Reconstruction is the period from 1863 to 1877, when the government of the United States attempted to resolve the issues of the American Civil War (1861-1865), after the Confederacy was defeated and slavery ended. Reconstruction addressed how secessionist Southern states would return to the Union, the civil status of the leaders of the Confederacy, and the Constitutional and legal status of the Negro Freedmen. After the Civil War, violent controversy erupted throughout the South over how to tackle such issues.

The start of Reconstruction is often dated to the capitulation of the Confederacy in 1865, although some historians date it to 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation. The constitutional amendments and legislative reforms that laid the foundation for the most radical phase of Reconstruction were enacted from 1865 until 1871.

By the 1870s freedmen were voting. Reconstruction had made progress to provide the former slaves with equal rights under the law. Republican legislatures, coalitions of whites and blacks, established the first systems of public school systems in the South. Beginning in 1874, however, there was a rise in white paramilitary organizations, such as the White League and Red Shirts, whose political aim was to turn out the Republicans. They also disrupted organizing and terrorized blacks to bar them from the polls. From 1873 to 1877, conservative white Democrats (calling themselves “Redeemers”) regained power in state elections throughout the former Confederacy. In 1877 President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops, causing the collapse of the remaining three Republican state governments. Through the enactment of disfranchising statutes and constitutions, and extralegal means, the white Democrats subsequently removed most blacks and hundreds of thousands of poor whites from voter rolls in every Southern state. White Democrats established one-party rule and enforced a system of racial segregation that continued throughout the South into the 1960s.

Bitterness from the heated partisanship of the era lasted into the 21st century. But in other ways white veterans in the North and South undertook reconciliation, which reached a height in the early 20th century. This reconciliation coincided with the nadir of American race relations, during which there was an increase of racial segregation throughout America, disfranchisement of most African-Americans in the South, and racial violence, especially in the South. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were constitutional legacies of the Radical period. These established the rights on which African Americans, poor whites and their allies based extensive litigation, leading to US Supreme Court rulings starting in the early 20th century that struck down disfranchising provisions, civil rights legislation that was enacted in the mid-1960s, and additional constitutional amendments protecting and expanding the franchise.

Reconstruction came in three phases. Presidential Reconstruction, 1863-66 was controlled by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, with the goal of quickly reuniting the country. It can be said to have begun with the Emancipation Proclamation. The programs proposed by Lincoln and subsequently by Johnson (who by late 1865 had lost the support of most of the Republican party) were opposed by the Radical Republicans. This political faction gained power after the 1866 elections and began Congressional Reconstruction, 1866-1873 emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for the freedmen.

Supported by the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, in 1868 new state governments came to power in the former Confederacy which were based on a Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers and scalawags. In the Redemption, 1873-1877, white Southern Democrats (calling themselves “Redeemers”) defeated the Republicans and took control of each southern state, marking the end of Reconstruction. In 1877, President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops, causing the collapse of the remaining three Republican state governments.

During the Civil War, Republican leaders agreed that slavery and the Slave Power had to be permanently destroyed, and that all forms of Confederate nationalism had to be suppressed. Moderates said this could be easily accomplished as soon as Confederate armies surrendered and the Southern states repealed secession and ratified the 13th Amendment—all of which happened by September 1865.

President Abraham Lincoln was the leader of the moderate Republicans and wanted to speed up Reconstruction and reunite the nation as painlessly and as quickly as possible. Lincoln formally began Reconstruction in late 1863 with his Ten percent plan, which went into operation in several states but which Radicals opposed. Lincoln pocket vetoed the Radical plan, the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864, which was much more strict than the Ten-Percent Plan. The opposing faction of Radical Republicans were skeptical of Southern intentions and demanded more stringent federal action. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner led the Radical Republicans.

Radical Republican Charles Sumner argued that secession had destroyed statehood alone but the Constitution still extended its authority and its protection over individuals, as in the territories. Thaddeus Stevens and his followers viewed secession as having left the states in a status like newly conquered territory.

