Download Reconstruction- A Summary

U.S. History
Mr. Mintzes
RECONSTRUCTION: A SUMMARY
General: Reconstruction for all practical purposes took place entirely within the South. The
North honored and mourned its dead, took care of widows and orphans and then got back down
to work building railroads, factories, businesses, settling the west, fighting the Indian wars and
finding room for the 25 million immigrants who came to the United States between 1865 and
1910. One significant aspect of the war on the North was the fighting experience of the
thousands of soldiers who became laborers in the growing industries and often used the same
tactics against their bosses.
For most of the modern era the process of ending wars involved representatives of the warring
nations sitting down at a table and arranging some sort of peace. Depending on the duration, the
intensity and the issues over which the war was fought, peace settlements could range from harsh
to generous. An unspoken but generally understood assumption was that the warring parties
would be likely to meet on the battlefield again, with the results quite possibly reversed, and thus
over-harsh settlements were rare.
Such a resolution was impossible following the American Civil War for the simple reason that
the two warring parties—the Union and the Confederacy—were not held to be equal because the
war had been fought over the Confederacy’s right to exist as a separate nation. The Union
victory in effect ended the Confederacy’s claim to political independence, and thus from the
Union perspective there was no other party with whom to negotiate a peace settlement. That
meant that it was up to the federal government to decide exactly how the defeated Confederate
states were to be treated.
The South: After the Civil War, the South faced a difficult period of rebuilding its government
and economy and of dealing with over 3 million newly freed African Americans. The tragedy of
Reconstruction was that blacks and whites who tried to form a more egalitarian society in the
South lacked the means to achieve their aims.
Condition of the Former Slaves: Many slaves who had been restricted all their lives had no
"where" to go—although they were elated to be free: the great day of jubilation, it was called—
but this new state of freedom also caused confusion. Some stayed on old plantations, others
wandered off in search of lost family. Many slave owners were glad to get rid of "burdensome
slaves" and threw them out "just like Yankee capitalists." Some celebrated their freedom openly,
others, less trusting, approached their new status with caution. As they quickly learned, there
was more to being free than just not being owned as a slave. When asked how it felt to be free
by a member of an investigating committee, one former slave said, "I don’t know." When
challenged to explain himself, he said, "I’ll be free when I can do anything a white man can do."
One does not have to be a historian to know that degree of freedom was a long time coming.
The Meaning of Freedom: For African Americans, the most important single result of War was
freedom—"the great watershed of their lives." Pertinent phrases include: "I feel like a bird out of
a cage ... Amen ... Amen ... Amen!" Freedom came "like a blaze of glory." "Freedom burned in
the heart long before freedom was born." The search for lost families was "awe inspiring." Some
whites claimed that Blacks did not understand freedom and were to be "pitied." But Blacks had
observed a free society, and they knew it meant an end to injustices against slaves.
Blacks in the South also had a workable society—church, family and later schools. A Black
culture already existed, and could be adapted, with difficulty, to be sure, to new conditions of
freedom. Blacks also took quickly to politics. As one author has put it, they watched the way
their former masters voted and then did the opposite. Remarkably, Southern Blacks exhibited
little overt resentment against their former masters, and many adopted a conciliatory attitude.
When they got into the legislatures they did not push hard for reform because they recognized
the reality of white power.
Southern Attitudes: Many Southerners were enraged at the outcome of the war. Having
suffered and bled and died to get out of the Union, they now found themselves back in it. A
woman in Richmond wrote in her diary after the hated Yankees raised the American flag over
the former Confederate capitol, “I once loved that flag, but now I hate the very sight of it!”
Southerners recognized that they had to bow to the results of their loss, but did so with
underlying hatred. Much ill feeling toward the North existed among the people who had stayed at
home, especially in areas invaded by Sherman and others: wives, widows, orphans and those
who had endured incredible hardships were particularly horrified to be back under federal
control, ruled by their former enemies.
