americans, according to Douglass, wanted citizenship and civil rights rather than colonies. Historians are unsure if Lincoln gave up on the idea of African American colonization at the end of 1863 or if he actually planned to continue this policy up until 1865.
[Catton (1963), ''Terrible Swift Sword'', pp. 365–367, 461–468.]
Installation of military governors
Starting in March 1862, in an effort to forestall Reconstruction by the Radicals in Congress, President Lincoln installed military governors in certain rebellious states under Union military control. Although the states would not be recognized by the Radicals until an undetermined time, installation of military governors kept the administration of Reconstruction under presidential control, rather than that of the increasingly unsympathetic Radical Congress. On March 3, 1862, Lincoln installed a loyalist Democrat, Senator Andrew Johnson, as military governor with the rank of brigadier general in his home state of Tennessee. In May 1862, Lincoln appointed
Edward Stanly
Edward W. Stanly (January 10, 1810 – July 12, 1872) was an American lawyer and politician. He was a North Carolina politician and orator who represented the southeastern portion of the state in the United States House of Representatives for fi ...
military governor of the coastal region of
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
with the rank of brigadier general. Stanly resigned almost a year later when he angered Lincoln by closing two schools for Black children in
New Bern
New Bern, formerly called Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and t ...
. After Lincoln installed Brigadier General
George Foster Shepley as military governor of Louisiana in May 1862, Shepley sent two anti-slavery representatives,
Benjamin Flanders
Benjamin Franklin Flanders (January 26, 1816 – March 13, 1896) was a teacher, politician and planter in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1867, he was appointed by the military commander as the 21st Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction, a ...
and
Michael Hahn
George Michael Decker Hahn (November 24, 1830 – March 15, 1886), was an attorney, politician, publisher and planter in New Orleans, Louisiana. He served twice in Congress during two widely separated periods, elected first as a Unionist Democr ...
, elected in December 1862, to the House, which capitulated and voted to seat them. In July 1862, Lincoln installed Colonel
John S. Phelps
John Smith Phelps (December 22, 1814November 20, 1886) was a politician and soldier during the American Civil War, and the 23rd Governor of Missouri.
Early life and career
John Smith Phelps, the son of Elisha Phelps, was born in Simsbury, Har ...
as military governor of Arkansas, though he resigned soon after due to poor health.
Emancipation Proclamation
![EmancipationPhoto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/EmancipationPhoto.jpg)
In July 1862, President Lincoln became convinced that "a military necessity" was needed to strike at slavery in order to win the Civil War for the Union. The Confiscation Acts were only having a minimal effect to end slavery. On July 22, he wrote a first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in states in rebellion. After he showed his Cabinet the document, slight alterations were made in the wording. Lincoln decided that the defeat of the Confederate invasion of the North at
Sharpsburg was enough of a battlefield victory to enable him to release the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that gave the rebels 100 days to return to the Union or the actual proclamation would be issued.
On January 1, 1863, the actual Emancipation Proclamation was issued, specifically naming 10 states in which slaves would be "forever free". The proclamation did not name the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, and specifically excluded numerous counties in some other states. Eventually, as the U.S. Army advanced into the Confederacy, millions of slaves were set free. Many of these freedmen joined the U.S. Army and fought in battles against the Confederate forces.
Yet hundreds of thousands of freed slaves died during emancipation from illness that devastated army regiments. Freed slaves suffered from smallpox, yellow fever, and malnutrition.
Louisiana 10% electorate plan
President Abraham Lincoln was concerned to effect a speedy restoration of the Confederate states to the Union after the Civil War. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for the Reconstruction of the captured Confederate state of Louisiana. The plan granted amnesty to rebels who took an oath of loyalty to the Union. Black freedmen workers were tied to labor on plantations for one year at a pay rate of $10 a month. Only 10% of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath in order for the state to be readmitted into the U.S. Congress. The state was required to abolish slavery in its new state constitution. Identical Reconstruction plans would be adopted in Arkansas and Tennessee. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan of Reconstruction had been enacted in Louisiana and the legislature sent two senators and five representatives to take their seats in Washington. However, Congress refused to count any of the votes from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, in essence rejecting Lincoln's moderate Reconstruction plan. Congress, at this time controlled by the Radicals, proposed the Wade–Davis Bill that required a majority of the state electorates to take the oath of loyalty to be admitted to Congress. Lincoln
pocket vetoed the bill and the rift widened between the moderates, who wanted to save the Union and win the war, and the Radicals, who wanted to effect a more complete change within Southern society.
[Peterson (1995) ''Lincoln in American Memory'', pp. 38–41.][McCarthy (1901), ''Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction'', p. 76.] Frederick Douglass denounced Lincoln's 10% electorate plan as undemocratic since state admission and loyalty only depended on a minority vote.
Legalization of slave marriages
Before 1864, slave marriages had not been recognized legally; emancipation did not affect them. When freed, many made official marriages. Before emancipation, slaves could not enter into contracts, including the marriage contract. Not all free people formalized their unions. Some continued to have common-law marriages or community-recognized relationships.
The acknowledgement of marriage by the state increased the state's recognition of freed people as legal actors and eventually helped make the case for parental rights for freed people against the practice of apprenticeship of Black children.
These children were legally taken away from their families under the guise of "providing them with guardianship and 'good' homes until they reached the age of consent at twenty-one" under acts such as the Georgia 1866 Apprentice Act. Such children were generally used as sources of unpaid labor.
Freedmen's Bureau
![Freedmen richmond sewing women](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Freedmen_richmond_sewing_women.jpg)
On March 3, 1865, the
Freedmen's Bureau Bill The Freedmen's Bureau bills provided legislative authorization for the Freedmen's Bureau (formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), which was set up by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 as part of the United State ...
became law, sponsored by the Republicans to aid freedmen and White refugees. A federal bureau was created to provide food, clothing, fuel, and advice on negotiating labor contracts. It attempted to oversee new relations between freedmen and their former masters in a free labor market. The act, without deference to a person's color, authorized the bureau to lease confiscated land for a period of three years and to sell it in portions of up to per buyer. The bureau was to expire one year after the termination of the war. Lincoln was assassinated before he could appoint a commissioner of the bureau.
With the help of the bureau, the recently freed slaves began voting, forming political parties, and assuming the control of labor in many areas. The bureau helped to start a change of power in the South that drew national attention from the Republicans in the North to the Democrats in the South. This is especially evident in the
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
between Grant and Seymour (Johnson did not get the Democratic nomination), where almost 700,000 Black voters voted and swayed the election 300,000 votes in Grant's favor.
Even with the benefits that it gave to the freedmen, the Freedmen's Bureau was unable to operate effectively in certain areas. Terrorizing freedmen for trying to vote, hold a political office, or own land, the Ku Klux Klan was the nemesis of the Freedmen's Bureau.
Bans color discrimination
Other legislation was signed that broadened equality and rights for African Americans. Lincoln outlawed discrimination on account of color, in carrying U.S. mail, in riding on public street cars in Washington, D.C., and in pay for soldiers.
February 1865 peace conference
Lincoln and Secretary of State
William H. Seward
William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States Senate, United States Senat ...
met with three Southern representatives to discuss the peaceful Reconstruction of the Union and the Confederacy on February 3, 1865, in
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
, Virginia. The Southern delegation included Confederate Vice President
Alexander H. Stephens
Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883) was an American politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1 ...
,
John Archibald Campbell
John Archibald Campbell (June 24, 1811 – March 12, 1889) was an American jurist. He was a successful lawyer in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and Alabama, where he served in the state legislature. Appointed by Franklin Pierce to the Unite ...
, and
Robert M. T. Hunter
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (April 21, 1809 – July 18, 1887) was an American lawyer, politician and planter. He was a U.S. representative (1837–1843, 1845–1847), speaker of the House (1839–1841), and U.S. senator (184 ...
. The Southerners proposed the Union recognition of the Confederacy, a joint Union–Confederate attack on Mexico to oust Emperor
Maximilian I, and an alternative subordinate status of servitude for Blacks rather than slavery. Lincoln flatly rejected recognition of the Confederacy, and said that the slaves covered by his Emancipation Proclamation would not be re-enslaved. He said that the Union states were about to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery. Lincoln urged the governor of Georgia to remove Confederate troops and "ratify this constitutional amendment , so as to take effect—say in five years.... Slavery is doomed." Lincoln also urged compensated emancipation for the slaves as he thought the North should be willing to share the costs of freedom. Although the meeting was cordial, the parties did not settle on agreements.
Historical legacy debated
Lincoln continued to advocate his Louisiana Plan as a model for all states up until his assassination on April 15, 1865. The plan successfully started the Reconstruction process of ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment in all states. Lincoln is typically portrayed as taking the moderate position and fighting the Radical positions. There is considerable debate on how well Lincoln, had he lived, would have handled Congress during the Reconstruction process that took place after the Civil War ended. One historical camp argues that Lincoln's flexibility, pragmatism, and superior political skills with Congress would have solved Reconstruction with far less difficulty. The other camp believes that the Radicals would have attempted to impeach Lincoln, just as they did to his successor, Andrew Johnson, in 1868.
Johnson's presidential Reconstruction
Northern anger over the assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for punitive policies. Vice President
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
had taken a hard line and spoke of hanging Confederates, but when he succeeded Lincoln as president, Johnson took a much softer position, pardoning many Confederate leaders and other former Confederates. Former Confederate President
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
was held in prison for two years, but other Confederate leaders were not. There were no trials on charges of treason. Only two people—Captain
Henry Wirz
Henry Wirz (born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz, November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Swiss-American officer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of the stockade of Camp Sumter, a Confederate pr ...
, the commandant of the
prison camp in
Andersonville, Georgia
Andersonville is a city in Sumter County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 237. It is located in the southwest part of the state, approximately southwest of Macon on the Central of Georgia railroad. ...
, and guerilla leader
Champ Ferguson
Samuel "Champ" Ferguson (November 29, 1821 – October 20, 1865) was a notorious Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War. He claimed to have killed over 100 Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians. He was arrested, tried, and executed ...
—were ever executed for war crimes. Andrew Johnson's racist view of Reconstruction did not include the involvement of blacks in government, and he refused to heed Northern concerns when Southern state legislatures implemented
Black Codes
The Black Codes, sometimes called the Black Laws, were laws which governed the conduct of African Americans (free and freed blacks). In 1832, James Kent (jurist), James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in re ...
that set the status of the freedmen much lower than that of white people.
Smith argues that "Johnson attempted to carry forward what he considered to be Lincoln's plans for Reconstruction." McKitrick says that in 1865 Johnson had strong support in the Republican Party, saying: "It was naturally from the great moderate sector of Unionist opinion in the North that Johnson could draw his greatest comfort." Ray Allen Billington says: "One faction, the
moderate Republicans under the leadership of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, favored a mild policy toward the South." David A. Lincove, citing Lincoln biographers
James G. Randall
James Garfield Randall (June 4, 1881 in Indianapolis, Indiana - February 20, 1953) was an American historian specializing on Abraham Lincoln and the era of the American Civil War. He taught at the University of Illinois, (1920–1950), where David ...
and
Richard N. Current
Richard Nelson Current (October 5, 1912 – October 26, 2012) was an American historian, called "the Dean of Lincoln Scholars", best known for ''The Lincoln Nobody Knows'' (1958), and ''Lincoln and the First Shot'' (1963).
Life
Born in Colorado ...
, argued that:
Historians generally agree that President Johnson was an inept politician who lost all his advantages by unskilled maneuvering. He broke with Congress in early 1866 and then became defiant and tried to block enforcement of Reconstruction laws passed by the U.S. Congress. He was in constant conflict constitutionally with the Radicals in Congress over the status of freedmen and whites in the defeated South. Although resigned to the abolition of slavery, many former Confederates were unwilling to accept both social changes and political domination by former slaves. In the words of
Benjamin Franklin Perry, President Johnson's choice as the provisional governor of South Carolina: "First, the Negro is to be invested with all political power, and then the antagonism of interest between capital and labor is to work out the result."
However, the fears of the planter elite and other leading white citizens were partly assuaged by the actions of President Johnson, who ensured that a wholesale land redistribution from the planters to the freedmen did not occur. President Johnson ordered that confiscated or abandoned lands administered by the Freedmen's Bureau would not be redistributed to the freedmen but would be returned to pardoned owners. Land was returned that would have been forfeited under the Confiscation Acts passed by Congress in 1861 and 1862.
Freedmen and the enactment of Black Codes
![The Union as It Was](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/The_Union_as_It_Was.jpg)
Southern state governments quickly enacted the restrictive "
Black Codes
The Black Codes, sometimes called the Black Laws, were laws which governed the conduct of African Americans (free and freed blacks). In 1832, James Kent (jurist), James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in re ...
". However, they were abolished in 1866 and seldom had effect, because the Freedmen's Bureau (not the local courts) handled the legal affairs of freedmen.
