Chapter 22

The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877

I. The Problems of Peace

• Jefferson Davis:
• Temporarily clapped into irons during early days of two-year imprisonment
• He and fellow “conspirators” finally released
• All rebel leaders pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1868
• Congress removed all remaining civil disabilities some thirty yeas later

I. The Problem of Peace�(cont.)

• Congress posthumously restored Davis's citizenship more than a century later.
• Conditions of South:
• Old South collapsed economically and socially
• Handsome cities, Charleston and Richmond, now rubble-strewn and weed-choked
• Economic life creaked to a halt
• Banks and businesses locked doors, ruined by runaway inflation
• Factories smokeless, silent, dismantled

I. Problems of Peace�(cont.)

• Transportation broken down completely
• Agriculture—economic lifeblood of South—almost completely crippled
• Slave labor system collapsed
• Not until 1870 would cotton production be at pre-war levels
• Princely planter aristocrats humbled by losses
• Investment of more than $2 billion in slaves evaporated with emancipation

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I. Problems of Peace�(cont.)

• Beaten but unbent, many white Southerners remained dangerously defiant:
• Continued to believe their view of secession correct and “lost cause” a just war
• Such attitudes boded ill for prospects of painlessly binding up Republic's wounds

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II. Freedmen Define Freedom

• What was precise meaning of “freedom” for blacks:
• Responses to emancipation--
• Many masters resisted freeing their slaves
• Some slaves'pent-up bitterness burst forth violently
• Eventually all masters forced to recognize their slaves'permanent freedom
• Some blacks initially responded with suspicion

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II. Freedman Define Freedom�(cont.)

• Many took new names and demanded former masters address them as “Mr.” or “Mrs.”
• Whites forced to recognize realities of emancipation
• Thousands took to roads, some to test their freedom
• Other searched for long-lost spouses, parents, and children
• Emancipation strengthened black family
• Many newly freed men and women formalized “slave marriages” for personal and pragmatic reasons, including desire to make their children legal heirs

II. Freedman Define Freedom�(cont.)

• Others left to work in towns where existing black communities provided protection and mutual assistance
• Whole communities moved in search of opportunities
• 25,000 “Exodusters” went to Kansas
• Church became focus of black communities
• Formed their own churches pastored by their own ministers

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II. Freedman Define Freedom�(cont.)

• Black churches grew robustly
• Formed bedrock of black community life
• Gave rise to other benevolent, fraternal, and mutual aid societies
• All these organizations helped blacks protect their newly won freedom
• Emancipation meant education for many blacks:
• Freedmen raised funds to purchase land, build schoolhouses, and hire teachers—all proof of their independence

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II. Freedman Define Freedom�(cont.)

• Southern blacks soon found:
• Demand outstripped supply of qualified black teachers
• Accepted aid of Northern white women sent by American Missionary Association to volunteer as teachers
• Also turned to federal government for help
• Freed blacks were going to need all the friends—and power—they could muster in Washington

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III. The Freedmen's Bureau

• Freedmen's Bureau created March 3, 1865:
• A primitive welfare agency
• Provided food, clothing, medical care, and education both to freedmen and white refugees
• Headed by Union General Oliver Howard, who later founded Howard University in Washington, D.C.
• Bureau achieved its greatest successes in education:
• Taught 200,000 blacks to read
• In other areas, bureau's achievements were meager

III. The Freedmen's Bureau�(cont.)

• Suppose to settle former slaves on forty-acre tracts confiscated from Confederates:
• Little land made it to former slaves
• Administrators collaborated with planters in expelling blacks from towns and cajoling them into signing labor contracts to work for former masters
• White Southerners resented bureau as federal interloper that threatened to upset white racial dominance
• President Johnson repeatedly tried to kill bureau

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IV. Johnson: The Tailor President

• What manner of man was Andrew Johnson?
• Reached White House from very humble beginnings
• Born to impoverished parents, orphaned early, never attended school but apprenticed to a tailor at ten
• Taught himself to read; later his wife taught him to write and do simple arithmetic
• Became active in Tennessee politics
• Impassioned champion of poor whites against planter aristocrats