Many Southern whites, having convinced themselves in the prewar years that Blacks were
incapable of running their own lives, were also unable to understand what freedom meant to
Blacks. As one former slave expressed it, “Bottom rung on top now, Boss.” Many whites were
still convinced slavery had been right. In a migration reminiscent of the departure of loyalists
after the Revolution, many southerners took their slaves and went to Brazil, where the institution
still flourished. Others went west to get as far away from “those damn Yankees” as they could.
Northern Attitudes: In the North, with the exception of thousands of shattered families, many
with wounded veterans back in their midst, there was little to reconstruct, since most of the
fighting was in the South. Northerners buried their dead, cared for the wounded and did their best
to get on with their lives. Although it is safe to say that the majority of Northerners were happy
to see slavery gone, if for no other reason than the fact that the divisiveness of the issue had
poisoned the political scene for decades, it cannot be assumed that the attitudes of all Northerners
were friendly to the full incorporation of blacks into the national fabric. On the other hand, most
Northerners did expect the South to accept the verdict of the war and to do whatever would be
necessary to reconcile itself to the end of that “peculiar institution” of slavery.
Northerners felt little vindictiveness toward their southern brethren, but they lacked a sense of
patience. The punishment of the South was very mild by comparison with other lost rebellions:
Only one man was hanged, and there were few jail sentences for what many considered outright
treason. No one was fined and there was no confiscation of property. But the South did have to
accept certain things: the end of secession doctrine; the end of slavery; and the end of control of
the South by the old southern aristocracy, to be replaced for a time by northern control.
Most Northerners generally did not want “special” treatment of Blacks. At least one writer has
claimed that there was little of the misery, hatred and repression by which the South has been
characterized, and that most of the South was peaceful and happy after the war. Northerners were
obviously far less concerned with Reconstruction than Southerners, but many northerners were
not happy about prospects of millions of Blacks invading the job market and perhaps
jeopardizing their economic security. Most white northerners wished Blacks well, but weren’t
willing to do much to help them; yet many teachers, including women from New England, went
South to help Blacks. These northerners included the so-called “carpetbaggers,” who were
infamous in their time (and after) but who, according to recent studies, did much good as well.
Other Issues: Reconstruction was also part of the ongoing struggle over political power in the
United States. An entire party—the Whigs—came into existence over this issue in the Jackson
era, and a very powerful president had just been killed. The Radical Republicans included many
old Whigs. Some felt a need to move toward a parliamentary system in order to reduce the power
of the president, similar to what was going on with the monarchy in England at the time. (The
crucial difference, of course, is that the U.S. president is elected.)
Constitutional Silence: In the absence of constitutional guidelines, the president and Congress
waged a bitter fight over how best to reconstruct the Union. The North was split on the question
of reconstructing the South. Some Northerners, led by the White House, wanted speedy
Reconstruction with a minimum of changes in the South. Other Northerners, led by Congress,
wanted a slower Reconstruction and demanded that the freed African-Americans be protected. In
fact the struggle between Congress and the President went outside the context of Reconstruction
and became a fight in its own right leading to the impeachment of Johnson in 1868.
Reconstruction was a complicated legal and political issue: What was the legal status of the
former Confederacy? Were the rebellious states still in the Union? Lincoln encouraged states to
rejoin the Union under liberal terms without increasing resistance in states still fighting.
Reconstruction actually began before war started with the Crittenden Committee and attempts at
compromise, but those attempts were bound to fail, given the mood in 1861. The Supreme Court
eventually decided in 1869 (Texas v. White) that secession was unconstitutional, but that
Congress could still dictate the terms under which the seceded states could rejoin the Union
because of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.