The Black Codes indicated the plans of the Southern whites for the former slaves. The freedmen would have more rights than did free Blacks before the war, but they would still have only second-class civil rights, no voting rights, and no citizenship. They could not own firearms, serve on a jury in a lawsuit involving whites, or move about without employment. The Black Codes outraged Northern opinion. They were overthrown by the
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (, enacted April 9, 1866, reenacted 1870) was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the Amer ...
that gave the freedmen more legal equality (although still without the right to vote).
The freedmen, with the strong backing of the Freedmen's Bureau, rejected
gang labor work patterns that had been used in slavery. Instead of gang labor, freed people preferred family-based labor groups. They forced planters to bargain for their labor. Such bargaining soon led to the establishment of the system of
sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
, which gave the freedmen greater economic independence and social autonomy than gang labor. However, because they lacked capital and the planters continued to own the means of production (tools, draft animals, and land), the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops (mainly cotton) for the land-owners and merchants, and they entered into a
crop-lien system The crop-lien system was a credit system that became widely used by cotton farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1940s.
History
Sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who did not own the land they worked, obtained supplies ...
. Widespread poverty, disruption to an agricultural economy too dependent on cotton, and the falling price of cotton, led within decades to the routine indebtedness of the majority of the freedmen, and the poverty of many planters.
Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions for the freedmen in the South. One harsh assessment came from
Carl Schurz
Carl Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He immigrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the new ...
, who reported on the situation in the states along the Gulf Coast. His report documented dozens of
extrajudicial killing
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...
s and claimed that hundreds or thousands more African Americans were killed:
The report included sworn testimony from soldiers and officials of the Freedmen's Bureau. In
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About ...
, Major J. P. Houston noted that whites who killed 12 African Americans in his district never came to trial. Many more killings never became official cases. Captain Poillon described white patrols in southwestern Alabama:
Much of the violence that was perpetrated against African Americans was shaped by gender prejudices regarding African Americans. Black women were in a particularly vulnerable situation. To convict a white man of sexually assaulting Black women in this period was exceedingly difficult.
The South's judicial system had been wholly refigured to make one of its primary purposes the coercion of African Americans to comply with the social customs and labor demands of whites.Trials were discouraged and attorneys for Black misdemeanor defendants were difficult to find. The goal of county courts was a fast, uncomplicated trial with a resulting conviction. Most Blacks were unable to pay their fines or bail, and "the most common penalty was nine months to a year in a slave mine or lumber camp". The South's judicial system was rigged to generate fees and claim bounties, not to ensure public protection. Black women were socially perceived as sexually avaricious and since they were portrayed as having little virtue, society held that they could not be raped.
One report indicates two freed women, Frances Thompson and Lucy Smith, describe their violent sexual assault during the
Memphis Riots of 1866
The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political and social racism following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reco ...
.
However, Black women were vulnerable even in times of relative normalcy. Sexual assaults on African-American women were so pervasive, particularly on the part of their white employers, that Black men sought to reduce the contact between white males and Black females by having the women in their family avoid doing work that was closely overseen by whites. Black men were construed as being extremely sexually aggressive and their supposed or rumored threats to white women were often used as a pretext for
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
and castrations.
Moderate responses
During fall 1865, out of response to the Black Codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the former rebellious states to the Congress. Johnson, however, was content with allowing former Confederate states into the Union as long as their state governments adopted the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. By December 6, 1865, the amendment was ratified and Johnson considered Reconstruction over. Johnson was following the moderate Lincoln presidential Reconstruction policy to get the states readmitted as soon as possible.
Congress, however, controlled by the Radicals, had other plans. The Radicals were led by
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of th ...
in the Senate and
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of sla ...
in the House of Representatives. Congress, on December 4, 1865, rejected Johnson's moderate presidential Reconstruction, and organized the
Joint Committee on Reconstruction
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction, also known as the Joint Committee of Fifteen, was a joint committee of the 39th United States Congress that played a major role in Reconstruction in the wake of the American Civil War. It was created to "inqu ...
, a 15-member panel to devise Reconstruction requirements for the Southern states to be restored to the Union.
In January 1866, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau; however, Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill in February 1866. Although Johnson had sympathy for the plight of the freedmen, he was against federal assistance. An attempt to override the veto failed on February 20, 1866. This veto shocked the congressional Radicals. In response, both the Senate and House passed a joint resolution not to allow any senator or representative seat admittance until Congress decided when Reconstruction was finished.
Senator
Lyman Trumbull
Lyman Trumbull (October 12, 1813 – June 25, 1896) was a lawyer, judge, and United States Senator from Illinois and the co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Born in Colchester, Connecticut, Trumbull esta ...
of
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
, leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront to the Black Codes. He proposed the first
Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act may refer to several acts of the United States Congress, including:
* Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves by stating that any person born in the United States regardless of race is an American ci ...
, because the abolition of slavery was empty if:
The key to the bill was the opening section:
The bill did not give freedmen the right to vote. Congress quickly passed the Civil Rights Bill; the Senate on February 2 voted 33–12; the House on March 13 voted 111–38.
Johnson's vetoes
![Freedman's bureau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Freedman%27s_bureau.jpg)
Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27, 1866. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented and attempted to fix by federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every state of the Union". Johnson said it was an invasion by federal authority of the rights of the states; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government".
The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, North and South, supported Johnson. However, the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close vote of 33–15, and the House by 122–41) and the
civil rights bill became law. Congress also passed a watered-down Freedmen's Bureau bill; Johnson quickly vetoed as he had done to the previous bill. Once again, however, Congress had enough support and overrode Johnson's veto.
The last moderate proposal was the
Fourteenth Amendment, whose principal drafter was Representative
John Bingham
John Armor Bingham (January 21, 1815 – March 19, 1900) was an American politician who served as a Republican representative from Ohio and as the United States ambassador to Japan. In his time as a congressman, Bingham served as both assist ...
. It was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except
Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most important, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed the federal war debt would be paid (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states since three-fourths of the states were required for ratification (the amendment was later ratified). The moderate effort to compromise with Johnson had failed, and a political fight broke out between the Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and on the other side, Johnson and his allies in the Democratic Party in the North, and the groupings (which used different names) in each Southern state.
Congressional Reconstruction
![Seymour US Reconstruction antidem poster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Seymour_US_Reconstruction_antidem_poster.jpg)
Concerned that President Johnson viewed Congress as an "illegal body" and wanted to overthrow the government, Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction policies after the election of 1866. Johnson ignored the policy mandate, and he openly encouraged Southern states to deny ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (except for Tennessee, all former Confederate states did refuse to ratify, as did the border states of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky). Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage for male freedmen. They were generally in control, although they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans (the Democrats in Congress had almost no power). Historians refer to this period as "Radical Reconstruction" or "congressional Reconstruction". The business spokesmen in the North generally opposed Radical proposals. Analysis of 34 major business newspapers showed that 12 discussed politics, and only one, ''
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
'', supported radicalism. The other 11 opposed a "harsh" Reconstruction policy, favored the speedy return of the Southern states to congressional representation, opposed legislation designed to protect the freedmen, and deplored the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.
The South's White leaders, who held power in the immediate post-bellum era before the vote was granted to the freedmen, renounced secession and slavery, but not White supremacy. People who had previously held power were angered in 1867 when new elections were held. New Republican lawmakers were elected by a coalition of White Unionists, freedmen and Northerners who had settled in the South. Some leaders in the South tried to accommodate new conditions.
Constitutional amendments
Three constitutional amendments, known as the Reconstruction amendments, were adopted. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified in 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, guaranteeing
United States citizenship
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...
to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and granting them federal civil rights. The Fifteenth Amendment, proposed in late February 1869, and passed in early February 1870, decreed that the right to vote could not be denied because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Left unaffected was that states would still determine voter registration and electoral laws. The amendments were directed at ending slavery and providing full citizenship to freedmen. Northern congressmen believed that providing Black men with the right to vote would be the most rapid means of political education and training.
Many Blacks took an active part in voting and political life, and rapidly continued to build churches and community organizations. Following Reconstruction, White Democrats and insurgent groups used force to regain power in the state legislatures, and pass laws that effectively
disenfranchised
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
most Blacks and many poor Whites in the South. From 1890 to 1910, Southern states passed new state constitutions that completed the disenfranchisement of Blacks. U.S. Supreme Court rulings on these provisions upheld many of these new Southern state constitutions and laws, and most Blacks were prevented from voting in the South until the 1960s. Full federal enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not reoccur until after passage of legislation in the mid-1960s as a result of the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
.
For details, see:
*
Redeemers
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Par ...
*
Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era
Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from ...
*
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
* ''
United States v. Cruikshank'' (1875), related to the
Colfax Massacre
*
Posse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (, original at ) signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic p ...
(1878)
* ''
Civil Rights Cases
The ''Civil Rights Cases'', 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five landmark cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by pr ...
'' (1883)
*
Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
The civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent resistance, nonviolent action to bring full Civil and political rights, civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on Society ...
* ''
Plessy v. Ferguson
''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality ...
'' (1896)
* ''
Williams v. Mississippi
''Williams v. Mississippi'', 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the Constitution of Mississippi#1890 constitution, 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statute ...
'' (1898)
* ''
Giles v. Harris'' (1903)
Statutes
The
Reconstruction Acts
The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, (March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 428-430, c.153; March 23, 1867, 15 Stat. 2-5, c.6; July 19, 1867, 15 Stat. 14-16, c.30; and March 11, 1868, 15 Stat. 41, c.25) were four statutes passed duri ...
as originally passed, were initially called "An act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States" The legislation was enacted by the 39th Congress, on March 2, 1867. It was vetoed by President Johnson, and the veto then overridden by a two-thirds majority, in both the House and the Senate, the same day. Congress also clarified the scope of the federal writ of
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
, to allow federal courts to
vacate
A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. ...
unlawful state court convictions or sentences, in 1867.
Military Reconstruction
![Reconstruction military districts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Reconstruction_military_districts.svg)
With the Radicals in control, Congress passed the
Reconstruction Act
The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, (March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 428-430, c.153; March 23, 1867, 15 Stat. 2-5, c.6; July 19, 1867, 15 Stat. 14-16, c.30; and March 11, 1868, 15 Stat. 41, c.25) were four statutes passed duri ...
s on July 19, 1867. The first Reconstruction Act, authored by Oregon Sen.
George Henry Williams
George Henry Williams (March 26, 1823April 4, 1910) was an American judge and politician. He served as chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, was the 32nd Attorney General of the United States, and was elected Oregon's U.S. senator, and serve ...
, a
Radical Republican
The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...
, placed 10 of the former Confederate states—all but Tennessee—under military control, grouping them into five military districts:
*
First Military District
The First Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period f ...
: Virginia, under General
John Schofield
John McAllister Schofield (September 29, 1831 – March 4, 1906) was an American soldier who held major commands during the American Civil War. He was appointed U.S. Secretary of War (1868–1869) under President Andrew Johnson and later served ...
*
Second Military District
The Second Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period foll ...
: North Carolina and South Carolina, under General
Daniel Sickles
Daniel Edgar Sickles (October 20, 1819May 3, 1914) was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat.
Born to a wealthy family in New York City, Sickles was involved in a number of scandals, most notably the 1859 homicide of his wife's lover, U. ...
*
Third Military District
The Third Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period follo ...
: Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, under Generals
John Pope and
George Meade
George Gordon Meade (December 31, 1815 – November 6, 1872) was a United States Army officer and civil engineer best known for decisively defeating Confederate States Army, Confederate Full General (CSA), General Robert E. Lee at the Battle ...
*
Fourth Military District
The Fourth Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstruction period fo ...
: Arkansas and Mississippi, under General
Edward Ord
Edward Otho Cresap Ord (October 18, 1818 – July 22, 1883) was an American engineer and United States Army officer who saw action in the Seminole War, the Indian Wars, and the American Civil War. He commanded an army during the final days of th ...
*
Fifth Military District
The Fifth Military District of the U.S. Army was one of five temporary administrative units of the U.S. War Department that existed in the American South from 1867 to 1870. The district was stipulated by the Reconstruction Acts during the Reconstru ...
: Texas and Louisiana, under Generals
Philip Sheridan
General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...
and
Winfield Scott Hancock
Winfield Scott Hancock (February 14, 1824 – February 9, 1886) was a United States Army officer and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1880. He served with distinction in the Army for four decades, including service ...
20,000 U.S. troops were deployed to enforce the act.
The five
border states that had not joined the Confederacy were not subject to military Reconstruction. West Virginia, which had
seceded
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...
from Virginia in 1863, and Tennessee, which had already been re-admitted in 1866, were not included in the military districts. Federal troops however were kept in West Virginia through 1868 in order to control civil unrest in several areas throughout the state. Federal troops were removed from Kentucky and Missouri in 1866.
