Download Reconstruction

THREE STEPS FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK:
RECONSTRUCTION
When the War was over, Lincoln did not have a plan at hand on how to put America back together
again. However, he can be forgiven not having a plan in place because he was assassinated only five
days after the War had ended.
Almost a year after the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863 Lincoln issued a proclamation for
Amnesty in Reconstruction; which offered full pardon and restoration of all rights to persons who took
an oath of future loyalty to the Union and agreed to the abolition of slavery. He knew that he couldn't
punish everyone who was part of the Confederacy, but he could punish officers and high ranking
officials.
However, there was no consistent policy about what to do in the event that Union prevailed militarily.
Of course, the Union army would take control of certain areas early on and in those areas they often
had to deal with what to do with all the freed slaves. In 1863, in Louisiana, the Union commander
required former slaves to enter into annual labor contracts with local planters who had remained loyal
to the Union. Former slaves bombarded the commander asking for food and clothing, so he did this to
get these newly freed blacks to begin working. This was one imperfect solution that one Union
commander adopted. He did this because he didn't want to have to deal with supplying food and clothes
to these people, and he did not want to alienate local planters.
A very different policy emerged along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. There were tens of
thousands of slaves following Sherman, but Sherman wanted to get rid of these slaves. In early 1865 he
talked to local black leaders in South Carolina and Georgia about getting the slaves to stop following
him, and they asked him for land. Sherman divided up 400,000 acres of land amongst approximately
40,000 freedmen into 40 acre parcels. To assist the freedmen in preparing their land for cultivation,
Sherman's army left behind and lent the freedmen a number of mules. Here lies the origin of the phrase
“40 acres and a mule.” Many African American's began to think that the federal government promised
them 40 acres and a mule, which was not true. As you might imagine, former slaves in other areas of
the south would hear about this and also ask for 40 acres and a mule.
In terms of politics, in January of 1865 President Lincoln and Congress introduce and pass the
Thirteenth Amendment which abolishes slavery. It is the first of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Congress then forwards the thirteenth amendment onto the states, because the states have to ratify it in
order to make it a part of the Constitution. By the end of 1865 the necessary number of states had
ratified the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery.
There was also the inception of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments; which were also part of the
Reconstruction Amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment was about equality and entitlement to equal
rights. The Fifteenth Amendment was about giving all people federally protected rights to vote.
All of these Reconstruction Amendments, along with the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau, were
attempts to assist the newly emancipated freedmen. Because many people would argue, what is
freedom if you don't have any protection for these freedoms. These amendments were an attempt to
help clarify and define what would be the role of the federal government in helping to assist the newly
emancipated freedmen.
In March of 1865 the federal government created the Freedmen's Bureau. This was, technically,
designed to facilitate the transition from slavery to freedom for blacks. Some of the people working for
the Freedmen's Bureau were abolitionists, but others were terribly racist and self-interested greedy
people who see these jobs as an opportunity to get in good with southern planters and make some
money. They try to help southern planters get their former workforce back on the plantation.
Andrew Johnson becomes President after Lincoln is assassinated, which is bad news for the freedmen
because Johnson wants the Freedmen's Bureau eliminated. He didn't want the federal government to do
anything for blacks. He believed that poor whites should be helped before poor blacks. He opposed a
variety of policies intended to help former slaves, Johnson began pardoning thousands of high ranking
Confederate officials.
In 1866, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act which Johnson vetoed. Congress, for the first time in
history, overrode Johnson's veto. The Civil Rights Act was another policy intended to assist the
freedmen.
Regardless of the attempt to assist newly emancipated blacks via legislation, it was becoming
increasingly clear that white violence against blacks in the south was preventing any effective
implementation of these Reconstruction Policies. Thus, the Republicans wanted to rebuild the south in
their own image making it a Republican stronghold. In order to do that they decided to pass the
Reconstruction Act of 1867 which devised a military occupation of the south. This increasingly angers
and fuels resentment from southern whites.
Republicans did not want to rely exclusively on force, so they built a new political coalition which
relied upon three main groups: “Carpetbaggers”, “Scalawags”, and free blacks. “Carpetbaggers” were
northerners who moved south to exploit suffering southerners from the Civil War. “Scalawags” where
white southerners who supported the Union or became Republican. There were many more
“Scalawags” than “Carpetbaggers”.
