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Reconstruction
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RECONSTRUCTION,
period after the American Civil War during which the seceded states were restored
to normal relations with the Union.
Lincoln's 10 Percent Plan.
The question of how to reconstruct the Union emerged well before the Civil War
ended. President Abraham Lincoln wanted to begin the process of reconciliation
as Union armies occupied each seceded state. Lincoln initially administered the
affairs of the conquered Confederate states in an informal manner, but on Dec. 8,
1863, he announced a specific Reconstruction program. All southerners (except
high-ranking Confederate officials) could obtain a full pardon and restoration of
rights after taking an oath that pledged future loyalty to the Union and
acknowledged the end of slavery. When 10 percent of the 1860 voting population in
a given state had taken this oath, these citizens could vote in elections that would
create new state governments and new state constitutions. After a state
government had been formed and a constitution recognizing the end of slavery
ratified, that state would once again be eligible for representation in Congress and
Lincoln would consider the state fully readmitted to the Union.
Many northerners believed that the president's Reconstruction plan treated the
South too leniently. Others complained that Lincoln's program discriminated
against the freed men, because under it blacks could not take the loyalty oath,
vote, or hold office. Lincoln probably conceived of the 10 percent plan as a wartime
measure only, hoping that its lack of vindictiveness would shorten the war by
enticing the rebellious states back into the Union. After Confederate general
Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865, Lincoln hinted that he might announce a new
Reconstruction policy, but he was assassinated before he could do so.
Johnson's Reconstruction Policy.
Vice-President Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's
death. Throughout his political career, Johnson had been an outspoken foe of the
aristocracy of rich slaveholders who controlled southern politics before the war,
and this convinced northerners that he would deal harshly with the South. In most
respects, however, Johnson continued the policy initiated by Lincoln. Under
Johnson's Reconstruction plan, announced on May 29, 1865, the president would
appoint governors for each of the rebellious states. These governors would convene
constitutional conventions, and only those who took the loyalty oath prescribed by
Lincoln could vote for delegates to these conventions. High-ranking Confederate
officials and persons owning land worth $20,000 or more could vote only if they
were personally pardoned by the president. Once new state governments had
been so organized, Johnson would deem the states to have rejoined the Union.
The Black Codes.
Johnson predicted that under his program, the nation could complete the task of
Reconstruction in a matter of months. Instead, the perception that the president
was treating the South leniently dashed any hope for a speedy national
reconciliation. Despite protests from the North, Johnson allowed the governors he
selected to appoint prominent secessionists to office. He was also very liberal in
his pardoning policy, granting clemency to the most unrepentant rebels. In
northern eyes, however, the worst affront was the institution by the new southern
governments of the so-called Black Codes. These laws were meant to
circumscribe black economic options and thus force the freedmen to continue
working as plantation laborers. The codes imposed prohibitive taxes on freedmen
who tried to pursue nonagricultural occupations, restricted the blacks' ability to
rent land or own guns or dogs, instituted harsh vagrancy laws meant to intimidate
the freedmen, and created apprenticeship statutes that allowed children of “unfit“
parents to be bound out to their former masters in what was nothing less than a
continuation of slavery.
Streaming
Consequently, by the time Congress convened in December 1865, many
Republicans had concluded that Johnson's policy needed modification. A faction
known as the Radical Republicans argued that Congress should completely
overhaul the program. The Radicals believed that Reconstruction represented a
“golden moment“ during which they could swiftly institute far-reaching social and
economic changes in the South. Led by Senator Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts and Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, these
politicians sought to take control of Reconstruction from the president, and to use
a more powerful federal government to guarantee civil and political rights (including
the right to vote) for the freedmen. Stevens and others even advocated that the
government distribute land to the freedmen in order to ensure their economic
independence.
Moderate Republicans outnumbered the Radicals, however, and the moderates
believed that Johnson's program could succeed with only minor adjustments.
These modifications were embodied in two bills that received congressional
approval in early 1866. The bill concerning the FREEDMEN'S BUREAU, (q.v.)
extended the life of the agency that helped blacks make the transition from slavery
to freedom by providing economic assistance and legal protection, especially
against the Black Codes. Johnson, believing that the freedom deserved no such
special assistance, outraged most Republicans by vetoing this bill.
The president further angered Republicans by vetoing the moderates' second
proposal, the Civil Rights Bill. Even after the most outrageous portions of the Black
Codes had been repealed, the southern states continued to deny blacks equality
before the law by arguing that they were not citizens. The Civil Rights Bill, which
was passed in Congress with nearly unanimous Republican support in March
1866, attempted to redress this situation by defining all persons born in the U.S.
(except American Indians) as citizens. The bill went on to specify the rights of
citizens, including the right to sue; make contracts; give evidence in court; hold,
convey, and inherit property; and enjoy all “fundamental rights“ belonging to
whites. Finally, the bill allowed federal attorneys to bring suit against violators if
state courts refused to act. In his veto message, Johnson argued that the Civil
Rights Bill transferred too much power from the states to the federal government.
His message smacked of blatant racism, with its argument that guaranteeing
rights for blacks would result in discrimination against whites, and the claim that
miscegenation would increase if the bill became law.
Congressional Reconstruction.