The 10 Southern state governments were re-constituted under the direct control of the United States Army. One major purpose was to recognize and protect the right of African Americans to vote. There was little to no combat, but rather a state of
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
in which the military closely supervised local government, supervised elections, and tried to protect office holders and freedmen from violence. Blacks were enrolled as voters; former Confederate leaders were excluded for a limited period. No one state was entirely representative. Randolph Campbell describes what happened in Texas:
State constitutional conventions: 1867–1869
The 11 Southern states held constitutional conventions giving Black men the right to vote, where the factions divided into the Radical, "
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
," and in-between delegates. The Radicals were a coalition: 40% were Southern White Republicans; 25% were White and 34% were Black. In addition to expanding the franchise, they pressed for provisions designed to promote economic growth, especially financial aid to rebuild the ruined railroad system. The conventions set up systems of free public schools funded by tax dollars, but did not require them to be racially integrated.
![This is a White Man's Government](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/This_is_a_White_Man%27s_Government.jpg)
Until 1872, most former Confederate or prewar Southern office holders were disqualified from voting or holding office; all but 500 top Confederate leaders were pardoned by the
Amnesty Act of 1872
The Amnesty Act of 1872 is a United States federal law passed on May 22, 1872, which removed most of the penalties imposed on former Confederates by the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted on July 9, 1868. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohi ...
. "Proscription" was the policy of disqualifying as many ex-Confederates as possible. For example, in 1865 Tennessee had disenfranchised 80,000 ex-Confederates. However, proscription was soundly rejected by the Black element, which insisted on universal suffrage. The issue would come up repeatedly in several states, especially in Texas and Virginia. In Virginia, an effort was made to disqualify for public office every man who had served in the Confederate Army even as a private, and any civilian farmer who sold food to the Confederate States Army. Disenfranchising Southern Whites was also opposed by moderate Republicans in the North, who felt that ending proscription would bring the South closer to a republican form of government based on the
consent of the governed
In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political powe ...
, as called for by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Strong measures that were called for in order to forestall a return to the defunct Confederacy increasingly seemed out of place, and the role of the United States Army and controlling politics in the state was troublesome. Historian Mark Summers states that increasingly "the disenfranchisers had to fall back on the contention that denial of the vote was meant as punishment, and a lifelong punishment at that ... Month by month, the un-
republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
character of the regime looked more glaring."
Election of 1868
During the Civil War, many in the North believed that fighting for the Union was a noble cause–for the preservation of the Union and the end of slavery. After the war ended, with the North victorious, the fear among Radicals was that President Johnson too quickly assumed that slavery and Confederate nationalism were dead and that the Southern states could return. The Radicals sought out a candidate for president who represented their viewpoint.
In May 1868, the Republicans unanimously chose
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
as their presidential candidate, and
Schuyler Colfax
Schuyler Colfax Jr. (; March 23, 1823 – January 13, 1885) was an American journalist, businessman, and politician who served as the 17th vice president of the United States from 1869 to 1873, and prior to that as the 25th speaker of the House ...
, as their vice-presidential candidate. Grant won favor with the Radicals after he allowed
Edwin Stanton
Edwin McMasters Stanton (December 19, 1814December 24, 1869) was an American lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton's management helped organize t ...
, a Radical, to be reinstated as secretary of war. As early as 1862, during the Civil War, Grant had appointed the Ohio military chaplain
John Eaton John Eaton may refer to:
* John Eaton (divine) (born 1575), English divine
*John Eaton (pirate) (fl. 1683–1686), English buccaneer
*Sir John Craig Eaton (1876–1922), Canadian businessman
*John Craig Eaton II (born 1937), Canadian businessman an ...
to protect and gradually incorporate refugee slaves in west Tennessee and northern Mississippi into the Union war effort and pay them for their labor. It was the beginning of his vision for the Freedmen's Bureau. Grant opposed President Johnson by supporting the Reconstruction Acts passed by the Radicals.
In northern cities Grant contended with a strong immigrant, and particularly in New York City an Irish, anti-Reconstructionist Democratic bloc.
Republicans sought to make inroads campaigning for the Irish taken prisoner in the
Fenian raids into Canada, and calling on the
Johnson administration to recognize a lawful state of war between Ireland and England. In 1867 Grant personally intervened with
David Bell and
Michael Scanlon
Michael Scanlon (also known as Sean Scanlon) is a former communications director for Rep. Tom DeLay, lobbyist, and public relations executive who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges related to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. He is curre ...
to move their paper, the ''Irish Republic'', articulate in its support for black equality, to New York from Chicago.
The Democrats, having abandoned Johnson, nominated former governor
Horatio Seymour
Horatio Seymour (May 31, 1810February 12, 1886) was an American politician. He served as Governor of New York from 1853 to 1854 and from 1863 to 1864. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1868 United States presidential elec ...
of New York for president and
Francis P. Blair
Francis Preston Blair Sr. (April 12, 1791 – October 18, 1876) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
Blair was an early member of the De ...
of Missouri for vice president. The Democrats advocated the immediate restoration of former Confederate states to the Union and amnesty from "all past political offenses".
Grant won the popular vote by 300,000 votes out of 5,716,082 votes cast, receiving an
Electoral College landslide of 214 votes to Seymour's 80. Seymour received a majority of white votes, but Grant was aided by 500,000 votes cast by blacks, winning him 52.7 percent of the popular vote. He lost Louisiana and Georgia primarily due to
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
violence against African-American voters. At the age of 46, Grant was the youngest president yet elected, and the first president after the nation had outlawed slavery.
Grant's presidential Reconstruction
Effective civil rights executive
President
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
was considered an effective civil rights executive, concerned about the plight of
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
. Grant met with prominent black leaders for consultation and signed a bill into law, on March 18, 1869, that guaranteed equal rights to both blacks and whites, to serve on juries, and hold office, in Washington D.C.
[ In 1870 Grant signed into law a Naturalization Act that gave foreign blacks citizenship. Additionally, Grant's ]Postmaster General
A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official respons ...
, John Creswell
John Andrew Jackson Creswell (November 18, 1828December 23, 1891) was an American politician and abolitionist from Maryland, who served as United States Representative, United States Senator, and as Postmaster General of the United States app ...
used his patronage powers to integrate the postal system and appointed a record number of African-American men and women as postal workers across the nation, while also expanding many of the mail routes. Grant appointed Republican abolitionist and champion of black education Hugh Lennox Bond
Hugh Lennox Bond (December 16, 1828 – October 24, 1893) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Circuit Courts for the Fourth Circuit.
Education and career
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Bond graduated from the University of the ...
as U.S. Circuit Court judge.
Final four Reconstruction states admitted
Immediately upon inauguration in 1869, Grant bolstered Reconstruction by prodding Congress to readmit Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, and Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
into the Union, while ensuring their state constitutions protected every citizen's voting rights.[Simon (1967), ''Papers of Ulysses S. Grant'', Vol. 19, p. xiii.]
Grant advocated the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment that said states could not disenfranchise African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
. Within a year, the three remaining states—Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas—adopted the new amendment—and were admitted to Congress. Grant put military pressure on Georgia to reinstate its black legislators and adopt the new amendment. Georgia complied, and on February 24, 1871, its senators were seated in Congress, with all the former Confederate states represented. Southern Reconstructed states were controlled by Republicans and former slaves. By 1877 the Democratic Party had full control of the region and Reconstruction was dead.
Department of Justice created
In 1870, to enforce Reconstruction, Congress and Grant created the Justice Department
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
that allowed the Attorney General Amos Akerman and the first Solicitor General Benjamin Bristow
Benjamin Helm Bristow (June 20, 1832 – June 22, 1896) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 30th U.S. Treasury Secretary and the first Solicitor General.
A Union military officer, Bristow was a Republican Party reformer an ...
to prosecute the Klan. In Grant's two terms he strengthened Washington's legal capabilities to directly intervene to protect citizenship rights even if the states ignored the problem.
Enforcement Acts (1870–1871)
Congress and Grant passed a series (three) of powerful civil rights Enforcement Acts
The Enforcement Acts were three bills that were passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes that protected African Americans’ right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protect ...
between 1870 and 1871, designed to protect blacks and Reconstruction governments. These were criminal codes that protected the freedmen's right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. Most important, they authorized the federal government to intervene when states did not act. Urged by Grant and his Attorney General Amos T. Akerman
Amos Tappan Akerman (February 23, 1821 – December 21, 1880) was an American politician who served as United States Attorney General under President Ulysses S. Grant from 1870 to 1871. A native of New Hampshire, Akerman graduated from Dartmouth ...
, the strongest of these laws was the Ku Klux Klan Act
The Enforcement Act of 1871 (), also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend t ...
, passed on April 20, 1871, that authorized the president to impose martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
and suspend the writ of ''habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
''.
Grant was so adamant about the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, he earlier had sent a message to Congress, on March 23, 1871, in which he said:
Grant also recommended the enforcement of laws in all parts of the United States to protect life, liberty, and property.
Prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan
Grant's Justice Department destroyed the Ku Klux Klan, but during both of his terms, Blacks lost their political strength in the Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. By October, Grant suspended ''habeas corpus'' in part of South Carolina and he also sent federal troops to help marshals, who initiated prosecutions of Klan members. Grant's Attorney General, Amos T. Akerman
Amos Tappan Akerman (February 23, 1821 – December 21, 1880) was an American politician who served as United States Attorney General under President Ulysses S. Grant from 1870 to 1871. A native of New Hampshire, Akerman graduated from Dartmouth ...
, who replaced Hoar, was zealous in his attempt to destroy the Klan. Akerman and South Carolina's U.S. marshal arrested over 470 Klan members, but hundreds of Klansmen, including the Klan's wealthy leaders, fled the state. Akerman returned over 3,000 indictments of the Klan throughout the South and obtained 600 convictions for the worst offenders. By 1872, Grant had crushed the Klan, and African Americans peacefully voted in record numbers in elections in the South. Attorney General George H. Williams, Akerman's replacement, suspended his prosecutions of the Klan in North Carolina and South Carolina in the Spring of 1873, but prior to the election of 1874, he changed course and prosecuted the Klan. Civil rights prosecutions continued but with fewer yearly cases and convictions.
Amnesty Act of 1872
In addition to fighting for African American civil rights, Grant wanted to reconcile with white southerners, out of a spirit of Appomattox. To placate the South, in May 1872, Grant signed the Amnesty Act
The Amnesty Act of 1872 is a United States federal law passed on May 22, 1872, which removed most of the penalties imposed on former Confederates by the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted on July 9, 1868. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohi ...
, which restored political rights to former Confederates, except for a few hundred former Confederate officers. Grant wanted people to vote and practice free speech despite their "views, color or nativity."
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the ...
was one of the last major acts of Congress and Grant to preserve Reconstruction and equality for African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s. The initial bill was created by Senator Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of th ...
. Grant endorsed the measure, despite his previous feud with Sumner, signing it into law on March 1, 1875. The law, ahead of its times, outlawed discrimination for blacks in public accommodations
In United States law, public accommodations are generally defined as facilities, whether publicly or privately owned, that are used by the public at large. Examples include retail stores, rental establishments, and service establishments as well ...
, schools, transportation, and selecting juries. Although weakly enforceable, the law spread fear among whites opposed to interracial justice and was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883. The later enforceable Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
borrowed many of the earlier 1875's law's provisions.
Countered election fraud
To counter vote fraud in the Democratic stronghold of New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Grant sent in tens of thousands of armed, uniformed federal marshals and other election officials to regulate the 1870 and subsequent elections. Democrats across the North then mobilized to defend their base and attacked Grant's entire set of policies. On October 21, 1876, President Grant deployed troops to protect Black and White Republican voters in Petersburg, Virginia.
National support of Reconstruction declines
Grant's support from Congress and the nation declined due to scandals within his administration and the political resurgence of the Democrats in the North and South. Anti-Reconstruction whites claimed that wealthy white landowners had lost power, and they blamed governmental scandals in the South on it. Meanwhile, white northern Republicans were becoming more conservative. Republicans and Black Americans lost power in the South. By 1870, most Republicans felt the war goals had been achieved, and they turned their attention to other issues such as economic policies. White Americans were in almost full control again by the start of the 1900s and did not enforce Black voting rights. The United States government eventually pulled all its troops from the Southern states.
African American officeholders
Republicans took control of all Southern state governorships and state legislatures, except for Virginia.[Georgia had a Republican governor and legislature, but the Republican hegemony was tenuous at best, and Democrats continued to win presidential elections there. Se]
1834 March 28 article in ''This Day in Georgia History''
compiled by Ed Jackson and Charles Pou; ''cf.'' Rufus Bullock
Rufus Brown Bullock (March 28, 1834 – April 27, 1907) was a Republican Party politician and businessman in Georgia. During the Reconstruction Era he served as the state's governor and called for equal economic opportunity and political rights f ...
