Download Dec. 7 The undoing of Reconstruction

12/7/2015
Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Framing concerns
Presidential reconstruction (review)
Radical reconstruction
The challenge of enforcement
Redemption
Conclusions
Key question: Why did Reconstruction fail?
In what sense did it fail?
1. The Republican Party failed to hold power in the southern states
2. Party politics once again failed to resolve disputes without recourse to
violence
3. Efforts to secure the civil and political rights of the former slaves
(“freedpeople”) failed
4. If the war wound up being about the destruction of slavery, why did the
effort to protect the rights of the freedpeople fail so completely? Why
did the political system fail so horribly at its primary function?
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“One Vote Less,” Harper’s Weekly (August 8, 1868), p. 512.
Explanations for failure
1.
“Racism”
Factors related to the failure of the Republican Party in the South
1. Internal divisions within Republican coalition in the southern states
2. Increasing tax burdens and reputations for corruption and
mismanagement sapped popular support
3. Loss of crucial southern white “swing” vote
Republicans
FreedPeople
(captured
electorate)
Northern
whites
(“carpetbaggers”)
Democrats
Southern whites
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Explanations for failure (cont.)
Factors stressing the political system as a whole
1.
Frymer’s argument


African Americans a “captured’ electorate from start of Radical
Reconstruction
Republicans’ negative incentive to champion civil rights (issues that
alienated white voters)
My questions for Frymer:

If “race” issues were such losers, why did Republicans care about civil rights
at all?

Why exactly were “race” issues losers, given war’s sacrifices?