Free blacks now had a few priorities upon their emancipation: To find their separated families, to build
churches, and to build schools. These things took on fierce priority. The primary economic opportunity
for former slaves became Sharecropping. Freedmen and their families would work a plot of land and
exchange a percentage of the years crop as a rent payment for the parcel of the land that they lived on
and cultivated.
Planters who's former workforce had been emancipated had a problem, they needed people to work that
land. So, they made these free blacks an offer – that they give the Planter a share of the crop.
Sharecropping predominated in cotton and tobacco regions.
Sharecropping is distinct from slavery because they can no longer be whipped, they can make their
own schedule, family could not be sold away, women would not be sexually abused. This gave blacks a
degree of control, however this form of labor did not fulfill blacks desire for full autonomy. The credit
system that grew up alongside Sharecropping quickly undermined the promise of autonomy. Planters
would sell supplies to free blacks, but would tell them that supplies exceeded more than they had
monetarily. They would ensnare them in debt, which would make it very difficult for them to
disentangle themselves from this system.
As reconstruction wore on, blacks confronted increasing opposition from white para-military terrorist
organizations. Arguable the most infamous example of an American terrorist organization is the Ku
Klux Klan. Terrorist organizations use fear to control a society or group.
In 1866 a group of ex-confederate soldiers, planters, and others who want to restore white racial
supremacy in the south create the Ku Klux Klan. They assassinated local Republican leaders, whites
and blacks, they would also lynch former slaves. Incidentally, very few blacks were lynched until after
the Civil War in the south. It becomes more common because now freedmen are not considered
property.
The Klan was a military force serving the interest of the Southern Democratic Party. In response to the
horrible acts of violence, the federal government got involved and passed the Ku Klux Klan act in
1871. They used the military in the south to attack the Klan to stop them from terrorizing blacks and
white Republicans.
By 1872 the federal government, through a combination of legislation and military intervention, had
broken the Ku Klux Klan's back and produced a dramatic decline in violence throughout the south. By
the end of the 1870s the Ku Klux Klan had disappeared.
However, just because the Klan had disappeared, it did not mean that violence against blacks
disappeared. The Klan is only the largest and most powerful terrorist organization, but there were
others such as the White League in Louisiana. Violence against blacks in the south continued.
In Colfax, LA, a group of freedmen began to prepare for a standoff against the White League. The
blacks held the tiny town for three weeks until the White League used rifles and a cannon to overpower
the blacks leading to a slaughter that killed 50 blacks after they had surrendered under a white flag. The
Colfax Massacre was the bloodiest single incident of racial violence during the reconstruction era.
Despite these problems, American's no longer had the stomach for a prolonged occupation of a hostile
region. Now, increasingly, newspapers were becoming racist in criticizing reconstruction and reporting
corruption scandal against Ulysses Grant, now President. Many people begin to turn against
reconstruction, and support among northerners begins to end for this experiment to rebuild the south
politically, economically, and racially.
Ultimately, three major events seal the fate of reconstruction to improve the lives of southern blacks.
First, the election of 1876 ended embroiled in controversy as the electoral votes of Florida remained in
dispute with both Republicans and Democrats claiming they had won the state and the electoral votes
of that state would decide who won the election. Eventually compromise prevailed, in the Compromise
of 1877. Rutherford B. Hayes became President, and as part of the compromise he agreed to pull the
remaining federal troops out of the south. Second, in July of 1876, the hundred year anniversary of
Independence, Colonel George Armstrong Custard who was a War hero was massacred at the Battle of
Little Bighorn. This was a horrible tragedy and many people began looking west rather than south, with
ideas of punishing the Indians. Finally, in 1877 there is a horrible bloody strike called the Great
Railroad Strike. Violence erupted when exploited laborers who's wages had been cut clashed with
federal troops leading to more than 100 deaths and widespread destruction of property.
Many people in the north are now concerned with growing labor radicalism in their own back yard, and
no longer have an interest in reconstruction. Thus, African American's will need to wait almost another
century to at least partially realize many of the promises made to them at this time.