. The Republican coalition elected numerous African Americans to local, state, and national offices; though they did not dominate any electoral offices, Black men as representatives voting in state and federal legislatures marked a drastic social change. At the beginning of 1867, no African American in the South held political office, but within three or four years "about 15 percent of the officeholders in the South were Black—a larger proportion than in 1990". Most of those offices were at the local level. In 1860, Blacks constituted the majority of the population in Mississippi and South Carolina, 47% in Louisiana, 45% in Alabama, and 44% in Georgia and Florida, so their political influence was still far less than their percentage of the population.
About 137 Black officeholders had lived outside the South before the Civil War. Some who had escaped from slavery to the North and had become educated returned to help the South advance in the postbellum era. Others were free people of color
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
before the war, who had achieved education and positions of leadership elsewhere. Other African American men elected to office were already leaders in their communities, including a number of preachers. As happened in White communities, not all leadership depended upon wealth and literacy.
There were few African Americans elected or appointed to national office. African Americans voted for both White and Black candidates. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ...
guaranteed only that voting could not be restricted on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. From 1868 on, campaigns and elections were surrounded by violence as White insurgents and paramilitaries tried to suppress the Black vote, and fraud was rampant. Many white southerners who had been proslavery were angry with governments that had African Americans in office. Furious white Southerners told the rumor that Reconstruction was secretly promoting Black Americans full control over whites. Many congressional elections in the South were contested. Even states with majority-African-American populations often elected only one or two African American representatives to Congress. Exceptions included South Carolina; at the end of Reconstruction, four of its five congressmen were African Americans.
Social and economic factors
Religion
Freedmen were very active in forming their own churches, mostly Baptist or Methodist, and giving their ministers both moral and political leadership roles. In a process of self-segregation, practically all Blacks left White churches so that few racially integrated congregations remained (apart from some Catholic churches in Louisiana). They started many new Black Baptist churches and soon, new Black state associations.
Four main groups competed with each other across the South to form new Methodist churches composed of freedmen. They were the African Methodist Episcopal Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Black church, predominantly African American Methodist Religious denomination, denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, c ...
; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
, both independent Black denominations founded in Philadelphia and New York, respectively; the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination within the broader context of Wesleyan Methodism founded and organized by John Wesley in England in 1744 and established in America as the Methodist Episcopal ...
(which was sponsored by the White Methodist Episcopal Church, South
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC, S; also Methodist Episcopal Church South) was the American Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement ...
) and the well-funded Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...
(predominantly White Methodists of the North). The Methodist Church
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
had split before the war due to disagreements about slavery. By 1871, the Northern Methodists had 88,000 Black members in the South, and had opened numerous schools for them.
Blacks in the South made up a core element of the Republican Party. Their ministers had powerful political roles that were distinctive since they did not depend on White support, in contrast to teachers, politicians, businessmen, and tenant farmers. Acting on the principle as stated by Charles H. Pearce, an AME minister in Florida: "A man in this state cannot do his whole duty as a minister except he looks out for the political interests of his people." More than 100 Black ministers were elected to state legislatures during Reconstruction, as well as several to Congress and one, Hiram Rhodes Revels
Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1827Different sources list his birth year as either 1827 or 1822. – January 16, 1901) was an American Republican Party (United States), Republican politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Chur ...
, to the U.S. Senate.
In a highly controversial action during the war, the Northern Methodists used the Army to seize control of Methodist churches in large cities, over the vehement protests of the Southern Methodists
Southern may refer to:
Businesses
* China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China
* Southern Airways, defunct US airline
* Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US
* Southern Airways Express, M ...
. Historian Ralph Morrow reports:
Across the North, several denominations—especially the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, as well as the Quakers—strongly supported Radical policies. The focus on social problems paved the way for the Social Gospel
The Social Gospel is a social movement within Protestantism that aims to apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean envir ...
movement. Matthew Simpson
Matthew Simpson (21 June 1811 – 18 June 1884) was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1852 and based mostly in Philadelphia. During the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, most evangelical denominations in ...
, a Methodist bishop, played a leading role in mobilizing the Northern Methodists for the cause. Biographer Robert D. Clark called him the "High Priest of the Radical Republicans". The Methodist Ministers Association of Boston, meeting two weeks after Lincoln's assassination, called for a hard line against the Confederate leadership:
The denominations all sent missionaries, teachers and activists to the South to help the freedmen. Only the Methodists made many converts, however. Activists sponsored by the Northern Methodist Church played a major role in the Freedmen's Bureau, notably in such key educational roles as the bureau's state superintendent or assistant superintendent of education for Virginia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina.
Many Americans interpreted great events in religious terms. Historian Wilson Fallin Jr. contrasts the interpretation of the Civil War and Reconstruction in White versus Black Baptist sermons in Alabama. White Baptists expressed the view that:
In sharp contrast, Black Baptists interpreted the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction as:
Public schools
Historian James D. Anderson argues that the freed slaves were the first Southerners "to campaign for universal, state-supported public education". Blacks in the Republican coalition played a critical role in establishing the principle in state constitutions for the first time during congressional Reconstruction. Some slaves had learned to read from White playmates or colleagues before formal education was allowed by law; African Americans started "native schools" before the end of the war; Sabbath schools were another widespread means that freedmen developed to teach literacy. When they gained suffrage, Black politicians took this commitment to public education to state constitutional conventions.
The Republicans created a system of public schools, which were segregated by race everywhere except New Orleans. Generally, elementary and a few secondary schools were built in most cities, and occasionally in the countryside, but the South had few cities.
The rural areas faced many difficulties opening and maintaining public schools. In the country, the public school was often a one-room affair that attracted about half the younger children. The teachers were poorly paid, and their pay was often in arrears. Conservatives contended the rural schools were too expensive and unnecessary for a region where the vast majority of people were cotton or tobacco farmers. They had no expectation of better education for their residents. One historian found that the schools were less effective than they might have been because "poverty, the inability of the states to collect taxes, and inefficiency and corruption in many places prevented successful operation of the schools". After Reconstruction ended and White elected officials disenfranchised Blacks and imposed Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
laws, they consistently underfunded Black institutions, including the schools.
After the war, Northern missionaries founded numerous private academies and colleges for freedmen across the South. In addition, every state founded state colleges for freedmen, such as Alcorn State University
Alcorn State University (Alcorn State, ASU or Alcorn) is a public historically black land-grant university adjacent to Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 and was the first black land grant college established in the United States.
O ...
in Mississippi. The normal schools and state colleges produced generations of teachers who were integral to the education of African American children under the segregated system. By the end of the century, the majority of African Americans were literate.
In the late 19th century, the federal government established land grant legislation to provide funding for higher education across the United States. Learning that Blacks were excluded from land grant colleges in the South, in 1890 the federal government insisted that Southern states establish Black state institutions as land grant colleges
A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.
Signed by Abraha ...
to provide for Black higher education, in order to continue to receive funds for their already established White schools. Some states classified their Black state colleges as land grant institutions. Former Congressman John Roy Lynch
John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 – November 2, 1939) was an American writer, attorney, military officer, author, and Republican politician who served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and represented Mississippi in th ...
wrote: "there are very many liberal, fair-minded and influential Democrats in the state ississippiwho are strongly in favor of having the state provide for the liberal education of both races".
According to a 2020 study by economist Trevon Logan
Trevon D'Marcus Logan is an American economist. He is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University, where he was awarded th ...
, increases in Black politicians led to greater tax revenue, which was put towards public education spending (and land tenancy reforms). Logan finds that this led to greater literacy among Black men.
Railroad subsidies and payoffs
Every Southern state subsidized railroads, which modernizers believed could haul the South out of isolation and poverty. Millions of dollars in bonds and subsidies were fraudulently pocketed. One ring in North Carolina spent $200,000 in bribing the legislature and obtained millions of state dollars for its railroads. Instead of building new track, however, it used the funds to speculate in bonds, reward friends with extravagant fees, and enjoy lavish trips to Europe. Taxes were quadrupled across the South to pay off the railroad bonds and the school costs.
There were complaints among taxpayers because taxes had historically been low, as the planter elite was not committed to public infrastructure or public education. Taxes historically had been much lower in the South than in the North, reflecting the lack of government investment by the communities. Nevertheless, thousands of miles of lines were built as the Southern system expanded from in 1870 to in 1890. The lines were owned and directed overwhelmingly by Northerners. Railroads helped create a mechanically skilled group of craftsmen and broke the isolation of much of the region. Passengers were few, however, and apart from hauling the cotton crop when it was harvested, there was little freight traffic. As Franklin explains: "numerous railroads fed at the public trough by bribing legislators ... and through the use and misuse of state funds". According to one businessman, the effect "was to drive capital from the state, paralyze industry, and demoralize labor".
Taxation during Reconstruction
Reconstruction changed the means of taxation in the South. In the U.S. from the earliest days until today, a major source of state revenue was the property tax
A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheri ...
. In the South, wealthy landowners were allowed to self-assess the value of their own land. These fraudulent assessments were almost valueless, and pre-war property tax collections were lacking due to property value misrepresentation. State revenues came from fees and from sales taxes on slave auctions. Some states assessed property owners by a combination of land value
Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of developing an opinion of value for real property (usually market value). Real estate transactions often require appraisals because they occur infrequently and every prop ...
and a capitation tax, a tax on each worker employed. This tax was often assessed in a way to discourage a free labor market, where a slave was assessed at 75 cents, while a free White was assessed at a dollar or more, and a free African American at $3 or more. Some revenue also came from poll taxes
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...
. These taxes were more than poor people could pay, with the designed and inevitable consequence that they did not vote.
During Reconstruction, the state legislature mobilized to provide for public need more than had previous governments: establishing public schools and investing in infrastructure, as well as charitable institutions such as hospitals and asylums. They set out to increase taxes which were unusually low. The planters had provided privately for their own needs. There was some fraudulent spending in the postbellum years; a collapse in state credit because of huge deficits, forced the states to increase property tax rates. In places, the rate went up to 10 times higher—despite the poverty of the region. The planters had not invested in infrastructure and much had been destroyed during the war. In part, the new tax system was designed to force owners of large plantations with huge tracts of uncultivated land either to sell or to have it confiscated for failure to pay taxes. The taxes would serve as a market-based system for redistributing the land to the landless freedmen and White poor. Mississippi, for instance, was mostly frontier, with 90% of the bottom lands in the interior undeveloped.
The following table shows property tax rates for South Carolina and Mississippi. Note that many local town and county assessments effectively doubled the tax rates reported in the table. These taxes were still levied upon the landowners' own sworn testimony as to the value of their land, which remained the dubious and exploitable system used by wealthy landholders in the South well into the 20th century.
Called upon to pay taxes on their property, essentially for the first time, angry plantation owners revolted. The conservatives shifted their focus away from race to taxes. Former Congressman John R. Lynch
John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 – November 2, 1939) was an American writer, attorney, military officer, author, and Republican politician who served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and represented Mississippi in th ...
, a Black Republican leader from Mississippi, later wrote:
National financial issues
The Civil War had been financed primarily by issuing short-term and long-term bonds and loans, plus inflation caused by printing paper money, plus new taxes. Wholesale prices had more than doubled, and reduction of inflation was a priority for Secretary McCulloch. A high priority, and by far the most controversial, was the currency question. The old paper currency issued by state banks had been withdrawn, and Confederate currency was worthless. The national banks had issued $207 million in currency, which was backed by gold and silver. The federal treasury had issued $428 million in greenbacks, which was legal tender but not backed by gold or silver. In addition about $275 million of coin was in circulation. The new administration policy announced in October would be to make all the paper convertible into specie, if Congress so voted. The House of Representatives passed the Alley Resolution on December 18, 1865, by a vote of 144 to 6. In the Senate it was a different matter, for the key player was Senator John Sherman
John Sherman (May 10, 1823October 22, 1900) was an American politician from Ohio throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as ...
, who said that inflation contraction was not nearly as important as refunding the short-term and long-term national debt. The war had been largely financed by national debt, in addition to taxation and inflation. The national debt stood at $2.8 billion. By October 1865, most of it in short-term and temporary loans. Wall Street bankers typified by Jay Cooke
Jay Cooke (August 10, 1821 – February 16, 1905) was an American financier who helped finance the Union war effort during the American Civil War and the postwar development of railroads in the northwestern United States. He is generally acknowle ...
believe that the economy was about to grow rapidly, thanks to the development of agriculture through the Homestead Act
The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of th ...
, the expansion of railroads, especially rebuilding the devastated Southern railroads and opening the transcontinental railroad line to the West Coast, and especially the flourishing of manufacturing during the war. The gold premium over greenbacks was $145 in greenbacks to $100 in gold, and the optimists thought that the heavy demand for currency in an era of prosperity would return the ratio to 100. A compromise was reached in April 1866, that limited the treasury to a currency contraction of only $10 million over six months. Meanwhile, the Senate refunded the entire national debt, but the House failed to act. By early 1867, postbellum prosperity was a reality, and the optimists wanted an end to contraction, which Congress ordered in January 1868. Meanwhile, the Treasury issued new bonds at a lower interest rate to refinance the redemption of short-term debt. While the old state bank notes were disappearing from circulation, new national bank notes, backed by species, were expanding. By 1868 inflation was minimal.
