Saylor.org HIST212: "The Successes and Failures of Reconstruction"

Today we'll be focusing on the successes and failures of Reconstruction. Reconstruction is a period of time from roughly 1863 until roughly 1877. This is a period of time when both presidents as well as Congress struggled with the challenge of bringing the South back into the Union politically, economically, and socially. Leaders in the North faced a number of key challenges as they struggled to bring the South back into the Union in the wake of the American Civil War. One of those challenges was first of all, how to reunite the nation. What to do about the rebellious states, these 13 states here that had rebelled against the United States and had ultimately joined the Confederacy and fought a war against the United States. Should these states be readmitted without any form of punishment? Should they be readmitted on equal footing as equal states to the Northern and Western states who had stayed loyal to the Union? Both presidents and Congress struggled with the challenge of what to do about these states and how to bring them back into the United States in a fair and equitable way. Leaders also faced a challenge about what to do with former slaves because there were nearly 4 million enslaved Americans and leaders both in the president and Congress knew that after the war, these 4 million men, women, and children would need a certain level of care because they had been slaves their whole lives and they didn't have housing, they didn't have options for food and options for work. And so there was a need for basic services and basic requirements such as food, housing, work, education. There was also an important need to ensure basic civil rights because of course one of the focal points of the war was what to do about the civil rights for African Americans once they were free. Should they have the right to vote? Should they have the right to participate in government? Ultimately, when we look at the totality of Reconstruction, we have to conclude that Reconstruction was far more successful in bringing the South back into the Union politically and economically, but Social Reconstruction, in other words bringing the South back into the United States socially, proved to be a nearly impossible task due to a lack of commitment by Northern political leaders and voters to ensuring equal rights for African Americans. So in a sense, while Reconstruction succeeds politically and eventually economically, it is a major failure from a social standpoint. So we'll briefly talk today about some of the reasons why Reconstruction proves to be such a significant challenge for the Northern Congress as well as for Presidents. While the Civil War was still going on, Presidents Lincoln, featured here on the right, and his successor President Andrew Johnson both struggled with the challenge of how to reintegrate the Southern states back into the Union, back into the United States. Ultimately, both Presidents pursued a policy that I term Fast and Mild, a policy that beandered in this period of Presidential Reconstruction, which lasted from roughly 1863 to roughly 1866 or so. This is a time period where both Presidents Lincoln and Johnson were the driving forces behind the political policies of Reconstructing the United States. Ultimately, the goal of both men was to reunite the nation quickly, restore Southern governments, and provide in some way for African Americans who would be freed at the end of the war. Lincoln is the first person to really come up with a plan to reintegrate the Southern states back into the Union. He does this during the midst of the Civil War. So in December of 1863, Lincoln comes up with a proposal that he calls the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. We'll just call this his Amnesty Plan for short. This Amnesty Plan involved a very simple formula for ensuring that Southerners would be allowed back into the Union. Essentially, it required what became known as the 10% Plan, because all it required was that 10% of citizens of a state had to declare loyalty and had to swear a loyalty oath to the United States and agree to uphold the policies that the North had fought for in the Civil War, including emancipation of the slaves and other basic policies. If 10% of the citizens of a state agreed to these plans, then they would receive an official pardon from the President and they would be allowed to participate in political affairs. They would be allowed to vote again. They would be allowed to run for public office. Congress didn't particularly like this plan. Congress at this time period was dominated by what we would call Radical Republicans. These were a group of Republicans who were very concerned not only about winning the war, but also about ensuring that African Americans received equal rights after the war and were protected from abuse by Southerners. The Radicals in Congress reject Lincoln's 10% Plan, his Amnesty Plan, as being far too lenient on the South. Instead, in 1864, they submit their own plan, which becomes known as Wade-Davis, named after the two political leaders who proposed it. The Wade-Davis plan is a far more harsh and punishing plan. It essentially required that citizens had to swear an ironclad loyalty oath, and a majority of citizens had to swear that. It also ensured that the military would enforce law and order in the South until a majority of citizens had sworn