IV. Johnson: The Tailor President�(cont.)

• Excelled as a stump speaker
• Elected to Congress, he attracted favorable attention in North (but not South) when he refused to secede with Tennessee
• After Tennessee partially “redeemed” by Union armies, appointed war governor and served courageously in a dangerous job
• Politics next thrust Johnson into vice presidency
• Lincoln's Union party in 1864 needed a person who could attract War Democrats

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IV. Johnson: The Tailor President�(cont.)

• “Old Andy” a man of unpolished parts:
• Intelligent, able, forceful, honest
• Steadfastly devoted to duty and to the people
• Dogmatic champion of states'rights and the Constitution
• Yet he was also a misfit
• A Southerner who did not understand North
• A Tennessean, distrusted by South
• A Democrat never accepted by Republicans
• Hot-headed, contentious, stubborn
• Wrong man in wrong place at wrong time
• A Reconstruction policy devised by angels might well have failed in his tactless hands

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V. Presidential Reconstruction

• War over Reconstruction:
• Lincoln believed Southern states never legally withdrew from Union
• His “10 percent” Reconstruction plan (1863):
• State could be reintegrated into Union when 10% of its voters in presidential election of 1860 swore allegiance
• And pledged to abide by emancipation
• Next step would be formal erection of state government
• Lincoln would then recognize purified regime

V. Presidential Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Lincoln's plan provoked sharp reaction in Congress where Republicans feared:
• Restoration of planter aristocracy
• Possible re-enslavement of blacks
• Republican rammed through Congress 1864:
• Wade-Davis Bill:
• Required 50% of state's voters take oath of allegiance
• Demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation than Lincoln's as price of readmission to Union
• Lincoln “pocket-vetoed” bill

V. Presidential Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Controversy over Wade-Davis revealed:
• Deep differences between president and Congress
• Congress insisted seceders left Union and “committed suicide” as republican states
• Thus forfeited their rights
• Could be readmitted only as “conquered provinces” on such conditions as Congress should decree
• Majority moderate group:
• Agreed with Lincoln—seceded states should be restored as simply and swiftly as reasonable—though on Congress's terms, not president's

V. Presidential Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Minority radical group:
• Believed South should atone more for its sins
• Wanted social structure uprooted, planters punished, newly emancipated blacks protected by federal powers
• Andrew Johnson:
• Agreed with Lincoln—seceded states never left Union
• Quickly recognized several of Lincoln's 10% governments

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V. Presidential Reconstruction�(cont.)

• May 29, 1865 issued his Reconstruction proclamation (see Table 22.1):
• Disfranchised certain leading Confederates:
• including those with taxable property worth more than $20,000
• though they might petition him for personal pardons
• Called for special state conventions to:
• Repeal ordinances of secession
• Repudiate all Confederate debts
• Ratify slave-freeing Thirteenth Amendment
• States that complied would be swiftly readmitted to Union

Table 22-1 p471

V. Presidential Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Johnson granted pardons in abundance
• Bolstered by political resurrection of planter elite, recently rebellious states moved rapidly to organize governments in 1865
• As pattern of new governments became clear, Republicans of all stripes grew furious

VI. The Baleful Black Codes

• Black Codes:
• Regulated activities of emancipated blacks:
• Mississippi, first to pass such laws in November, 1865
• Varied in severity from state to state:
• Mississippi's the harshest; Georgia's the most lenient
• Their aims:
• Ensure stable and subservient labor force
• Whites wanted to retain tight control they exercised in days of slavery

VI. The Baleful Black Codes�(cont.)

• Dire penalties on blacks who “jumped” labor contracts:
• Committed them to work for same employer for 1 year
• Generally at pittance wages
• Violators could be made to forfeit back wages or could be dragged back to work by a “Negro-catcher”
• In Mississippi captured freedmen could be fined
• Then hired out to pay fines
• Arrangement closely resembled slavery

VI. The Baneful Black Codes�(cont.)

• Tried to restore pre-emancipation system of race relations:
• All codes forbade a black to serve on a jury
• Some even barred blacks from renting or leasing land
• Blacks could be punished for “idleness” by working on a chain gang
• Nowhere were blacks allowed to vote
• Oppressive laws mocked ideal of freedom
• Imposed burdens on former slaves struggling against mistreatment and poverty

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VI. The Baneful Black Codes�(cont.)