Ending Reconstruction
Congressional investigation into Reconstruction states 1872
On April 20, 1871, prior to the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act (''Last of three Enforcement Acts''), on the same day, the U.S. Congress launched a 21-member investigation committee on the status of the Southern Reconstruction states North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Congressional members on the committee included Rep. Benjamin Butler
Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best ...
, Sen. Zachariah Chandler
Zachariah Chandler (December 10, 1813 – November 1, 1879) was an American businessman, politician, one of the founders of the Republican Party, whose radical wing he dominated as a lifelong abolitionist. He was mayor of Detroit, a four-term sen ...
, and Sen. Francis P. Blair
Francis Preston Blair Sr. (April 12, 1791 – October 18, 1876) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
Blair was an early member of the De ...
. Subcommittee members traveled into the South to interview the people living in their respective states. Those interviewed included top-ranking officials, such as Wade Hampton III
Wade Hampton III (March 28, 1818April 11, 1902) was an American military officer who served the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War and later a politician from South Carolina. He came from a wealthy planter family, and ...
, former South Carolina Gov. James L. Orr
James Lawrence Orr (May 12, 1822May 5, 1873) was an American diplomat and politician who served as the 22nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1857 to 1859. He also served as the 73rd governor of South Carolina from 1865 ...
, and Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealt ...
, a former Confederate general and prominent Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
leader (Forrest denied in his congressional testimony being a member). Other Southerners interviewed included farmers, doctors, merchants, teachers, and clergymen. The committee heard numerous reports of White violence against Blacks, while many Whites denied Klan membership or knowledge of violent activities. The majority report by Republicans concluded that the government would not tolerate any Southern "conspiracy" to resist violently the congressional Reconstruction. The committee completed its 13-volume report in February 1872. While President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
had been able to suppress the KKK through the Enforcement Acts, other paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
insurgents
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irreg ...
organized, including the White League
The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was a white paramilitary terrorist organization started in the Southern United States in 1874 to intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent Republican Party political organizing. Its f ...
in 1874, active in Louisiana; and the Red Shirts, with chapters active in Mississippi and the Carolinas. They used intimidation and outright attacks to run Republicans out of office and repress voting by Blacks, leading to White Democrats regaining power by the elections of the mid-to-late 1870s.
Southern Democrats
While Republican whites supported measures for black civil rights, other whites typically opposed these measures. Some supported armed attacks to suppress blacks. They self-consciously defended their own actions within the framework of a white American discourse of resistance against tyrannical
A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to rep ...
government, and they broadly succeeded in convincing many fellow White citizens, says Steedman.
The opponents of Reconstruction formed state political parties, affiliated with the national Democratic Party and often named the "Conservative Party." They supported or tolerated violent paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
groups, such as the White League in Louisiana and the Red Shirts in Mississippi and the Carolinas, that assassinated and intimidated both Black and White Republican leaders at election time. Historian George C. Rable called such groups the "military arm of the Democratic Party". By the mid-1870s, the "conservatives" and Democrats had aligned with the national Democratic Party, which enthusiastically supported their cause even as the national Republican Party was losing interest in Southern affairs.
Historian Walter Lynwood Fleming
Walter Lynwood Fleming (1874–1932) was an American historian of the South and Reconstruction. He was a leader of the Dunning School of scholars in the early 20th century, who addressed Reconstruction era history using historiographical techn ...
, associated with the early 20th-century Dunning School
The Dunning School was a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history (1865–1877), supporting conservative elements against the Radical Republicans who introduced civil rights in the South. It was na ...
, describes the mounting anger of Southern Whites:
Often, these White Southerners identified as the "Conservative Party" or the "Democratic and Conservative Party" in order to distinguish themselves from the national Democratic Party and to obtain support from former Whigs. These parties sent delegates to the 1868 Democratic National Convention
The 1868 Democratic National Convention was held at Tammany Hall in New York City between July 4, and July 9, 1868. The first Democratic convention after the conclusion of the American Civil War, the convention was notable for the return of Democr ...
and abandoned their separate names by 1873 or 1874.
Most White members of both the planter and business class and common farmer class of the South opposed Reconstruction, Black civil rights and military rule and sought white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
. Democrats nominated some Blacks for political office and tried to entice other Blacks from the Republican side. When these attempts to combine with the Blacks failed, the planters joined the common farmers in simply trying to displace the Republican governments. The planters and their business allies dominated the self-styled "conservative" coalition that finally took control in the South. They were paternalistic toward the Blacks but feared they would use power to raise taxes and slow business development.
Fleming described the first results of the insurgent movement as "good", and the later ones as "both good and bad". According to Fleming (1907), the KKK "quieted the Negroes, made life and property safer, gave protection to women, stopped burnings, forced the Radical leaders to be more moderate, made the Negroes work better, drove the worst of the Radical leaders from the country and started the whites on the way to gain political supremacy". The evil result, Fleming said, was that lawless elements "made use of the organization as a cloak to cover their misdeeds ... The lynching habits of today 907
__NOTOC__
Year 907 ( CMVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Rus'–Byzantine War: Varangian prince Oleg of Novgorod leads the ...
are largely due to conditions, social and legal, growing out of Reconstruction." Historians have noted that the peak of lynchings
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
took place near the turn of the century, decades after Reconstruction ended, as Whites were imposing Jim Crow laws and passing new state constitutions that disenfranchised the Blacks. The lynchings were used for intimidation and social control, with a frequency associated more with economic stresses and the settlement of sharecropper accounts at the end of the season, than for any other reason.
Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer
Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer (born Cambria Station, Chester County, Pennsylvania, October 5, 1868; died December 8, 1936, Philadelphia, age 68) was an American biographer and historical writer.
Biography
He was the son of John Oberholtzer, a former s ...
(a Northern scholar) in 1917 explained:
As Reconstruction continued, Whites accompanied elections with increased violence in an attempt to run Republicans out of office and suppress Black voting. The victims of this violence were overwhelmingly African American, as in the Colfax Massacre of 1873. After federal suppression of the Klan in the early 1870s, White insurgent groups tried to avoid open conflict with federal forces. In 1874 in the Battle of Liberty Place
The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection and coup d'etat by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans ...
, the White League entered New Orleans with 5,000 members and defeated the police and militia, to occupy federal offices for three days in an attempt to overturn the disputed government of William Pitt Kellogg
William Pitt Kellogg (December 8, 1830 – August 10, 1918) was an American lawyer and Republican Party (United States), Republican Party politician who served as a United States Senate, United States Senator from 1868 to 1872 and from 1877 to 18 ...
, but retreated before federal troops reached the city. None was prosecuted. Their election-time tactics included violent intimidation of African American and Republican voters prior to elections, while avoiding conflict with the U.S. Army or the state militias, and then withdrawing completely on election day. White supremacist violence continued in both the North and South; the White Liners movement to elect candidates dedicated to white supremacy reached as far as Ohio in 1875.
Redemption 1873–1877
The Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats
Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States in the later 19th century (1872–1904) to refer to members of the Democratic Party who were ideologically aligned with fiscal conservatism or classical liberalism, especially those who suppo ...
, the classically liberal, pro-business faction of the Democratic Party. They were a coalition which sought to regain political power, reestablish white supremacy, and oust the Radical Republicans from influence. Led by rich former planters, businessmen, and professionals, they dominated Southern politics in most areas from the 1870s to 1910.
Republicans split nationally: election of 1872
As early as 1868, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase
Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as the sixth chief justice of the United States. He also served as the 23rd governor of Ohio, represented Ohio in the United States Senate, a ...
, a leading Radical during the war, concluded that:
By 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant had alienated large numbers of leading Republicans, including many Radicals, by the corruption of his administration and his use of federal soldiers to prop up Radical state regimes in the South. The opponents, called " Liberal Republicans", included founders of the party who expressed dismay that the party had succumbed to corruption. They were further wearied by the continued insurgent violence of Whites against Blacks in the South, especially around every election cycle, which demonstrated that the war was not over and changes were fragile. Leaders included editors of some of the nation's most powerful newspapers. Charles Sumner, embittered by the corruption of the Grant administration, joined the new party, which nominated editor Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811 – November 29, 1872) was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and newspaper editor, editor of the ''New-York Tribune''. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressm ...
. The loosely-organized Democratic Party also supported Greeley.
Grant made up for the defections by new gains among Union veterans and by strong support from the " Stalwart" faction of his party (which depended on his patronage), and the Southern Republican Party. Grant won with 55.6% of the vote to Greeley's 43.8%. The Liberal Republican Party vanished and many former supporters—even former abolitionists—abandoned the cause of Reconstruction.
The Republican coalition splinters in the South
In the South, political and racial tensions built up inside the Republican Party as they were attacked by the Democrats. In 1868, Georgia Democrats, with support from some Republicans, expelled all 28 Black Republican members from the state house, arguing Blacks were eligible to vote but not to hold office. In most states, the more Whiggish Republicans fought for control with the more Radical Republicans and their Black allies. Most of the 430 Republican newspapers in the South were edited by native Southerners—only 20 percent were edited by northerners. White businessmen generally boycotted Republican papers, which survived through government patronage. Nevertheless, in the increasingly bitter battles inside the Republican Party, those who supported Reconstruction usually lost; many of the disgruntled losers switched over to the Whig-leaning or Democratic side. In Mississippi, the Whiggish faction led by James Lusk Alcorn
James Lusk Alcorn (November 4, 1816December 19, 1894) was a governor, and U.S. senator during the Reconstruction era in Mississippi. A Moderate Republican and Whiggish scalawag, Sansing, David G. (July 10, 2017)James Lusk Alcorn ''Mississippi E ...
was decisively defeated by the Radical faction led by Adelbert Ames
Adelbert Ames (October 31, 1835 – April 13, 1933) was an American sailor, soldier, and politician who served with distinction as a Union Army general during the American Civil War. A Radical Republican, he was military governor, U.S. Senato ...
. The party lost support steadily as many supporters of Reconstruction left it; few recruits were acquired. The most bitter contest took place inside the Republican Party in Arkansas, where the two sides armed their forces and confronted each other in the streets; no actual combat took place in the Brooks–Baxter War
The Brooks–Baxter War, also known as the Brooks–Baxter Affair, was an attempt made by failed gubernatorial candidate Joseph Brooks (politician), Joseph Brooks of the “Brindle-tail” faction of Arkansas' Republican Party of Arkansas, Rep ...
. The faction led by Elisha Baxter
Elisha Baxter (September 1, 1827May 31, 1899) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 10th governor of Arkansas from 1873 to 1874.
Early life and career
Baxter was born in Forest City, North Carolina. He sought and obtained a ...
finally prevailed when the White House intervened, but both sides were badly weakened, and the Democrats soon came to power.
Meanwhile, in state after state the freedmen were demanding a bigger share of the offices and patronage, squeezing out white allies but never commanding the numbers equivalent to their population proportion. By the mid-1870s: "The hard realities of Southern political life had taught the lesson that black constituents needed to be represented by black officials." The financial depression increased the pressure on Reconstruction governments, dissolving progress.
Finally, some of the more prosperous freedmen were joining the Democrats, as they were angered at the failure of the Republicans to help them acquire land. The South was "sparsely settled"; only 10 percent of Louisiana was cultivated, and 90 percent of Mississippi bottom land was undeveloped in areas away from the river fronts, but freedmen often did not have the stake to get started. They hoped that the government would help them acquire land which they could work. Only South Carolina created any land redistribution, establishing a land commission and resettling about 14,000 freedmen families and some poor Whites on land purchased by the state.
Although historians such as W. E. B. Du Bois celebrated a cross-racial coalition of poor Whites and Blacks, such coalitions rarely formed in these years. Writing in 1915, former Congressman Lynch, recalling his experience as a Black leader in Mississippi, explained that:
Lynch reported that poor Whites resented the job competition from freedmen. Furthermore, the poor Whites:
Democrats try a "New Departure"
By 1870, the Democratic leadership across the South decided it had to end its opposition to Reconstruction and Black suffrage to survive and move on to new issues. The Grant administration had proven by its crackdown on the Ku Klux Klan that it would use as much federal power as necessary to suppress open anti-Black violence. Democrats in the North concurred with these Southern Democrats. They wanted to fight the Republican Party on economic grounds rather than race. The New Departure offered the chance for a clean slate without having to re-fight the Civil War every election. Furthermore, many wealthy Southern landowners thought they could control part of the newly enfranchised Black electorate to their own advantage.