Johnson's vetoes, along with the southern intransigence that had culminated in the
Black Codes, dramatically altered the northern conception of what Reconstruction
should accomplish. Moderates who had earlier rejected the Radicals' call for a farreaching, congressional directed Reconstruction policy, now embraced the idea as
the only way to bring about fair treatment for the freedmen in postwar society. This
coalition of moderates and Radicals commenced their attack on Johnson by
overriding his veto of the Civil Rights Bill, the first time in U.S. history that
Congress had overridden a presidential veto on a matter of significance. Congress
then defied Johnson by passing another Freedmen's Bureau Bill and overriding his
veto of that measure. Finally, fearing that when southerners returned to Congress
they would combine with northern Democrats to repeal these laws, Republicans in
Congress initiated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This measure
reiterated the citizenship provision of the Civil Rights Bill, and attempted to force
the South to enfranchise blacks by threatening to reduce southern congressional
representation if states denied them the right to vote. Johnson, who opposed the
amendment, made it the central issue of the 1866 congressional elections.
Reflecting how far to the left the nation had swung during his first 18 months in
office, those condemning Johnson's policies routed his supporters at the polls,
ensuring that the Radicals would control Congress by an even greater margin.
Buoyed by this public endorsement, Congress acted quickly to eliminate
Johnson's remaining power over Reconstruction. Passed over his veto, the
Reconstruction Acts of March 1867 divided all the Confederate states except
Tennessee into five military districts. Military commanders in the districts would
supervise new constitutional conventions for the rebellious states; only when these
bodies created new constitutions that included black suffrage and the permanent
disfranchisement of Confederate leaders, and ratified the 14th Amendment, would
these states be eligible for representation in Congress. Reluctantly, the southern
states established new governments that met these requirements. Johnson was
clearly powerless to prevent this Reconstruction policy from proceeding. When he
tried to defy Congress one last time by firing the secretary of war, Edwin M.
Stanton, Congress impeached the president. Though they disliked Johnson, many
in Congress believed that ousting the president would set a dangerous precedent;
as a result, his accusers failed to muster the two-thirds vote in the Senate needed
for conviction.
Congressional Reconstruction brought about a complete revolution in southern life
and society. The changes wrought were perhaps most dramatically felt in the
political arena. Blacks had significant political potential after gaining the right to
vote, especially in states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana,
where they made up a majority of the population. Initially, they played a relatively
small role in the Reconstruction governments, even in states where they
constituted a majority. The white Republicans who held most of the offices in
these early Reconstruction governments were Unionists from noncoastal regions
whose residents had long resented the political dominance of rich planters. A few
northerners who had migrated to the South after the war also played leading roles
in the governments (see CARPETBAGGERS,). Soon, however, blacks began
participating more actively in politics. By the end of Reconstruction, they had won
17 seats in Congress (15 in the House and 2 in the Senate), and an equal number
of important statewide offices; even so, with the possible exception of South
Carolina, blacks never achieved political power proportionate to their numbers.
Retreat from Reconstruction.
After the Reconstruction governments had been created, southern whites set to
work to destroy them. The tactic they found most effective was violence. Beginning
in 1868, the KU KLUX KLAN, (q.v.) and similar organizations terrorized southern
Republicans, especially blacks, in an effort to keep them from voting or
participating in political affairs. Although Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won the
1868 presidential election with the slogan “Let Us Have Peace,“ the violence
continued unabated. Grant and Congress tried various means to curb the Klan, but
found it nearly impossible to prevent bloodshed. Only a massive military presence
in the South could have suppressed the Klan, but by this time northerners were
becoming increasingly unwilling to provide such a force, hoping now to put the
sectional conflict behind them. In 1869 Congress initiated the 15th Amendment to
the Constitution, which attempted to guarantee the continuation of black suffrage
by outlawing the denial of voting rights on the grounds of race, but the defeat of a
version with fewer loopholes provided additional proof that the influence of the
Radicals was waning.
As violence continued to drive both black and white Republicans from the polls,
Democrats regained control of the southern governments (a process they called
“redemption“), although Democratic success also resulted partly from a revolt
against the higher taxes imposed by the ambitious Republican governments. By
mid-1876 Republicans maintained control only in South Carolina, Florida, and
Louisiana, but the presidential contest of that year helped end Republican power in
those states as well. When the election results were contested, a tacit
compromise was arranged: Democrats would allow the Republican candidate
Rutherford B. Hayes to assume the presidency, and in return Republicans would
not challenge Democratic victories in those three states, despite the wholesale
violence that had contributed to them.
With this so-called Compromise of 1877, Reconstruction came to an end. Nearly a
century would pass before southern blacks regained the civil and political rights
that they had briefly enjoyed during that tumultuous era.
See also AFRICAN-AMERICANS,; CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES,; CIVIL
WAR, AMERICAN,.
For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, section 1157.
Reconstruction.
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Reconstruction was the period after the American Civil War during which the
seceded states were restored to normal relations with the Union.
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Reconstruction Funk & Wagnalls, 2005 . Encyclopedia Article.
Discovery Education. Web. 25 October
2013. <http://www.discoveryeducation.com/>.
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Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls
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Funk & Wagnalls, (2005). Reconstruction. [Encyclopedia Article].
Available from http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
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Funk & Wagnalls. Reconstruction From Discovery Education.
Encyclopedia Article. 2005 . http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
(accessed 25 October 2013).
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