After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, President Andrew Johnson switched from the Radical to the moderate camp. By 1866, however, Johnson, with no party affiliation, broke with the moderate Republicans and aligned himself more with the Democrats who opposed equality and the Fourteenth Amendment granting citizenship to former slaves. Radicals attacked the policies of Johnson, especially his veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was intended to protect the civil rights of freedmen.

Congress rejected Johnson’s argument that he had the war power to decide what to do, since the war was over. Congress decided it had the primary authority to decide on how Reconstruction should proceed because the Constitution stated Congress had to guarantee each state a republican form of government. The issue became how republicanism should operate in the South; that is, how the freedmen would achieve citizenship, what the status of the Confederate states should be, and what should be the status of men who had supported the Confederacy.

The election of 1866 decisively changed the balance of power, giving the Republicans control of Congress and enough votes to overcome Johnson’s vetoes. They moved to impeach Johnson because of his opposition to Congressional policies. Johnson was acquitted by one vote, but he lost the influence to determine much Reconstruction policy.

Republicans established military districts in the South and used Army personnel to administer the region until new governments loyal to the Union could be established. They granted citizenship and suffrage to former slaves. They temporarily suspended the franchise for the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 white men who had been Confederate officials or senior officers.

With the power to vote, freedmen started participating in politics. A Republican coalition of freedmen, southerners supportive of the Union, called scalawags; and northerners who had migrated to the South (some who were returning natives, but most were Union veterans), snidely called carpetbaggers, organized to create constitutional conventions. They created new state constitutions to implement changes affecting former slaves.

A loyalty issue emerged in the debates over the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. Wade-Davis required voters to take the “Ironclad Oath,” swearing that in the past they never had supported the Confederacy or been one of its soldiers. Lincoln ignored the past and asked voters to swear that in the future they would support the Union. The Radicals lost support following Lincoln’s pocket veto, but they regained strength after Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865.

Congress had to consider how to bring southern states back into the Union. Suffrage for ex-Confederates was one of two main concerns. First, both sides tried to keep the other from voting. It was a question of whether to allow some or all ex-Confederates to vote. The moderates wanted virtually all of them to vote, but the Radicals repeatedly tried to impose the Ironclad oath, which would allow none to vote. Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania proposed, unsuccessfully, that all ex-Confederates lose the right to vote for five years. The compromise that was reached disfranchised many ex-Confederate civil and military leaders for a limited period. No one knew how many temporarily lost the vote, but one estimate was 10,000 to 15,000.

Second (and closely related to discussions about disfranchising ex-Confederates) was the issue of whether freedmen should be allowed to vote. The issue was how to receive the four million former slaves as citizens. If they were to be fully counted as citizens, some sort of representation for apportionment of seats in Congress had to be determined. The population of enslaved African Americans had been counted as three-fifths of a comparable number of free whites. If the freedmen could not vote, the South would gain additional seats in Congress by having the benefit of four million “new” citizens counted toward representation, but with only whites representing them. Many conservatives (including most white southerners, northern Democrats, and some northern Republicans) opposed black voting. (Some northern states that had referendums on the subject about the same time limited the ability of their own small populations of blacks to vote. That was not the same issue as Congress faced with the South.)

Lincoln had supported a middle position to allow some black men to vote, especially army veterans. Johnson also believed that such service should be rewarded with citizenship. Lincoln proposed giving the vote to “the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks.” In 1864, Governor Johnson said, “The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man.” As President in 1865, Johnson wrote to the man he appointed as governor of Mississippi, recommending, “If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary [Radicals in Congress], and set an example the other states will follow.”

Senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Thaddeus Stevens, leaders of the Radical Republicans, were initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate ex-slave population. Sumner preferred at first impartial requirements that would have imposed literacy restrictions on both blacks and whites. He believed, however, that he would not succeed in passing legislation to disfranchise illiterate whites who already had the vote.