Not all Democrats agreed; an insurgent element continued to resist Reconstruction no matter what. Eventually, a group called "Redeemers" took control of the party in the Southern states. They formed coalitions with conservative Republicans, including supporters of Reconstruction, emphasizing the need for economic modernization. Railroad building was seen as a panacea since Northern capital was needed. The new tactics were a success in Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
where William Mahone
William Mahone (December 1, 1826October 8, 1895) was an American civil engineer, railroad executive, Confederate States Army general, and Virginia politician.
As a young man, Mahone was prominent in the building of Virginia's roads and railroa ...
built a winning coalition. In Tennessee, the Redeemers formed a coalition with Republican Governor Dewitt Clinton Senter
Dewitt Clinton Senter (March 26, 1830June 14, 1898) was an American politician who served as the 18th Governor of Tennessee from 1869 to 1871. He had previously served in the Tennessee House of Representatives (1855–1861), where he opposed ...
. Across the South, some Democrats switched from the race issue to taxes and corruption, charging that Republican governments were corrupt and inefficient. With a continuing decrease in cotton prices, taxes squeezed cash-poor farmers who rarely saw $20 in currency a year, but had to pay taxes in currency or lose their farms. But major planters, who had never paid taxes before, often recovered their property even after confiscation.
In North Carolina, Republican Governor William Woods Holden
William Woods Holden (November 24, 1818 – March 1, 1892) was an American politician who served as the List of Governors of North Carolina, 38th and 40th governor of North Carolina. He was appointed by President of the United States, President ...
used state troops against the Klan, but the prisoners were released by federal judges. Holden became the first governor in American history to be impeached and removed from office. Republican political disputes in Georgia split the party and enabled the Redeemers to take over.
In the North, a live-and-let-live attitude made elections more like a sporting contest. But in the Deep South, many White citizens had not reconciled with the defeat of the war or the granting of citizenship to freedmen. As an Alabaman supporter of Reconstruction explained: "Our contest here is for life, for the right to earn our bread, ... for a decent and respectful consideration as human beings and members of society."
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 (a depression) hit the Southern economy hard and disillusioned many Republicans who had gambled that railroads would pull the South out of its poverty. The price of cotton fell by half; many small landowners, local merchants, and cotton factors (wholesalers) went bankrupt. Sharecropping for Black and White farmers became more common as a way to spread the risk of owning land. The old abolitionist element in the North was aging away, or had lost interest, and was not replenished. Many northern whites returned to the North or joined the Redeemers. Blacks had an increased voice in the Republican Party, but across the South it was divided by internal bickering and was rapidly losing its cohesion. Many local Black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with White elites, rather than racial political progress in opposition to them, a conservative attitude that foreshadowed Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
.
Nationally, President Grant was blamed for the depression; the Republican Party lost 96 seats in all parts of the country in the 1874 elections. The Bourbon Democrats took control of the House and were confident of electing Samuel J. Tilden
Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886) was an American politician who served as the 25th Governor of New York and was the Democratic candidate for president in the disputed 1876 United States presidential election. Tilden was ...
president in 1876. President Grant was not running for re-election and seemed to be losing interest in the South. States fell to the Redeemers, with only four in Republican hands in 1873: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Arkansas then fell after the violent Brooks–Baxter War in 1874 ripped apart the Republican Party there.
Violence
In the lower South, violence increased as new insurgent groups arose, including the Red Shirts in Mississippi and the Carolinas, and the White League in Louisiana. The disputed election in Louisiana in 1872 found both Republican and Democratic candidates holding inaugural balls while returns were reviewed. Both certified their own slates for local parish offices in many places, causing local tensions to rise. Finally, federal support helped certify the Republican as governor.
Slates for local offices were certified by each candidate. In rural Grant Parish
Grant Parish (french: Paroisse de Grant) is a parish located in the North Central portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,309. The parish seat is Colfax. The parish was founded in 1869 durin ...
in the Red River Valley
The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North; it is part of both Canada and the United States. Forming the border between Minnesota and North Dakota when these territories were admitted ...
, freedmen fearing a Democratic attempt to take over the parish government reinforced defenses at the small Colfax courthouse in late March. White militias gathered from the area a few miles outside the settlement. Rumors and fears abounded on both sides. William Ward, an African American Union veteran and militia captain, mustered his company in Colfax and went to the courthouse. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, the Whites attacked the defenders at the courthouse. There was confusion about who shot one of the White leaders after an offer by the defenders to surrender. It was a catalyst to mayhem. In the end, three Whites died and 120–150 Blacks were killed, some 50 that evening while being held as prisoners. The disproportionate numbers of Black to White fatalities and documentation of brutalized bodies are why contemporary historians call it the Colfax Massacre rather than the Colfax Riot, as it was known locally.
This marked the beginning of heightened insurgency and attacks on Republican officeholders and freedmen in Louisiana and other Deep South states. In Louisiana, Judge T. S. Crawford and District Attorney P. H. Harris of the 12th Judicial District were shot off their horses and killed by ambush October 8, 1873, while going to court. One widow wrote to the Department of Justice that her husband was killed because he was a Union man, telling "the efforts made to screen those who committed a crime".
Political violence was endemic in Louisiana. In 1874, the White militias coalesced into paramilitary organizations
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
such as the White League
The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was a white paramilitary terrorist organization started in the Southern United States in 1874 to intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent Republican Party political organizing. Its f ...
, first in parishes of the Red River Valley. The new organization operated openly and had political goals: the violent overthrow of Republican rule and suppression of Black voting. White League chapters soon rose in many rural parishes, receiving financing for advanced weaponry from wealthy men. In the Coushatta Massacre in 1874, the White League assassinated six White Republican officeholders and five to 20 Black witnesses outside Coushatta
The Coushatta ( cku, Koasati, Kowassaati or Kowassa:ti) are a Muskogean-speaking Native American people now living primarily in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territor ...
, Red River Parish
Red River Parish ( French: ''Paroisse de la Rivière-Rouge'') is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 9,091, making it the fourth-least populous parish in Louisiana. Its seat is Coushatta. ...
. Four of the White men were related to the Republican representative of the parish, who was married to a local woman; three were native to the region.
Later in 1874 the White League mounted a serious attempt to unseat the Republican governor of Louisiana, in a dispute that had simmered since the 1872 election. It brought 5,000 troops to New Orleans to engage and overwhelm forces of the metropolitan police and state militia to turn Republican Governor William P. Kellogg
William Pitt Kellogg (December 8, 1830 – August 10, 1918) was an American lawyer and Republican Party politician who served as a United States Senator from 1868 to 1872 and from 1877 to 1883 and as the Governor of Louisiana from 1873 to 1877 du ...
out of office and seat John McEnery
John McEnery (1 November 1943 – 12 April 2019) was an English actor and writer.
Born in Birmingham, he trained (1962–1964) at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, playing, among others, Mosca in Ben Jonson's ''Volpone'' and Gaveston ...
. The White League took over and held the state house and city hall, but they retreated before the arrival of reinforcing federal troops. Kellogg had asked for reinforcements before, and Grant finally responded, sending additional troops to try to quell violence throughout plantation areas of the Red River Valley, although 2,000 troops were already in the state.
Similarly, the Red Shirts, another paramilitary group, arose in 1875 in Mississippi and the Carolinas. Like the White League and White Liner rifle clubs, to which 20,000 men belonged in North Carolina alone, these groups operated as a "military arm of the Democratic Party", to restore White supremacy.
Democrats and many Northern Republicans agreed that Confederate nationalism and slavery were dead—the war goals were achieved—and further federal military interference was an undemocratic violation of historical Republican values. The victory of Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor ...
in the hotly contested Ohio gubernatorial election of 1875 indicated his "let alone" policy toward the South would become Republican policy, as happened when he won the 1876 Republican nomination for president.
An explosion of violence accompanied the campaign for Mississippi's 1875 election, in which Red Shirts and Democratic rifle clubs, operating in the open, threatened or shot enough Republicans to decide the election for the Democrats. Hundreds of Black men were killed. Republican Governor Adelbert Ames
Adelbert Ames (October 31, 1835 – April 13, 1933) was an American sailor, soldier, and politician who served with distinction as a Union Army general during the American Civil War. A Radical Republican, he was military governor, U.S. Senato ...
asked Grant for federal troops to fight back; Grant initially refused, saying public opinion was "tired out" of the perpetual troubles in the South. Ames fled the state as the Democrats took over Mississippi.
The campaigns and elections of 1876 were marked by additional murders and attacks on Republicans in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. In South Carolina the campaign season of 1876 was marked by murderous outbreaks and fraud against freedmen. Red Shirts paraded with arms behind Democratic candidates; they killed Blacks in the Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
and Ellenton, South Carolina massacres. One historian estimated 150 Blacks were killed in the weeks before the 1876 election across South Carolina. Red Shirts prevented almost all Black voting in two majority-Black counties. The Red Shirts were also active in North Carolina.
A 2019 study found that counties that were occupied by the U.S. Army to enforce enfranchisement of emancipated slaves were more likely to elect Black politicians. The study also found that "political murders by White-supremacist groups occurred less frequently" in these counties than in Southern counties that were not occupied.
Election of 1876
Reconstruction continued in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida until 1877. The elections of 1876 were accompanied by heightened violence across the Deep South. A combination of ballot stuffing
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
and intimidating Blacks suppressed their vote even in majority Black counties. The White League was active in Louisiana. After Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the disputed 1876 presidential election
The 1876 United States presidential election was the 23rd quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1876, in which Republican Party (United States), Republican nominee Rutherford B. Haye ...
, the national Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877, also known as the Wormley Agreement or the Bargain of 1877, was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among members of the United States Congress, to settle the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election between Ruth ...
(a corrupt bargain) was reached.
The White Democrats in the South agreed to accept Hayes' victory if he withdrew the last federal troops. By this point, the North was weary of insurgency. White Democrats controlled most of the Southern legislatures and armed militias controlled small towns and rural areas. Blacks considered Reconstruction a failure because the federal government withdrew from enforcing their ability to exercise their rights as citizens.
Hayes ends Reconstruction
On January 29, 1877, President Grant signed the Electoral Commission Act, which set up a 15-member commission of eight Republicans and seven Democrats to settle the disputed 1876 election. Since the Constitution did not explicitly indicate how Electoral College disputes were to be resolved, Congress was forced to consider other methods to settle the crisis. Many Democrats argued that Congress as a whole should determine which certificates to count. However, the chances that this method would result in a harmonious settlement were slim, as the Democrats controlled the House, while the Republicans controlled the Senate. Several Hayes supporters, on the other hand, argued that the President pro tempore of the Senate had the authority to determine which certificates to count, because he was responsible for chairing the congressional session at which the electoral votes were to be tallied. Since the office of president pro tempore was occupied by a Republican, Senator Thomas W. Ferry of Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, this method would have favored Hayes. Still others proposed that the matter should be settled by the Supreme Court. In a stormy session that began on March 1, 1877, the House debated the objection for about twelve hours before overruling it. Immediately, another spurious objection was raised, this time to the electoral votes from Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. Again, the Senate voted to overrule the objection, while a filibuster was conducted in the House. However, the Speaker of the House, Democrat Samuel J. Randall
Samuel Jackson Randall (October 10, 1828April 13, 1890) was an American politician from Pennsylvania who represented the Queen Village, Society Hill, and Northern Liberties neighborhoods of Philadelphia from 1863 to 1890 and served as the 29th ...
, refused to entertain dilatory motions. Eventually, the filibusterers gave up, allowing the House to reject the objection in the early hours of March 2. The House and Senate then reassembled to complete the count of the electoral votes. At 4:10 am on March 2, Senator Ferry announced that Hayes and Wheeler
Wheeler may refer to:
Places United States
* Wheeler, Alabama, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, California, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, Illinois, a village
* Wheeler, Indiana, a ...
had been elected to the presidency
A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...
and vice presidency, by an electoral margin of 185–184.
The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes' inauguration based on a "back room" deal. Key to this deal was the understanding that federal troops would no longer interfere in Southern politics despite substantial election-associated violence against Blacks. The Southern states indicated that they would protect the lives of African Americans; however, such promises were largely not kept. Hayes' friends also let it be known that he would promote federal aid for internal improvements
Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, canal ...
, including help with a railroad in Texas (which never happened) and name a Southerner to his cabinet (this did happen). With the end to the political role of Northern troops, the president had no method to enforce Reconstruction; thus, this "back room" deal signaled the end of American Reconstruction.
After assuming office on March 4, 1877, President Hayes removed troops from the capitals of the remaining Reconstruction states, Louisiana and South Carolina, allowing the Redeemers
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era of the United States, Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War, Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Democratic Par ...
to have full control of these states. President Grant had already removed troops from Florida, before Hayes was inaugurated, and troops from the other Reconstruction states had long since been withdrawn. Hayes appointed David M. Key from Tennessee, a Southern Democrat, to the position of postmaster general
A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official respons ...
. By 1879, thousands of African American "Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who Human migration, migrated from U.S. state, states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879. It was the first Hum ...
" packed up and headed to new opportunities in Kansas.