• Worst features of Black Codes eventually repealed
• Revocation not lift liberated blacks into economic independence:
• Lacking capital, many former slaves slipped into status of sharecropper, as did many landless whites
• Sharecroppers fell into morass of virtual peonage
• Many became slaves to soil and creditors
• Dethroned planter aristocracy resented even this pitiful concession to freedom
• Black Codes made ugly impression on North

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VII. Congressional Reconstruction

• Congress met in December, 1865:
• New Southern delegations presented themselves:
• Many were former Confederate leaders
• Four former Confederate generals, five colonels, and various members of Richmond cabinet and Congress
• Worst of all, Alexander Stephens, ex-vice president, still under indictment for treason, there
• “Whitewashed rebels” infuriated Republicans in Congress

VII. Congressional Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Also during war, Republicans able to pass legislation favorable to North:
• Morrill Tariff, Pacific Railroad Act, Homestead Act
• On first day of congressional session, Dec. 4, 1865, they shut door on newly elected Southerners
• Realized restored South would be stronger than ever in national politics
• With full counting of blacks because of end of 3/5 clause for representation, rebel states entitled to 12 more votes in Congress
• 12 more electoral votes in presidential elections

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VII. Congressional Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Republicans had good reason to fear:
• Southerners might join with Northern Democrats and gain control of Congress and maybe White House
• Could then perpetuate Black Codes
• Dismantle economic programs of Republican Party by:
• Lowering tariffs
• Rerouting transcontinental railroad
• Repealing free-farm Homestead Act
• Even repudiating national debt

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VII. Congressional Reconstruction�(cont.)

• Johnson deeply disturbed congressional Republicans when he announced on December 6, 1865 that:
• Rebellious states had satisfied his conditions
• In his view, Union restored

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VIII. Johnson Clashes with Congress

• Clash exploded in February 1866:
• President vetoed bill extending life of Freedmen's Bureau (later repassed)
• Republicans passed Civil Rights Bill:
• Conferred on blacks privilege of American citizenship
• Struck at Black Codes
• Vetoed by Johnson
• In April, congressmen steamrollered over his veto—something repeatedly done

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VIII. Johnson Clashes with Congress (cont.)

• Lawmakers riveted principles of Civil Rights Bill into Fourteenth Amendment:
• Approved by Congress and sent to states-1866
• Ratified-1868
• Sweeping amendment; major pillar of constitutional law:
• Conferred civil rights, including citizenship but excluding franchise, on freedmen
• Reduced proportionately representation of a state in Congress and Electoral College if it denied blacks the ballot

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VIII. Johnson Clashes with Congress (cont.)

• Disqualified from federal and state office, former Confederates who as federal officeholders had once sworn “to support the Constitution of the United States”
• Guaranteed federal debt, while repudiating Confederate debt (see text of Fourteenth Amendment in Appendix)
• Radical faction disappointed Fourteenth Amendment not grant right to vote.
• All Republicans agreed no state should be readmitted into Union without first ratifying Fourteenth Amendment.
• Johnson advised Southern states to reject it.
• All did but Tennessee.