this loyalty oath. The military would basically serve to ensure that Southerners didn't punish African Americans when they gained their freedom, that African Americans were given equal rights. Lincoln felt this plan was far too harsh and he ends up vetoing it through a measure we call the Pocket Veto. He ignored the law and refused to sign it until the session of Congress ended. Once the session ended, the law essentially vanished and Congress would have had to pass it again in the next session for Lincoln to either sign or not sign. So Lincoln essentially ignores it and makes it go away. One of the things that Lincoln does do though in trying to figure out the status of African Americans at the end of the war is he creates in 1865 the Freedmen's Bureau. The Freedmen's Bureau was an organization that was somewhere between a military and a civilian organization designed to help protect and care for former slaves. It would provide housing, food, other kinds of job opportunities, as well as educational opportunities. We have an image here of the Freedmen's School in the South to provide African Americans with basic educational opportunities of all ages. The Freedmen's Bureau in a sense would represent a shield between the angry white population of the South who were not happy with African Americans getting right and African Americans and prevent violence between these two groups and ensure that both groups could get along in the South. So Lincoln goes as far as creating the Freedmen's Bureau as a means to try to provide for African Americans following the end of the conflict. This is about as far as Lincoln gets with presidential reconstruction because he is assassinated in April of 1865 and his successor, President Johnson, decides to pursue a similar policy to Lincoln's. Again, this idea of a fast and a mild reconstruction plan. So similar to Lincoln's plans, Johnson offered essentially pardons to all Southerners who took a loyalty oath to the Union. He only excluded Confederate leaders and people who had a very high personal worth, in other words wealthy people. He essentially allowed the Southern states to go about reorganizing governments and excluding African Americans. As a result, many of these new state governments in the immediate aftermath of the war ignored African Americans completely and in fact rejected the 13th Amendment, which was the amendment that had formally ended the institution of slavery in the United States. They also elected many ex-Confederates and sent them back into the government. Essentially they acted as if the war had never taken place or as if the South had actually won the war. Many states also instituted what became known as Black Codes. These Black Codes were an effort to punish African Americans for almost in a sense gaining their freedom or to ensure that African Americans did not take advantage of the newfound freedoms that they had. They included provisions on limiting property ownership for African Americans, preventing them from owning firearms or possessing alcohol, forcing African Americans to have jobs. If they couldn't prove that they had a job, they could be arrested and forced to work on a chain gang, in other words forced slave labor. In a sense trying to roll things back to the way the South had been before slavery had ended. In a sense ignoring the fact that the war was over and that the South had lost. Congress becomes increasingly frustrated with Johnson's handling of Reconstruction. The Radicals in Congress felt that the South was essentially thumbing their noses at the North. By the end of 1865, Congress decides to take over Reconstruction and run it as a Congressional set of policies as opposed to allowing President Johnson to pursue Reconstruction under his own ideas. Once Congress begins to take over, once these Radical Republicans in Congress initiate Reconstruction, we call this phase of Reconstruction, Congressional Reconstruction. It was a much more harsh and punishing policy that Congress put in place than either President Lincoln or Johnson. Congressional Reconstruction lasted from roughly 1866 until 1877. So this period of time that ultimately the Republicans in Congress were in charge of pursuing Reconstruction policies. Republicans including Charles Sumner pictured here on the left, Thaddeus Stevens here on the right, who were very committed to punishing the South and ensuring that African Americans received equal rights under the law. So in 1866 when Congress takes charge, they pass the first major Civil Rights Act, the Civil Rights Bill of 1866. This effort to ensure that African Americans would be protected and given equal treatment under the law and that the Southern states could not continue to pass black codes and other policies to try to punish African Americans in some way. So the Civil Rights Act of 1866 basically says that anyone born in the United States is a citizen and that the government cannot discriminate against people on the basis of race. Johnson vetoes the legislation and sees it as a law that actually punishes whites and he views it as unconstitutional. But Congress is so frustrated with Johnson's leadership that they actually pass the Civil Rights law over his veto and it becomes really the first major piece of Civil Rights legislation of the Reconstruction period. Then Congress goes even further and they begin the set of legislation that eventually becomes