The Democrats gained control of the Senate, and had complete control of Congress, having taken over the House in 1875. Hayes vetoed bills from the Democrats that outlawed the Republican Enforcement Acts; however, with the military underfunded, Hayes could not adequately enforce these laws. African-Americans remained involved in Southern politics, particularly in Virginia, which was run by the biracial Readjuster Party
The Readjuster Party was a bi-racial state-level political party formed in Virginia across party lines in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following the Reconstruction era that sought to reduce outstanding debt owed by the state. Readj ...
.
Numerous African-Americans were elected to local office through the 1880s, and in the 1890s in some states, biracial coalitions of populists and Republicans briefly held control of state legislatures. In the last decade of the 19th century, Southern states elected five Black U.S. congressmen before disenfranchising state constitutions were passed throughout the former Confederacy.
Legacy and historiography
Besides the election of Southern black people to state governments and the United States Congress, other achievements of the Reconstruction era include "the South's first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises)." Despite these achievements the interpretation of Reconstruction has been a topic of controversy because nearly all historians hold that Reconstruction ended in failure, but for very different reasons.
The first generation of Northern historians believed that the former Confederates were traitors and Johnson was their ally who threatened to undo the Union's constitutional achievements. By the 1880s, however, Northern historians argued that Johnson and his allies were not traitors but had blundered badly in rejecting the Fourteenth Amendment and setting the stage for Radical Reconstruction.
The Black leader Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
, who grew up in West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
during Reconstruction, concluded later that: "the Reconstruction experiment in racial democracy failed because it began at the wrong end, emphasizing political means and civil rights acts rather than economic means and self-determination". His solution was to concentrate on building the economic infrastructure of the Black community, in part by his leadership and the Southern Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature.
The campus was de ...
.
Dunning School: 1900 to 1920s
The Dunning School
The Dunning School was a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history (1865–1877), supporting conservative elements against the Radical Republicans who introduced civil rights in the South. It was na ...
of scholars, who were trained at the history department of Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
under Professor William A. Dunning, analyzed Reconstruction as a failure after 1866 for different reasons. They claimed that Congress took freedoms and rights from qualified Whites and gave them to unqualified Blacks who were being duped by what they called "corrupt carpetbaggers and scalawags". As T. Harry Williams
Thomas Harry Williams (May 19, 1909 — July 8, 1979) was an American academic and author. For the majority of his academic career between the 1930s to 1970s, Williams taught history at Louisiana State University. While at LSU, Williams was a Boyd ...
(who was a sharp critic of the Dunning School) noted, the Dunning scholars portrayed the era in stark terms:
Revisionists and Beardians, 1930s–1940s
In the 1930s, historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or times ...
became popular among scholars. As disciples of Charles A. Beard, revisionists focused on economics, downplaying politics and constitutional issues. The central figure was a young scholar at the University of Wisconsin, Howard K. Beale
Howard Kennedy Beale (April 8, 1899 – December 27, 1959) was an American historian. He had several temporary appointments before becoming a professor of history at the University of North Carolina in 1935. His most famous student was C. Vann Wo ...
, who in his PhD dissertation, finished in 1924, developed a complex new interpretation of Reconstruction. The Dunning School portrayed freedmen as mere pawns in the hands of northern whites. Beale argued that the whites themselves were pawns in the hands of Northern industrialists, who had taken control of the nation during the Civil War and who Beale felt would be threatened by return to power of the Southern Whites. Beale further argued that the rhetoric of civil rights for Blacks, and the dream of equality, was rhetoric designed to fool idealistic voters, calling it "claptrap", arguing: "Constitutional discussions of the rights of the Negro, the status of Southern states, the legal position of ex-rebels, and the powers of Congress and the president determined nothing. They were pure sham." The Beard–Beale interpretation of Reconstruction became known as "revisionism", and replaced the Dunning School for most historians until the 1950s, after which it was largely discredited.
The Beardian interpretation of the causes of the Civil War downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. It ignored constitutional issues of states' rights and even ignored American nationalism as the force that finally led to victory in the war. Indeed, the ferocious combat itself was passed over as merely an ephemeral event. Much more important was the calculus of class conflict. As the Beards explained in ''The Rise of American Civilization'' (1927), the Civil War was really a:
The Beards were especially interested in the Reconstruction era, as the industrialists of the Northeast and the farmers of the West cashed in on their great victory over the Southern aristocracy. Historian Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century.
Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier historic ...
paraphrases the Beards as arguing that in victory:
Wisconsin historian William Hesseltine added the point that the Northeastern businessmen wanted to control the Southern economy directly, which they did through ownership of the railroads. The Beard–Beale interpretation of the monolithic Northern industrialists fell apart in the 1950s when it was closely examined by numerous historians, including Robert P. Sharkey, Irwin Unger, and Stanley Coben. The younger scholars conclusively demonstrated that there was no unified economic policy on the part of the dominant Republican Party. Some wanted high tariffs and some low. Some wanted greenbacks and others wanted gold. There was no conspiracy to use Reconstruction to impose any such unified economic policy on the nation. Northern businessmen were widely divergent on monetary or tariff policy, and seldom paid attention to Reconstruction issues. Furthermore, the rhetoric on behalf of the rights of the freedmen was not claptrap but deeply-held and very serious political philosophy.
Black historians
The Black scholar W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...
, in his ''Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880'', published in 1935, compared results across the states to show achievements by the Reconstruction legislatures and to refute claims about wholesale African American control of governments. He showed Black contributions, as in the establishment of universal public education, charitable and social institutions and universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
as important results, and he noted their collaboration with Whites. He also pointed out that Whites benefited most by the financial deals made, and he put excesses in the perspective of the war's aftermath. He noted that despite complaints, several states kept their Reconstruction era state constitutions into the early 20th century. Despite receiving favorable reviews, his work was largely ignored by White historians of his time.
Neo-abolitionists
In the 1960s, neo-abolitionist historians emerged, led by John Hope Franklin
John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Histo ...
, Kenneth Stampp
Kenneth Milton Stampp (12 July 191210 July 2009), Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley (1946–1983), was a celebrated historian of slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstr ...
, Leon Litwack
Leon Frank Litwack (December 2, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American historian whose scholarship focused on slavery, the Reconstruction Era of the United States, and its aftermath into the 20th century. He won a National Book Award, the Pulitz ...
, and Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
. Influenced by the civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, they rejected the Dunning School and found a great deal to praise in Radical Reconstruction. Foner, the primary advocate of this view, argued that it was never truly completed, and that a "Second Reconstruction" was needed in the late 20th century to complete the goal of full equality for African Americans. The neo-abolitionists followed the revisionists in minimizing the corruption and waste created by Republican state governments, saying it was no worse than Boss Tweed
William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below), and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany ...
's ring in New York City.
Instead, they emphasized that suppression of the rights of African Americans was a worse scandal, and a grave corruption of America's republicanist ideals. They argued that the tragedy of Reconstruction was not that it failed because Blacks were incapable of governing, especially as they did not dominate any state government, but that it failed because Whites raised an insurgent movement to restore White supremacy. White-elite-dominated state legislatures passed disenfranchising state constitutions from 1890 to 1908 that effectively barred most Blacks and many poor Whites from voting. This disenfranchisement affected millions of people for decades into the 20th century, and closed African Americans poor Whites out of the political process in the South.
Re-establishment of White supremacy meant that within a decade African Americans were excluded from virtually all local, state, and federal governance in all states of the South. Lack of representation meant that they were treated as second-class citizens, with schools and services consistently underfunded in segregated societies, no representation on juries or in law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
, and bias
Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, ...
in other legislation. It was not until the civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
and the Voting Rights Act
The suffrage, Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of Federal government of the United States, federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President of the United ...
of 1965 that segregation was outlawed and suffrage restored, under what is sometimes referred to as the "Second Reconstruction".
In 1990, Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
concluded that from the Black point of view "Reconstruction must be judged a failure." Foner stated Reconstruction was "a noble if flawed experiment, the first attempt to introduce a genuine inter-racial democracy in the United States". According to him, the many factors contributing to the failure included: lack of a permanent federal agency ''specifically'' designed for the enforcement of civil rights; the Morrison R. Waite
Morrison Remick "Mott" Waite (November 29, 1816 – March 23, 1888) was an American attorney, jurist, and politician from Ohio. He served as the seventh chief justice of the United States from 1874 until his death in 1888. During his tenur ...
Supreme Court decisions that dismantled previous congressional civil rights legislation; and the economic reestablishment of Whiggish white planters in the South by 1877. Historian William McFeely
William Shield McFeely (September 25, 1930 – December 11, 2019) was an American historian known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1981 biography of Ulysses S. Grant, as well as his contributions to a reevaluation of the Reconstruction era, and fo ...
explained that although the constitutional amendments and civil rights legislation on their own merit were remarkable achievements, no permanent government agency whose specific purpose was civil rights enforcement had been created.
More recent work by Nina Silber, David W. Blight
David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previousl ...
, Cecelia O'Leary, Laura Edwards, LeeAnn Whites, and Edward J. Blum has encouraged greater attention to race, religion, and issues of gender while at the same time pushing the effective end of Reconstruction to the end of the 19th century, while monographs by Charles Reagan Wilson, Gaines Foster, W. Scott Poole, and Bruce Baker have offered new views of the Southern "Lost Cause
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First ...
".
Dating the end of the Reconstruction era
At the national level, textbooks typically date the era from 1865 to 1877. Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
's textbook of national history ''Give Me Liberty'' is an example. His monograph ''Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877'' (1988) focusing on the situation in the South, covers 1863 to 1865. While 1877 is the usual date given for the end of Reconstruction, some historians such as Orville Vernon Burton extend the era to the 1890s to include the imposition of segregation.
The year 1877 is also commonly used as a dividing point for two-semester survey courses and two-volume textbooks that aim to cover all of U.S. history.
Economic role of race
Economists and economic historians have different interpretations of the economic impact of race on the postbellum Southern economy. In 1995, Robert Whaples took a random survey of 178 members of the Economic History Association
The Economic History Association (EHA) was founded in 1940 to "encourage and promote teaching, research, and publication on every phase of economic history and to help preserve and administer materials for research in economic history". It publi ...
, who studied American history in all time periods. He asked whether they wholly or partly accepted, or rejected, 40 propositions in the scholarly literature about American economic history. The greatest difference between economics PhDs and history PhDs came in questions on competition and race. For example, the proposition originally put forward by Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian and economist combining material from Public Choice, the New institutional economics, and the Austrian school of economics; and describes himself as a " libertarian anarchis ...
, "in the post-bellum South economic competition among Whites played an important part in protecting blacks from racial coercion", was accepted in whole or part by 66% of the economists, but by only 22% of the historians. Whaples says this highlights: "A recurring difference dividing historians and economists. The economists have more faith in the power of the competitive market. For example, they see the competitive market as protecting disenfranchised blacks and are less likely to accept the idea that there was exploitation by merchant monopolists."
The "failure" issue
Reconstruction is widely considered a failure, though the reason for this is a matter of controversy.
* The Dunning School
The Dunning School was a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history (1865–1877), supporting conservative elements against the Radical Republicans who introduced civil rights in the South. It was na ...
considered failure inevitable because it felt that taking the right to vote or hold office away from Southern Whites was a violation of republicanism.
* A second school sees the reason for failure as Northern Republicans' lack of effectiveness in guaranteeing political rights to Blacks.
* A third school blames the failure on not giving land to the freedmen so they could have their own economic base of power.
* A fourth school sees the major reason for the failure of Reconstruction as the states' inability to suppress the violence of Southern Whites when they sought reversal for Blacks' gains. Etcheson (2009) points to the "violence that crushed black aspirations and the abandonment by Northern whites of Southern Republicans". Etcheson wrote that it is hard to see Reconstruction "as concluding in anything but failure". Etcheson adds: "W. E. B. DuBois captured that failure well when he wrote in ''Black Reconstruction in America'' (1935): 'The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.
* Other historians emphasize the failure to fully incorporate Southern Unionists into the Republican coalition. Derek W. Frisby points to "Reconstruction's failure to appreciate the challenges of Southern Unionism
In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loy ...
and incorporate these loyal Southerners into a strategy that would positively affect the character of the peace".
Historian Donald R. Shaffer maintained that the gains during Reconstruction for African Americans were not entirely extinguished. The legalization of African American marriages and families and the independence of Black churches from White denominations were a source of strength during the Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
era. Reconstruction was never forgotten within the Black community and it remained a source of inspiration. The system of sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
granted Blacks a considerable amount of freedom as compared to slavery.
Historian Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
argues:
However, in 2014, historian Mark Summers argued that the "failure" question should be looked at from the viewpoint of the war goals; in that case, he argues:
In popular culture
The journalist Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 – July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a planta ...