(Oddly enough, southern states did precisely that themselves with new constitutions and statutes from 1890-1908. Anxious not to have to contend again with coalitions between poor whites and blacks as arose in the 1890s, Democrats disfranchised both in most southern states. In Alabama, for instance, they reduced the franchise for poor whites, whereas the state had been established with universal white suffrage in 1819. From 1900-1903 the white vote went down by more than 40,000, although the population increased. By 1941, 600,000 poor whites in Alabama had been disfranchised, compared to 520,000 blacks.)

Because there was no universal public education in the South, many poor whites were illiterate. In 1880, for example, the white illiteracy rate was about 25% in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia; and as high as 33% in North Carolina. This compares with the 9% national rate and a black rate of illiteracy that was over 70% in the South. By 1900, with emphasis within the black community on education, however, the majority of blacks had achieved literacy.

Sumner soon concluded that “there was no substantial protection for the freedman except in the franchise.” This was necessary, he stated, “(1) For his own protection; (2) For the protection of the white Unionist; and (3) For the peace of the country. We put the musket in his hands because it was necessary; for the same reason we must give him the franchise.” The support for voting rights was a compromise between moderate and Radical Republicans.

The Republicans believed that the best way for men to get political experience was to be able to vote and to participate in the political system. They passed laws allowing all male freedmen to vote. In 1867, black men voted for the first time. Over the course of Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office in the South. They did not hold office in numbers representative of their proportion in the population, but often elected whites to represent them. (The question of women’s suffrage was also debated but was rejected.)

Northern anger over the assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for harsh policies. Vice President Andrew Johnson had taken a hard line and spoke of hanging rebel Confederates, but when he succeeded Lincoln as President, Johnson took a much softer line, pardoning many Confederate leaders and ex-Confederates to maintain their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and black people. Jefferson Davis was held in prison for two years, but other Confederate leaders were not. There were no treason trials. Only one person—Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant of the prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia—was executed for war crimes.

In March 1865, Congress had established the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau provided food, clothing, and fuel to destitute former slaves and white refugees.

Although resigned to the abolition of slavery, many ex-Confederates were not willing to accept the granting of civil rights to the freedmen. The defeated feared that after the abolition of slavery, the freedmen would threaten their economic and political preeminence in the South. In the words of Benjamin F. Perry, president Johnson’s choice as the provisional governor of South Carolina: “First, the Negro is to be invested with all political power, and then the antagonism of interest between capital and labor is to work out the result.”

However, the fears of the mostly conservative planter elite were partly assuaged by the actions of president Johnson, who ensured that a wholesale land redistribution from the planters to the Freedman did not occur. President Johnson ordered that confiscated or abandoned lands administered by the Freedman’s Bureau would not be redistributed to the freedmen but be returned to the pardoned owners. Land was returned that would have been forfeited under the provisions of the Confiscation Acts passed by Congress in 1861 and 1862.

Southern state governments quickly enacted the restrictive “black codes”. However they were abolished by Congress and seldom had effect because the Freedman’s Bureau (not the local courts) handled the legal affairs of freedmen. The Black Codes were based on northern vagrancy laws.

Under the black codes, the freedmen had more rights than did free blacks before the war, but they still had only a limited set of second-class civil rights, no voting rights, and their rights as citizens such as owning firearms, serving in a jury when no black was present in the case, and moving about the countryside without employment were prohibited. Among other provisions, the Black Codes stringently limited blacks’ ability to control their own employment. The Black Codes outraged northern opinion. They were overthrown by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that gave the Freedmen full legal equality (except for the right to vote).

The freedmen rejected gang labor procedures that had been used in slavery and with the strong backing of the Freedman’s Bureau they forced planters to bargain for their labor. Such bargaining led to the establishment of the system of sharecropping, which gave the freedmen greater economic independence and social autonomy than gang labor. However, because they lacked capital and the planters continued to own the means of production (tools, draft animals and land), the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops (mainly cotton) for the planters, and they entered into a crop-lien system which eventually led to the permanent indebtedness of the majority of the freedmen. To pay off their debt, some freedpeople would even be auctioned off as servants.

Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions for the Freedmen in the South. One harsh assessment came from Carl Schurz who reported on the situation in the states along the Gulf Coast. His report documents dozens of extra-judicial killings and claims that hundreds or thousands more African Americans were killed:

The number of murders and assaults perpetrated upon Negroes is very great; we can form only an approximative estimate of what is going on in those parts of the South which are not closely garrisoned, and from which no regular reports are received, by what occurs under the very eyes of our military authorities. As to my personal experience, I will only mention that during my two days sojourn at Atlanta, one Negro was stabbed with fatal effect on the street, and three were poisoned, one of whom died. While I was at Montgomery, one negro was cut across the throat evidently with intent to kill, and another was shot, but both escaped with their lives. Several papers attached to this report give an account of the number of capital cases that occurred at certain places during a certain period of time. It is a sad fact that the perpetration of those acts is not confined to that class of people which might be called the rabble.

- Carl Schurz, “Report on the Condition of the South,” December 1865 (U.S. Senate Exec. Doc. No. 2, 39th Congress, 1st session).

The report includes sworn testimony from soldiers and officials of the Freedman’s Bureau. In Selma, Alabama, Major J.P. Houston noted that whites who killed 12 African Americans in his district never came to trial. Many more killings never even became official cases. Captain Poillon describes white patrols in southwestern Alabama “who board some of the boats; after the boats leave they hang, shoot, or drown the victims they may find on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the rivers are almost invariably murdered. The bewildered and terrified freedmen know not what to do–to leave is death; to remain is to suffer the increased burden imposed upon them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their labor, wrung from them by every device an inhuman ingenuity can devise; hence the lash and murder is resorted to intimidate those whom fear of an awful death alone cause to remain, while patrols, Negro dogs and spies, disguised as Yankees, keep constant guard over these unfortunate people.”

In response to the Black codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the ex-rebellious states to the Congress in fall 1865. Congress also renewed the Freedman’s Bureau, but Johnson vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill in February 1866. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront at the black codes. He proposed the first Civil Rights Law, because the abolition of slavery was empty if “laws are to be enacted and enforced depriving persons of African descent of privileges which are essential to freemen… A law that does not allow a colored person to go from one county to another, and one that does not allow him to hold property, to teach, to preach, are certainly laws in violation of the rights of a freeman… The purpose of this bill is to destroy all these discriminations.”

The key to the bill was the opening section:

“All persons born in the United States … 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 … shall have the same right in every State …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.”

Congress quickly passed the Civil Rights bill; the Senate on February 2 voted 33–12; the House on March 13 voted 111–38.

Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the Freedmen at a time when eleven out of thirty-six states were unrepresented and attempted to fix by Federal law “a perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the Union.” Johnson said it was an invasion by Federal authority of the rights of the States; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a “stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government.”

The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north and south, supported Johnson. However the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close vote of 33:15, the House by 122:41) and the Civil Rights bill became law. Congress also passed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill over Johnson’s veto.

The last moderate proposal was the Fourteenth Amendment, whose principal drafter was Representative John Bingham. It was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except visitors and Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to Freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed the Federal war debt would be paid (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states since three-fourths of the states were required for ratification. (The amendment was later ratified.) The moderate effort to compromise with Johnson had failed, and a political fight broke out between the Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and on the other side, Johnson and his allies in the Democratic party in the North, and the conservative groupings (which used different names) in each southern state.

Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction policies after the election of 1866. They passed legislation over President Johnson’s vetoes. They passed constitutional amendments against his wishes. Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, and the Republican faction that called themselves “radicals” led efforts to extend suffrage to freedmen. They were generally in control, although they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans. (The Democrats in Congress had almost no power.) Historians generally refer to this period as Radical Reconstruction.