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IX. Swinging 'Round the Circle �with Johnson

• Battle between Johnson and Congress:
• “10 percent” governments passed Black Codes
• In response, Congress extended Freedmen's Bureau and passed Civil Right Bill
• Johnson vetoed both measures
• Would South accept principles enshrined in Fourteenth Amendment?
• Republicans would settle for nothing less

IX. Swinging 'Round the Circle with Johnson (cont.)

• Crucial congressional elections of 1866—
• Johnson's famous “swing 'round the circle” (1866) = a comedy of errors
• Delivered series of “give 'em hell” speeches
• As vote getter, he was highly successful —for opposition
• His inept speechmaking heightened cry “Stand by Congress” against “Tailor of the Potomac”
• When votes counted, Republicans had more than a two-third majority in both houses of Congress

X. Republican Principles and Programs

• Republicans had veto-proof Congress and unlimited control of Reconstruction policy
• Radicals:
• In Senate, led by courtly and principled idealist Charles Sumner:
• Labored tirelessly for black freedom and racial equality
• In House, most powerful was Thaddeus Stevens
• Had defended runaway slaves in court without fees
• Insisted on being buried in a black cemetery
• Devoted to blacks; hated rebellious white Southerners
• Leading figure on Joint Committee on Reconstruction

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X. Republican Principles and Programs (cont.)

• Radicals opposed rapid restoration of Southern states:
• Wanted to keep them out as long as possible
• Apply federal power to bring about drastic social and economic transformation in South
• Moderate Republicans:
• Invoked principles of states'rights and self-government
• Recoiled from full implications of radical program
• Preferred policies that restrained states from abridging citizens'rights
• Rather than policies that directly involved federal government in individual lives

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X. Republican Principles and Programs (cont.)

• Policies adopted by Congress showed influence of both groups
• By 1867 both agreed on necessity to enfranchise black votes, even if it took federal troops to do so
• By 1866, bloody race riots in several Southern cities

XI. Reconstruction by the Sword

• Reconstruction Act passed by Congress on March 2, 1867 (see Map 22.1)
• Divided South into five military districts:
• Each commanded by a Union general
• Policed by about 20,000 blue-clad soldiers
• Temporarily disfranchised ten of thousands of former Confederates
• Congress laid stringent condition for readmission:
• Required to ratify 14^th Amendment giving former slaves rights as citizens

Map 22-1 p476

XI. Reconstruction by the Sword�(cont.)

• Bitterest pill--stipulation that they guarantee in state constitutions full suffrage to former adult male slaves
• Stopped short of giving freedmen land or education at federal expense
• Overriding purpose of moderates:
• Create electorate in South that would vote their states back into Union on acceptable terms
• Thus freeing government from direct responsibility for protection of black rights
• Approach proved woefully inadequate to cause of justice for blacks

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XI. Reconstruction by the Sword�(cont.)

• Radical Republicans:
• Only true safeguard was to incorporate black suffrage into federal Constitution
• Congress sought to provide constitutional protection for suffrage provisions of Reconstruction Act
• Fifteenth Amendment, passed by Congress 1869; ratified by required number of states in 1870 (see Appendix)
• Military Reconstruction of South:
• Usurped some presidential functions as commander in chief
• Set up a martial regime of dubious legality

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XI. Reconstruction by the Sword�(cont.)

• Ex parte Milligan (1866) ruled:
• Military tribunals could not try civilians, even during wartime in areas where civil courts were open
• Peacetime military rule seemed contrary to spirit of Constitution, but circumstances were extraordinary
• Southern states:
• Started task of constitution making
• By 1870, all of them had reorganized governments
• And were accorded full rights (see Table 22.2)

Table 22-2 p477

XI. Reconstruction by the Sword�(cont.)

• When federal troops left a state, its government swiftly passed back into hands of white Redeemers or “Home Rule” regimes—inevitably Democratic
• In 1877, last federal muskets removed from state politics and “solid” Democratic South congealed

XII. No Women Voters

• Struggle for black freedom and crusade for women's rights were one and the same to many women
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony:
• During war temporarily shelved their own demands
• Worked wholeheartedly for cause of black emancipation
• Woman's Loyal League gathered 400,000 signatures on petitions asking Congress to pass constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery

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XII. No Women Voters�(cont.)