the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment again takes many of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act and writes them into the U.S. Constitution to ensure that African Americans and all people born in the U.S. would have equal rights under the law and future Congresses couldn't try to take away any of those rights if they chose to. Congress goes beyond simply ensuring civil rights and begins in 1867 military reconstruction of the South and this becomes known as the Military Reconstruction Act. The South is actually divided into five districts and these five districts are administered by military leaders. We see these here in the map. District 1 being Virginia, 2, 3 being North Carolina, etc. etc. and each of these districts are under military leadership and so the South essentially had tried to create civilian governments but these governments are abolished and the military is in charge until such time as the southern states could reorganize and grant rights to African Americans and ensure equality for all people within these states. As a result in the election of 1868 this is an important event because this is the first time that integrated governments were elected in the South and both poor whites as well as African Americans gain voting rights and also gain their ability to run for public office. To step back just for a second, these laws that Congress tries to pass do not go unopposed. In fact, Andrew Johnson strenuously opposes these acts and as a result he is seen as using his power of the veto here in this political cartoon to essentially punish freedmen, in other words African Americans who become free at the end of the war. Eventually Congress grows frustrated with this and they use an excuse. They use the fact that Johnson violated a minor provision of a law called the Tenure of Office Act to put him on trial, to attempt to impeach him and remove him from office in the spring of 1868, so before the elections of 1868 and he goes on trial and ultimately he is essentially acquitted by a couple votes. He is prevented from being impeached and not enough members of Congress want to see Johnson impeached and so he is spared from impeachment but at the same time he gets the message and so for the rest of his term in office until the elections of 1868 Johnson essentially chooses not to interfere in any way with Congress' efforts to promote reconstruction and ultimately decides not to run for election in 1868 and so he is replaced with Ulysses S. Grant who is a Republican who is very sympathetic towards the interests of the Radical Republicans in Congress and chooses not to interfere with them and ultimately once again allows the Radicals to pretty much run the show for the next few years. Well after the elections of 1868, once again this is the first time that we see integrated governments in the South and for the first time Southerners, poor whites as well as African Americans were being allowed to participate in government and really run many of the governments. They were indeed biracial governments in the sense that whites tended to hold the highest positions, Republicans in some cases who would actually come down from the North to participate in governments were often times the governors or lieutenant governors but African Americans made up the majority of the elected representatives in many of these states in the Deep South. So they were very much integrated governments and governments that tried to do a lot to help protect the rights of the people in the South and also provide things such as public education, new kinds of hospitals, mental asylums and other things that had been not a part of the governments in the South before the war. Governments had largely restricted themselves in the South and had not provided basic services for people and so in a sense these new governments provide a lot of basic services that had not been a part of Southern society especially for poor people or African Americans before the war. Well these changes certainly do not go unopposed in the South and many elite whites feel very strongly that these new governments are bad for the South and in a sense are very unhappy because they have been systematically shut out of the government and so these elite whites begin an effort to redeem Southern institutions from African American control or Republican control and so these people become known as Redeemers and they launch a campaign both of violence and intimidation against African Americans as well as poor whites and Republicans who had come down from the North to participate in the governments and these were called carpet backers because they were sort of seen as being people who just came down to take advantage of opportunities not because they were really true Southerners in any respect. Well these Redeemers began to launch as I said a campaign of violence including the creation of the Ku Klux Klan which is a terrorist organization that was essentially intended to go after both African Americans as well as whites who were assisting African Americans. We see examples here of a couple of Klansmen with their weapons and certainly they were very willing to use violence and intimidation to try to drive out African Americans from public office, to try to scare them, to try to scare educators from working in Freedmen schools and other means to try to essentially intimidate African Americans from voting in elections. Congress