And, once committed to those issues, why did the commitment to them
wane?
2.
3.
Political violence (remember your Clausewitz)
The key: The limits of permissible government intervention
Narrative of party politics
1. National parties in the Second Party System (1828-1854) operated to
suppress sectionally-divisive issues related to slavery
2. “Agitation” over slavery-related issues polarizes national politics; party
system reformulates along sectional lines (the Civil War Party System,
1854-1860)
3. This “breaks” the system (formal politics cannot resolve the sectional
controversy) when election of Lincoln leads to secession and war (18611865)
4. War suspends the normal operations of national party politics (though
muted party politics remain important in the Union)
5. With Union victory, slavery’s abolition, and national reunification there is a
return to the party system
Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I. Framing concerns
II. Presidential reconstruction (review)
1. Black codes
2. Race riots
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Black Codes
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rapid return of former Confederates to office
Laws passed by southern state governments, 1865
Strict controls over terms of labor
Vagrancy laws kept freedpeople a docile, immobile labor force
Denial of basic civil rights
Violation of free market principles
“The rebels of New Orleans have
proved worthy of their cousinship to
the rebels in Memphis. They have
fleshed their maiden swords in the
blood of the negro. . . . [They
demonstrate] their devotion to the
President’s [lenient] policy by a riot
or massacre, inaugurated in order to
suppress free speech and to prevent
the people of Louisiana from
enjoying their Constitutional right to
assemble peacefully and petition for
the redress of grievances. . . .”
Chicago Tribune (August 1, 1866)
"The Riot in New Orleans," Harper's Weekly (August 25,
1866).
Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I. Framing concerns
II. Presidential reconstruction (review)
III. Radical reconstruction
1. Military reconstruction
2. Guarantees of black civil rights
3. Black political participation
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Radical Reconstruction:
The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867
The former Confederacy was divided into military districts during Congressional (or “Military”)
Reconstruction
Congressional Reconstruction (1867-77)
• a.k.a. “Radical” or “Military” Reconstruction
• Reconstruction Act of 1867 a response to Southern
intransigence on black rights
• All former Confederate states removed from Union (except
Tennessee) . . .
• . . . and placed under temporary military rule . . .
• . . . until they met new conditions for re-entry into Union:
– New state constitutional conventions
– No racial exclusion in voting for or serving as delegates to the
conventions
– Stricter loyalty oath (“ironclad oath”) required
– The constitutional conventions had to ratify the 14th Amendment
Civil Rights Act (1866)
• Intended to ensure that federal and state citizenship
were the same
– Closes loophole opened in the Dred Scott case of 1857
• Defined new “civil” rights:
– “Freedom” means the minimum rights conferred by
citizenship
• Federal government becomes guarantor
– Because states could not be relied upon to do so
– A reversal of longstanding principles of federalism?
• Johnson’s veto (overridden)
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Civil Rights Act (1866)
“All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign
power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens
of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color,
without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State
and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to
sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell,
hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal
benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and
property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like
punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute,
ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 1868
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws.
Constitution, amend. XIV.
1. Closes “dual citizenship” loophole; state citizenship confers national
citizenship.
2. Privileges and immunities clause
3. Due process clause
4. Equal protection clause
The state constitutional conventions of 1867-68 were remarkable. In no other post-emancipation
society did those formerly enslaved become full participants in the formal political process. Once in
office, African Americans supported the Republican Party in launching a sweeping agenda that promised
to revolutionize the South.
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Delegates to all ‘67-’69 constitutional conventions
38 8
Southern whites
Outside whites
257
Blacks
549
Unclassified whites
159
Unclassified delegates
8
6
10
35
8
17
72
45
Arkansas
14
68
South Carolina
Texas
Number of Black Elected Federal and State Legislators Who Served Terms During the
Reconstruction Period, by State: 1869 to 1901
Federal
State
Senators
Representatives
Total
Senators
Representatives
State total
Total
Alabama
0
3
3
6
69
75
78
Arkansas
0
0
0
2
12
14
14
Florida
0
1
1
10
38
48
49
State
Georgia
0
1
1
3
37
40
41
Louisiana
0
1
1
24
97
121
122
Mississippi
2
1
3
6
58
64
67
North Carolina
0
4
4
22
56
78
82
South Carolina
0
8
8
33
17
210
218
Tennessee
0
0
0
0
12
12
12
Texas
0
0
0
4
35
39
39
Virginia
0
1
1
14
78
92
93
Total
2
20
22
124
670
794
816
African Americans elected to state and federal
legislatures, 1869-1901
Tennessee
1%
Texas
5%
Virginia
11%
Alabama
10%
Arkansas
2%
Florida
6%
Georgia
5%
Louisiana
15%
South Carolina
27%
North Carolina
10%
Mississippi
8%
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“Hon. H.R. Revels,” Harper’s Weekly,
February 19, 1870, p. 116.
“Tim Works Wonders,” Harper’s Weekly,
April 9, 1870, p. 232.
The Radical state governments
• Blacks hold office in most states
• Public schools, social institutions, internal improvements
– But new tax burdens contribute to reputations for corruption
• Republican coalition in southern states
– African Americans
– Northern whites (“carpetbaggers”)
– Southern whites (“scalawags”)
• This is the origin of how African Americans became a
“captured” constituency of the Republican Party
• All southern states fall out of Republican hands by 1877
– Leaving southern blacks captive to a Republican Party that is
powerless in the South
Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Framing concerns
Presidential reconstruction (review)
Radical reconstruction
The challenge of enforcement
1.
2.
3.
4.
Ku Klux Klan and racial terror
Federal response
Klan skepticism and backlash
The Liberal Republicans bolt
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Typically, the Klan is said to have begun
in Pulaski, TN, when former CSA cavalry
general Nathan Bedford Forrest began
a “social club” with six other CSA
veterans. The organization soon grew
into an institution of racial terror.
While Forrest eventually recanted his
participation in the Klan, his own
record on race was highly suspect (he
commanded CSA forces at the Fort
Pillow Massacre of black troops during
the Civil War).
1st. No man shall squat negroes on his place
unless they are all under his employ male and
female.
2d. Negro women shall be employed by white
persons
3d. All children shall be hired out for something.
4th. Negroes found in cabins to themselves shall
suffer the penalty.
5th. Negroes shall not be allowed to hire negroes.
6th. Idle men, women or children, shall suffer the
penalty.
7th. All white men found with negroes in secret
places shall be dealt with. . . .
8th. For the first offence is one hundred lashes –
the second is looking up a sap lin [limb]….
National Archives, Records of U.S. Army Continental
Commands, 1821-1920
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The federal response
• Congress holds “Klan hearings” to investigate
– Amos Akerman, Attorney General under Grant, headed