, who wrote under the name "Joe Harris" for the ''Atlanta Constitution'' (mostly after Reconstruction), tried to advance racial and sectional reconciliation in the late 19th century. He supported Henry W. Grady
Henry Woodfin Grady (May 24, 1850 – December 23, 1889) was an American journalist and orator who helped reintegrate the states of the Confederacy into the Union after the American Civil War. Grady encouraged the industrialization of the Sout ...
's vision of a New South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the ...
during Grady's time as editor from 1880 to 1889. Harris wrote many editorials in which he encouraged Southerners to accept the changed conditions along with some Northern influences, but he asserted his belief that change should proceed under White supremacy.
In popular literature, two early 20th-century novels by Thomas Dixon Jr. – ''The Leopard's Spots
''The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900'' is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by '' The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' (1905), and '' The Traitor: A ...
: A Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
of the White Man's Burden – 1865–1900'' (1902), and '' The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' (1905) – idealized White resistance to Northern and Black coercion, hailing vigilante action by the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
. D. W. Griffith adapted Dixon's ''The Clansman'' for the screen in his anti-Republican movie ''The Birth of a Nation
''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Cla ...
'' (1915); it stimulated the formation of the 20th-century version of the KKK. Many other authors romanticized the supposed benevolence of slavery and the elite world of the antebellum plantations, in memoirs and histories which were published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
promoted influential works which were written in these genres by women.
Of much more lasting impact was the story ''Gone with the Wind'', first in the form of the best-selling 1936 novel, which enabled its author Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...
to win the Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
, and an award-winning Hollywood blockbuster with the same title in 1939. In each case, the second half of the story focuses on Reconstruction in Atlanta. The book sold millions of copies nationwide; the film is regularly re-broadcast on television. In 2018, it remained at the top of the list of highest-grossing films
Films generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition, home video, television broadcast rights, and merchandising. However, theatrical box-office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assess ...
, adjusted in order to keep up with inflation. The ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'' argues:
In education
The "Dunning School
The Dunning School was a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history (1865–1877), supporting conservative elements against the Radical Republicans who introduced civil rights in the South. It was na ...
" dominated white scholarship about Reconstruction during most of the 20th century. Black scholarship on the Reconstruction era was mostly ignored until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, though the racist interpretations of the Dunning School continue to this day.
Historian Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
said, "for no other period of American history does so wide a gap exist between current scholarship and popular historical understanding, which, judging from references to Reconstruction in recent newspaper articles, films, popular books, and in public monuments across the country, still bears the mark of the old Dunning School."
As reported in a January 2022 ''Time'' magazine article:In social studies standards for 45 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, discussion of Reconstruction is "partial" or "non-existent", according to historians who reviewed how the period is discussed in K-12 social studies standards for public schools nationwide. In a report produced by the education nonprofit Zinn Education Project, the study's authors say they are concerned that American children will grow up to be uninformed about a critical period of history that helps explain why full racial equality remains unfulfilled today.
The Zinn Education Project's report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction, highlights the historical connections to Reconstruction that surround us today and examines Reconstruction's place in state social studies standards across the United States and the barriers to teaching effective Reconstruction history.
According to a ''Facing South'' article entitled "The South's schools are failing to teach accurate Reconstruction history":"It is our hope that states and districts will adopt these guidelines for their own educational standards, curricula, and professional development," the report states. "In so doing, they will be better equipped to teach students the true history of Reconstruction, help students understand its significance and make connections to the present day. And they will empower teachers to educate their students and themselves about ongoing Reconstruction scholarship."
Reconstruction state-by-state – significant dates
Georgia was first readmitted to the U.S. Congress on July 25, 1868, but it was expelled on March 3, 1869. Virginia had been represented in the U.S. Senate until March 3, 1865, by the Restored Government of Virginia
The Restored (or Reorganized) Government of Virginia was the Unionist government of Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865) in opposition to the government which had approved Virginia's seceding from the United States and joini ...
.
See also
* Reconstruction Era National Monument
The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, formerly Reconstruction Era National Monument is a United States National Historical Park in Beaufort County, South Carolina established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and ...
* Remembering Reconstruction: Struggles over the Meaning of America's Most Turbulent Era
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
For much more detail see Reconstruction: Bibliography
Scholarly secondary sources
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* scholarly review and response by Calhoun at
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* Pulitzer-prize winning history, and most detailed synthesis of original and previous scholarship.
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* Portrays Lincoln as opponent of Radicals.
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* Lynd, Staughton, ed. (1967). ''Reconstruction''. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers.
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* Highly detailed narrative by Pulitzer Prize winner; argues was a political disaster because it violated the rights of White Southerners.
*
Volume: 6: 1865–72
(via Google Books)
*
Volume: 7: 1877
(via Google Books)
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*
excerpt and text search
*
text search
online
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* (2 vols.)
Historiography
*
* Ford, Lacy K., ed. ''A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction''. Blackwell (2005) 518 pp.
* Frantz, Edward O., ed. ''A Companion to the Reconstruction Presidents 1865–1881'' (2014). 30 essays by scholars.
*
* Perman, Michael and Amy Murrell Taylor, eds. ''Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction: Documents and Essays'' (2010)
*
*
* Uses primary documents to present opposing viewpoints.
* Essays by scholars.
*
Yearbooks
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1867''
(highly detailed compendium of facts and primary sources; details on every U.S. state & the national government)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1868''
(1873)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1869''
(1869)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1870''
(1871)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1872''
(1873)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1873''
(1879)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1875''
(1876)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1876''
(1877)
''Appleton's American Annual Cyclopedia... for 1877''
(1878)
''The American year-book and national register for 1869'' (1869) online
Primary sources
* Barnes, William H., ed.
''History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States''
(1868). Summary of Congressional activity.
* Berlin, Ira, ed. ''Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867'' (1982), 970 pp. of archival documents; also ''Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War'' ed by Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, and Steven F. Miller (1993).
* Blaine, James G. ''Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield. With a review of the events which led to the political revolution of 1860'' (1886). By Republican Congressional leade
Vol. 2
(via Internet Archive).
*
* 2 vols. Presents a broad collection of primary sources; Vol. 1: On National Politics
Vol. 2: On States
(via Google Books).
(1911); via Internet Archive. North Carolina "scalawag" governor.
* Hyman, Harold M., ed. ''The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction, 1861–1870'' (1967), collection of long political speeches and pamphlets.
*
* One of the first Black congressmen during Reconstruction.
*
* large collection of speeches and primary documents, 1865–1870, complete text online. he copyright has expired.
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
* Palmer, Beverly Wilson; Byers Ochoa, Holly; eds. ''The Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens'' 2 vols. (1998), 900 pp; his speeches plus and letters to and from Stevens.
* Palmer, Beverly Wilson, ed. ''The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner'', 2 vols. (1990); Vol. 2 covers 1859–1874.
*
* Pike, James Shepherdbr>''The prostrate state: South Carolina under negro government'' (1874)
* Reid, Whitelawbr>''After the War: A Southern Tour, May 1, 1865 to May 1, 1866''
(1866). By Republican editor.
* Smith, John David, ed. ''We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865–1877'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014). xviii, 133 pp.
* Sumner, Charle
'Our Domestic Relations: or, How to Treat the Rebel States' ''Atlantic Monthly'' September 1863
early abolitionist manifesto.
Further reading
*
* Du Bois, W. E. B. ''Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880'' (1935), Counterpoint to Dunning School explores the economics and politics of the era from Marxist perspective
* Influential summary of Dunning School; blames Carpetbaggers for failure of Reconstruction.
* Fitzgerald, Michael W. ''Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South'' (2007), 224pp
excerpt and text search
* Fitzgerald, Michael R. ''Reconstruction in Alabama: From Civil War to Redemption in the Cotton South'' (LSU Press, 2017) 464 pages; a standard scholarly history
*
*
*
excerpt
online review:
* Levine, Robert S. ''The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson'' (2021). New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
* Litwack, Leon. ''Been in the Storm So Long
''Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery'' is a 1979 book by American historian Leon Litwack, published by Knopf. The book chronicles the African-American experience following the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1980, the book won ...
'' (1979). Pulitzer Prize; social history of the freedmen
* Prior, David. ''Between Freedom and Progress: The Lost World of Reconstruction Politics'' (LSU Press, 2019).
*
* Also available via WikiSource.
*
*Suryanarayan, Pavithra, and White, Steven (2020)
Slavery, Reconstruction, and Bureaucratic Capacity in the American South
''American Political Science Review.''
Newspapers and magazines
major Southern conservative magazine; stress on business, economics and statistics
''Harper's Weekly''
leading New York news magazine; pro-Radical
pro-Radical editorial cartoons
* ''The New York Times'' daily edition online through ProQuest at academic libraries
External links
* Behn, Richard J., ed. 002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to:
Fiction
*002, fictional British 00 Agent
*''002 Operazione Luna'',
*1965 Italian film
*Zero Two, a ''Darling in the Franxx'' character
Airports
*0O2, Baker Airport
*O02, Nervino Airport
Astronomy
*1996 ...
2020
"Reconstruction"
''Mr. Lincoln and Freedom''. The Lehrman Institute
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was founded in New York City by businessmen-philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman in 1994 to promote the study and interest in American history.
The Institute serves teachers, stude ...
.
* Bigelow, Bill
"Reconstructing the South: A Role Play"
(teaching activity). ''Zinn Education Project''.
* Bragg, William Harris. 005
''005'' is a 1981 arcade game by Sega. They advertised it as the first of their RasterScan Convert-a-Game series, designed so that it could be changed into another game in minutes "at a substantial savings". It is one of the first examples of a ...
2019
"Reconstruction in Georgia"
''New Georgia Encyclopedia
The ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'' (NGE) is a web-based encyclopedia containing over 2,000 articles about the state of Georgia. It is a program of Georgia Humanities (GH), in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, the University System o ...
''.
* Green Jr., Robert P. 1991
"Reconstruction Historiography: A Source of Teaching Ideas"
''The Social Studies'' (July/August):153–57.
* Jensen, Richard. 2006
. ''Scholars' Guide to WWW''. University of Illinois Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois sy ...
. Links to primary and secondary sources.
* Mabry, Donald J. 2006
"Reconstruction in Mississippi"
''The Historical Text Archive''.
* Seward, William H. 1866
"Proclamation Declaring the Insurrection at an End"
''American Historical Documents, 1000–1904'', ( ''The Harvard Classics'' 43).
* Smith, Llewellyn M., dir. 2004
"Reconstruction: The Second Civil War"
''American Experience
''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...
''. PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
. Film connecting the replacement of civil rights with segregation and disenfranchisement at the end of 19th-century during the Jim Crow era
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
.
*
"Civil Rights During Reconstruction"
– Historians Eric Foner, David Blight and Ed Ayers discuss "Civil Rights During Reconstruction"
"Reconstruction: Era and Definition"
''The History Channel
History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...
''. A&E Networks
A&E Networks (stylized as A+E NETWORKS) is an American multinational broadcasting company that is a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company through its General Entertainment Content division. The company o ...
.
"The Civil War: Reconstruction"
002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to:
Fiction
*002, fictional British 00 Agent
*''002 Operazione Luna'',
*1965 Italian film
*Zero Two, a ''Darling in the Franxx'' character
Airports
*0O2, Baker Airport
*O02, Nervino Airport
Astronomy
*1996 ...
2015. – This is part of an extensive assessment of the Civil War and slavery which gives particular attention to children.
"The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845–1877"
IST 119
Ist or IST may refer to:
Information Science and Technology
* Bachelor's or Master's degree in Information Science and Technology
* Graduate School / Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Japan
* Graduate School ...
''Open Yale Courses
Open Yale Courses is a project of Yale University to share full video and course materials from its undergraduate courses.
Open Yale Courses provides free access to a selection of introductory courses, and uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Nonc ...
''. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. Full semester course in text/audio/video; materials free under the Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
license.
"The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy"
''Facing History and Ourselves
Facing History and Ourselves is a global non-profit organization founded in 1976. The organization's mission is to "use lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate." The organization is based in Br ...
''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reconstruction Era Of The United States
40th United States Congress
1860s in Alabama
1860s in Arkansas
1860s in Florida
1860s in Georgia (U.S. state)
1860s in Louisiana
1860s in Mississippi
1860s in North Carolina
1860s in South Carolina
1860s in Tennessee
1860s in Texas
1860s in Virginia
1870s in Georgia (U.S. state)
1870s in Mississippi
1870s in Texas
1870s in Virginia
African-American history between emancipation and the civil rights movement
Aftermath of the American Civil War
American military occupations
History of African-American civil rights
History of civil rights in the United States
History of the Southern United States
History of voting rights in the United States
Legal history of Alabama
Legal history of Arkansas
Legal history of Florida
Legal history of Georgia (U.S. state)
Legal history of Louisiana
Legal history of Mississippi
Legal history of North Carolina
Legal history of South Carolina
Legal history of Tennessee
Legal history of Texas
Legal history of Virginia
Military occupation
Political repression in the United States
Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
Presidency of Andrew Johnson
Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant
Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes
Race-related controversies in the United States