• With war over and 13^th Amendment passed, feminist leaders believed their time had come
• Reeled with shock when wording of Fourteenth Amendment which defined equal citizenship:
• Inserted word male into Constitution in referring to a citizen's right to vote
• Both Stanton and Anthony campaigned against Fourteenth Amendment
• Despite pleas from Frederick Douglass, who supported woman suffrage, but believed this was “Negro's hour”

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XII. No Women Voters�(cont.)

• When 15^th Amendment proposed to prohibit denial of vote on basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” Stanton and Anthony wanted word sex added to list
• Lost this battle, too
• Fifty years would pass before Constitution granted women right to vote

XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in the South

• Congress, haltingly and belatedly, secured franchise for freedmen:
• Lincoln and Johnson had proposed to give ballot gradually to blacks who qualified for it through:
• Education, property ownership, or military service
• Moderates and many radicals at first hesitated to bestow suffrage on freedman

XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• 14^th Amendment heart of Republican program for Reconstruction:
• Fell short of guaranteeing right to vote
• Envisioned for blacks and women—citizenship without voting rights
• Northern states withheld ballot from their tiny black minorities
• Southerners argued Republicans were hypocritical in insisting Blacks in South be allowed to vote

�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• Union League:
• Black men seized initiative to organize politically:
• Freedmen turned League into network of political clubs
• Mission included building black churches and schools
• Representing black grievances before local employers and government
• Recruiting militias to protect black communities from white retaliation

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�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• African American women's roles:
• Did not obtain right to vote
• Attended parades and rallies common in black communities
• Helped assemble mass meetings in new black churches
• Showed up at constitutional conventions, monitoring proceedings and participating in informal votes outside convention halls

�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• African American men's roles:
• Some elected as delegates to state constitutional convention:
• Formed backbone of black political communities
• At conventions, sat down with whites to hammer out new state constitutions that provided for universal male suffrage
• Even though no governors or majorities in state senates, black power increased exponentially

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�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• Former masters lashed out at freedmen's white allies with terms Scalawags and carpetbaggers:
• Scalawags—Southerners, former Unionists and Whigs
• Carpetbaggers—supposedly sleazy Northerners who packed all their goods into carpetbag suitcase at war's end and had come to seek personal power and profit
• Most were Northern businessmen and former Union soldiers who wanted to play role in modernizing “New South”

�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• Radical regimes (legislatures) passed much desirable legislation:
• Steps toward establishing adequate public schools
• Streamlined tax systems
• Launched public works
• Granted property rights to women
• Reforms retained by all-white “Redeemer” government that later returned to power

�XIII. The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in South (cont.)

• Despite achievements, corruption rampant:
• Especially in South Carolina and Louisiana
• Conscienceless pocket-padders used inexperienced blacks as pawns
• Worst “black-and-white” legislatures purchased:
• As “legislative supplies,” such “stationery” as hams, perfumes, suspenders, bonnets, corsets, and champagne
• Corruption by no means confined to South in postwar years

XIV. The Ku Klux Klan

• Deeply embittered, some Southern whites resorted to savage measures against “radical” rule
• Resented successful black legislators
• Secret organizations mushroomed
• Most notorious—“Invisible Empire of the South”:
• Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee in 1866
• Used fright, tomfoolery, and terror against “upstart” Blacks
• “Upstarts” flogged, mutilated, and murdered
• Klan became refuge for bandits and cutthroats
• Any scoundrel could don a sheet

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XIV. The Ku Klux Klan (cont.)