Reconstruction: Lincoln’s View
President Lincoln had actually tried to start the reconstruction process before the Civil War
ended. In 1863 Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which stated that
states where 10% of the 1860 electorate would take an oath of loyalty to the Union and agree to
emancipation might be readmitted. Congress refused to recognize Lincoln's plan and countered
with the Wade-Davis Bill, a much harsher approach, which Lincoln vetoed. But Lincoln did not
back off from his intention to treat the South generously. In his famous Second Inaugural
Address, which is inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, he closed with
the words:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan...to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Following Lee’s surrender at Appomattox President Lincoln again outlined a generous plan for
reconstruction. Sadly, the President did not live to see his ideas realized. On April 14, 1865,
Lincoln went to Ford’s theater to attend to play with his wife. John Wilkes Booth, a Virginia
actor enraged by the South’s defeat, made his way to the presidential box and shot the president
in the head. Lincoln was carried across the street and placed in a bedroom where he died the
next morning. Lincoln’s assassination dealt a fatal blow to hopes for a more successful
reconstruction effort than what actually occurred. His death also put the North in bad mood about
the South, and wiped out much potential sympathy. Winston Churchill later wrote that the bullet
that killed Lincoln did “more damage than all the Confederate cannonade put together.” Lincoln
had been seen by many as a messiah, especially with his death coming on Good Friday, and even
a few Southerners realized they had lost a friend.
Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's death. He
apparently intended to carry out Lincoln's generous reconstruction policies, but as a Southerner
who had remained loyal to the north, his motivations were quite different from those of Lincoln.
Powerful Republican Congressmen visited with Johnson to assess his attitudes toward the
defeated South, and initially, at least, came away satisfied that Johnson was on the right track.
That assessment, however, would soon change radically.
Radical Reconstruction: The Republican radicals (ultra-liberals) in Congress had very different
ideas about Reconstruction. They thought Lincoln was "too soft" on the South, and wanted to
“revolutionize Southern habits, institutions and manners”; they wanted to see the South rebuilt
according to a new order. Northern Republican newspapers such as the New York Tribune
agreed. Radical believed that the South should be treated as "conquered provinces, and that the
rebel states had committed "political suicide." They claimed that no state governments could
exist in the South until Congress restored them under any conditions it deemed necessary.
The Radicals: The radical Republicans, the liberal wing of the Republican Party, were idealists,
many of then driven by an almost religious fervor. They did not accept the commonly held
notion that Blacks were inferior and insisted on full political, social and civil rights for the
former slaves. In this sense they were true reformers, in many ways far ahead of their time. After
Lincoln’s death they held hearings on condition in the South which revealed widespread
mistreatment of blacks in South. [See the "Black Codes" and other documents]. The
Congressional moderates had more modest goals—to protect Blacks but not to grant them full
equality or any special favors. Johnson’s reaction to Congressional initiatives, however,
eventually drove many moderates into the radical camp.
The Physical Reconstruction of the South: Much of the South was physically devastated and
demoralized after the war. The former plantation owners still had their land but had lost much if
not all of their capital. The former slaves comprised a large and experienced labor force but had
neither land nor capital. Many former slaves believed in the precedent set by general Sherman
that the federal government was going to supply them with "Forty Acres and a Mule." Sherman,
however, had exceeded his authority, and the Constitution inhibited the ability of the government
to claim land "without due process of law." Some sort of system of production had to be worked
out, and what evolved was a combination of various plans that on the surface seemed reasonable:
sharecropping, tenant farming and the crop lien system. Each system had as its basis a bargain
among laborers, those who had land and those who owned or controlled capital. Each system
was potentially beneficial to all parties, but each also contained the possibility of exploitation
and fraud, as was shown in practice. Even poor whites became sharecroppers or tenant farmers,
so there was nothing inherently discriminatory in any approach. In fact, by 1880 a significant
portion of the former slaves had become landowners, and despite exploitation and abuses, they
system brought a moderate amount of cooperative self-reliance to the parties involved. (See also
the Black Codes.)
The South also needed capital to rebuild railroads and make other internal improvements, and
those needs generated a reawakening of the South in the post-Civil War years that slowly
brought new prosperity to the region. It was hard won, however, and many of the losses suffered
by the Confederacy were never regained. The economic ups and downs of the industrial era often
hit the South especially hard.