initially responds to the development of the Klan by creating passing laws that allow them to go after the Klan and in a sense they really effectively destroy the Klan by the mid-1870s but it doesn't stop these Redeemers in the South from using other means to intimidate and try to prevent African Americans from playing a role in government. The other big problem is that over time Congress and Northern voters begin to lose interest in ensuring equal treatment of African Americans and poor whites in the South. Beginning in 1873 there is an economic depression in the United States and so Northern voters become much more concerned about economic matters, less concerned about social matters in the South and they stop putting pressure on Congress to ensure that African Americans are treated fairly within the South. In some cases Northerners become a little bit more racist as well and they start believing propaganda that many of these white Redeemers were putting out about how these governments in the South were corrupt and African Americans really didn't know how to run state governments or local governments and Northern voters begin to believe this propaganda and think that maybe things would be better if white elites were allowed to return and run the governments in the South. And so this growing disinterest in the North among making sure that whites in the South respect federal law and treat African Americans fairly, this growing disinterest ultimately allows these white Redeemers to gain additional power and they begin to reclaim many local and state political offices throughout the South so that by the time of the election of 1876 most of the state governments in the South were under Democratic control and only a handful of state governments including Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were still under Republican control at this point. Well the election of 1876 really seals the fate of the period known as Reconstruction. The Republicans in the presidential election nominate Rutherford B. Hayes, kind of a traditional fairly conservative Republican. The Democrats nominate Samuel Tilden who was a New Yorker and was kind of seen as a more moderate Democrat. The election itself is extremely close. As this pictorial here makes clear, the vote is nearly split and particularly in a number of states including South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon out there on the West Coast, the election returns are disputed. In fact, Democrats protest these elections and claim voter fraud and claim other things and say that these were not states that the Republicans should have won. As a result of this very tight election, the vote is not able to be decided by the popular vote and ultimately Congress is forced to intervene and decide the election. Congress creates an electoral commission with a slight Republican majority. So the assumption was that Rutherford B. Hayes would ultimately win this election. But Hayes and Tilden aren't willing to let Congress make up its mind on its own. Their supporters, their handlers, ultimately get together and work out a backdoor agreement. They work out a secret agreement that says Hayes will be elected. Hayes will become the new President of the United States in 1877. Tilden will basically refuse to contest Hayes' election. In return, though, Hayes has to end military reconstruction in the South, has to remove the military from active participation in Southern government and Southern political life, and allow civilians to do whatever they want to. In return, though, the Democrats promise to protect the rights of African Americans and poor whites. Well, the decision is made. Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President in 1877. He does indeed pull out military troops from active participation in protecting these integrated governments in the South and the remaining areas where they existed. But, indeed, the Democrats do not hold up their end of the bargain. They refuse to ensure the rights of African Americans and poor whites. If anything, they push white elites to become in charge of these governments again. As a result, after 1877, many of the political and social reforms that these Reconstruction-era governments have put in place are abolished. African Americans go from being equal partners in the social and political life of the South to being once again severely restricted and having lost most of their basic civil and political rights. So, in a sense, at the end of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans once again are considered to be second-class citizens in the South. For nearly 100 years, they fight against the political repression that they begin to face following the end of Reconstruction as the Redeemers once again take control of the white governments in the South and continue to use all sorts of legal and illegal means of repressing African Americans within Southern society. As a result, as I said at the beginning of this lecture, Reconstruction, while it proves to be a political and economic success, the Southern states are indeed reunited and restored into the United States. In a sense, it is a social failure because African Americans enjoy this brief window of equality, political and social equality in the South, but ultimately return to this status as not only second-class citizens, but targets of political and social repression throughout the American South.