• Force Acts (1870-1871) used U.S. troops to stamp out “lash law”
• White resistance:
• Undermined attempts to empower blacks politically
• White South flouted 14^th and 15^th Amendments
• Wholesale disfranchisement of blacks in 1890s:
• Used intimidation, fraud, and trickery
• Literacy tests, unfairly administered by whites to advantage illiterate whites
• Whites used goal of white supremacy to justify such devices

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XV. Johnson Walks the �Impeachment Plank

• Radicals attempted to remove Johnson from office:
• Initial step—Tenure of Office Act (1867)—
• Passed over Johnson's veto
• Required president get consent of Senate before he could oust an appointee once they had been approved
• One goal was to freeze into cabinet Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a holdover from Lincoln's administration
• Who secretly served as informer for radicals

XV. Johnson Walks the Impeachment Plank (cont.)

• Johnson abruptly dismissed Stanton, early 1868
• House voted 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson:
• For “high crimes and misdemeanors” as required by Constitution
• Charged him with violations of Tenure of Office Act
• Two additional articles related to Johnson's verbal assaults on Congress
• Involved “disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, reproach”

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XVI. A Not-Guilty Verdict for Johnson

• Johnson's trial before Senate:
• House conducted prosecution:
• Johnson kept his dignity and maintained discreet silence
• His attorneys argued president was testing constitutionality of Tenure of Office Act by firing Stanton
• House prosecutors had hard time building compelling case for impeachment
• May 16, 1868, by a margin of one vote, radicals failed to muster two-thirds majority to remove Johnson
• Seven moderate Republicans senators voted “not guilty”

XVI. A Not-Guilty Verdict for Johnson (cont.)

• Several factors shaped outcome:
• Fears of creating destabilizing precedent
• Principled opposition to abusing constitutional mechanism of checks and balances
• Political considerations:
• Successor would have been radical Republican Benjamin Wade, president pro tempore of Senate
• Wade disliked by business community for his high-tariff, soft-money, pro-labor views
• Distrusted by moderate Republicans

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XVI. A Not-Guilty Verdict for Johnson (cont.)

• Diehard radicals infuriated by failure to remove Johnson
• Nation avoided dangerous precedent that would have gravely weakened one of three branches of federal government

XVII. The Purchase of Alaska

• Johnson's administration:
• Though enfeebled at home, achieved its most enduring success in foreign relations
• Russians wanted to sell Alaska
• In case of war with Britain, Russia would have lost it to sea-dominant British
• Alaska had been ruthlessly “furred out” and was a growing economic liability
• Russians eager to unload “frozen asset”
• Preferred purchase by U.S.A. because wanted to strengthen U.S.A. as barrier against Britain

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XVII. The Purchase of Alaska�(cont.)

• 1867 Secretary of State William Seward, an ardent expansionist, signed treaty with Russia:
• Transferred Alaska to United States for bargain price of $7.2 million (see Map 22.2)
• Steward's enthusiasm not shared by his uninformed countrymen, who called it Seward's Folly, “Seward's icebox,” “Frigidia,” and “Walrussian”

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Map 22-2 p482

XVII. The Purchase of Alaska�(cont.)

• Why did United States purchase Alaska?
• Russia alone among major powers had been friendly to North during recent Civil War
• America did not want to offend their friend, the tsar
• Territory had furs, fish, gold, and other natural resources
• So Congress accepted “Seward's Polar Bear Garden”

XVIII. The Heritage of Reconstruction

• White Southerners regarded Reconstruction as more grievous wound than the war itself:
• Left scars that took generations to heal
• Resented upending of social and racial system
• Resented political empowerment of blacks and insult of federal intervention in their affairs
• A wonder, given all the bitterness from war, that Reconstruction not far harsher than it was

XVIII. The Heritage of Reconstruction (cont.)

• No one knew at war's end what federal policy toward South should be
• Republicans acted from mixture of idealism and political expediency:
• Wanted to protect freed slaves
• Promote fortunes of Republican party
• In end, efforts backfired badly
• Reconstruction:
• Conferred only fleeting benefits on blacks
• Destroyed Republican Party in South for nearly 100 years

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XVIII. The Heritage of Reconstruction (cont.)

• Moderate Republicans never fully appreciated:
• Extensive effort needed to make freed slaves completely independent citizens
• Lengths to which Southern whites would go to preserve system of racial dominance
• Despite good intentions by Republicans, Old South more resurrected than reconstructed:
• Spelled continuing woe for generations of southern blacks

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