efforts by (new) Department of Justice to prosecute Klan
crimes
Attorney General
Amos Akerman
Report of the Joint Select Committee
to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs
in the Late Insurrectionary States, 13
vols. (1872)
Over 6,000 pages of detailed testimony on
Klan abuses
The federal response
• Congress holds “Klan hearings” to investigate
– Amos Akerman, Attorney General under Grant, headed
efforts by (new) Department of Justice to prosecute Klan
crimes
• Congress passes new laws to help Grant
– Enforcement Act of 1870: Preventing the vote through
force and violence crimes prosecutable under federal law
– Enforcement Act of 1871: Citizens may call upon federal
government to oversee local elections
– Klan Act (Force Bill) of 1871: President may suspend writ
of habeus corpus and use military to prosecute criminal
conspiracies
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“Ku-Klux Outrages,” New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, March 29, 1871,
p. 1.
“TOO THIN, MASSA GRANT.”
U.S.G. (as a manipulator of Ku-Klux
figures)---”Look here, Sambo; if you
don’t vote for Grant, these Ku-Klux
fellows will put you back into slavery.”
Sambo---“Massa, it am no use to get up
dem horrid figgers. Sambo knows dat
he’s free, and dat neider you nor any
oder man can make him a slave again. I
vote for Greeley, dat good man who
helped made me free.”
Matt Morgan, "Too Thin, Massa
Grant,“ Leslie's Illustrated (September
14, 1872), p. 1
“Bayonet Rule,” Richmond Whig (May 24, 1872), p. 2.
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“Radical Tyranny--The Last
Usurpation,” Albany Argus
(October 16, 1861), p. 2.
Lyman Trumbull, the Illinois Senator (Republican)
who had crafted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, rejects
the Force Act of 1871:
“I am not willing to . . . enter the States for the
purpose of punishing individual offenses against their
authority committed by one citizen against another.
We . . . have no constitutional authority to do that.
When this Government was formed, the general rights
of person and property were left to be protected by
the States, and there they are left to-day. . . . I do not
believe the Senator from Vermont entertains the
opinion that the Congress of the United States has the
right to pass a general criminal code for the States of
the Union.”
Radical Republican Carl Schurz rejects the Klan Acts
on constitutional grounds, 1872:
“Study it attentively, — the bayonet law, the Ku-Klux
law, as they now present themselves in retrospective
view. . . . Not only did they, in protecting the rights of
some, break down the bulwarks of the citizen against
arbitrary authority, and by transgressing all
Constitutional limitations of power, endanger the
rights of all; not only did they awaken in the breasts of
many, however well disposed, the grave apprehension
that a government or a ruling party assuming so much
would stop at nothing, but such measures served
directly to sustain in power the very adventurers who
by their revolting system of plunder were violently
keeping alive the spirit of disorder which that
legislation was to repress.”
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Election of 1872
• Liberal Republicans “bolt” from Republicans (led by
Radicals), 1870-74
– Platform stresses return of local self-government and
“largest liberty consistent with public order”
• Fuse with “New Departure” Democrats
– Ostensibly concede basic policies of Reconstruction
– Focus on tax burdens and “clean government”
• Republican (U.S. Grant) v. Liberal Republican (Horace
Greeley)
– Grant wins, but Democrats “redeem” 7 of 11 former CSA
states by 1874
Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Framing concerns
Presidential reconstruction (review)
Radical reconstruction
The challenge of enforcement
Redemption
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Redemption: the 1876 election cycle
• Widespread political violence in remaining Republican states,
especially South Carolina and Mississippi
• Safe elections require
• President Grant to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames:
– “The whole public are tired out with these annual autumnal outbreaks
in the South, and the great majority are ready now to condemn any
interference on the part of the Government.”
“For Reform and Better Times! Democrats Doing Their Duty. First
Grand Rally of the Campaign,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (September
15, 1876)
“National Notes. The Congressional Committees in South Carolina
- Democrats Disgusted to Find a Fair Election,” Jamestown (NY)
Journal (December 29, 1876).
Compromise of 1877
• Presidential election of 1876 (R-Hayes; D-Tilden)
• Disputed outcome in Electoral College leads to constitutional
crisis
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Compromise of 1877
• Presidential election of 1876 (R-Hayes; D-Tilden)
• Disputed outcome in Electoral College leads to constitutional
crisis
• Backroom deal: southern Democrats concede contested
delegates (and White House) in exchange for
• The deal:
– Southern Democratic appointment to cabinet
– Promises of federal support for southern transcontinental railroad and
other aids for southern business
– Removal of last federal troops from southern states
• Effectively, de facto state of affairs in South affirmed at
national level
Thomas Nast, “Compromise-Indeed!,” Harper’s Weekly (January 27, 1877).
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Outline: Reconstruction and redemption
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Framing concerns
Presidential reconstruction (review)
Radical reconstruction
The challenge of enforcement
Redemption
Conclusions
Conclusion
• The Sectional Crisis (1848-1861), Civil War (1861-65) and
Reconstruction (1865-1877) resolved questions established at
the nation’s founding
• Union victory “positives”
– Slavery was dead
– The union was inviolable and the federal government supreme
• Union victory “negatives”
– Evisceration of black civil rights leads to their sub-citizenship
– Plantation zone becomes semi-autonomous within the union
Narrative of party politics
1. National parties in the Second Party System (1828-1854) operated to
suppress sectionally-divisive issues related to slavery
2. “Agitation” over slavery-related issues polarizes national politics; party
system reformulates along sectional lines (the Civil War Party System,
1854-1860)
3. This “breaks” the system (formal politics cannot resolve the sectional
controversy) when election of Lincoln leads to secession and war (18611865)
4. War suspends the normal operations of national party politics (though
muted party politics remain important in the Union)
5. With Union victory, slavery’s abolition, and national reunification there is a
return to the party system
6. It falls to extra-political dissent (insurgency) on issues of race, leaving oneparty rule in the South (1876-1932/48/64/present)
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Take-aways: What was it about?
• In seeking to vindicate the war and render its sacrifices
meaningful, Radical Reconstruction reconfigured federal-state
relations
– Defines national citizenship and makes federal government ultimate
guarantor
• Driven by political dialectic over the meaning of black
freedom between metropole and periphery
– White supremacists exploit desire to return to “normal” politics
– Republican efforts ultimately delimited by ideas of acceptable reach of
federal power
• Reconstruction fails; once again, traditional party politics
insufficient to resolve disputes without resource to violence
Take-aways: What did it mean?
• The war was not over
– No theory for prosecuting an asymmetrical insurgent war
– Ackerman: “Really these combinations amount to war and cannot be
effectively crushed on any other theory.”
– Concern for civil liberties and fears of “centralization”
– Insurgency raised the political costs of enforcement to unacceptable
levels
– Reconstruction thus constitutes the nation’s first failure to control a
terrorist insurgency
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