The South’s white leaders, who regained power in the immediate postwar era before the vote was granted to the freedmen, renounced secession and slavery, but not white supremacy. People who had previously held power were angered in 1867 when new elections were held. New Republican lawmakers were elected by a coalition of white Unionists, freedmen and northerners who had settled in the South. Some leaders in the South tried to accommodate new conditions.

With the Radicals in control, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts in 1867. The first Reconstruction Act placed ten Confederate states under military control, grouping them into five military districts.

Three new Constitutional amendments were adopted. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and was ratified in 1865. The 14th Amendment was rejected in 1866 but ratified in 1868, guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, except Native Americans, and granting them federal civil rights. The 15th Amendment passed in 1870, decreeing that the right to vote could not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The amendment did not declare the vote an unconditional right and only prohibited these specific types of discrimination while specific electoral policies were determined within each state.

The ten Southern state governments were re-constituted under the direct control of the United States Army. One major purpose was to recognize and protect the right of African Americans to vote. There was little or no fighting, but rather a state of martial law in which the military closely supervised local government, supervised elections, and tried to protect office holders and freedmen from violence. Blacks were enrolled as voters; former Confederate leaders were excluded for a limited period. No one state was entirely representative. Randolph Campbell describes what happened in Texas:

The first critical step … was the registration of voters according to guidelines established by Congress and interpreted by Generals Sheridan and Griffin. The Reconstruction Acts called for registering all adult males, white and black, except those who had ever sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and then engaged in rebellion.… Sheridan interpreted these restrictions stringently, barring from registration not only all pre-1861 officials of state and local governments who had supported the Confederacy but also all city officeholders and even minor functionaries such as sextons of cemeteries. In May Griffin … appointed a three-man board of registrars for each county, making his choices on the advice of known scalawags and local Freedman’s Bureau agents. In every county where practicable a freedman served as one of the three registrars.… Final registration amounted to approximately 59,633 whites and 49,479 blacks. It is impossible to say how many whites were rejected or refused to register (estimates vary from 7,500 to 12,000), but blacks, who constituted only about 30 percent of the state’s population, were significantly overrepresented at 45 percent of all voters.

All Southern states were readmitted to representation in Congress by the end of 1870, the last being Georgia. All but 500 top Confederate leaders were pardoned when President Grant signed the Amnesty Act of 1872.

Republicans took control of all Southern state governorships and state legislatures, leading to the election of numerous African-Americans to state and national offices, as well as to the installation of African-Americans into other positions of power. About 137 black officeholders had lived outside the South before the Civil War. Some had escaped from slavery to the North and returned to help the South advance in the postwar era. Many of them had achieved education and positions of leadership elsewhere. Other African American men who served were leaders in their communities, including a number of preachers. As was the case in white communities, all leadership did not depend on wealth and literacy.

W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the first historians to document the freedmen’s deep commitment to education and demonstrated that African Americans played a critical role in establishing universal public education as fundamental to southern state constitutions during congressional Reconstruction. Many slaves had taken risks to learn to read although forbidden to do so by law; African Americans started “native schools” before the end of the war; Sabbath schools were another widespread means freedmen created for teaching literacy. When they gained suffrage, black politicians took this commitment to public education to state constitutional conventions.

African Americans and white Republicans joined to build education at the state level. They created a system of public schools, which were segregated by race everywhere except New Orleans. Most blacks approved the segregated schools because they wanted to control education for their children, the schools provided jobs for black teachers, and kept their children in a much safer learning environment. In general, elementary and a few secondary schools were built in the cities. But the South had relatively few cities.

In the rural areas the public school was often a one-room affair that attracted about half the younger children. The teachers were poorly paid, and their pay was often in arrears. Conservatives contended the rural schools were too expensive and unnecessary for a region where the vast majority of people were cotton or tobacco farmers. They had no vision of a better future for their residents. One historian found that the schools were less effective than they might have been because of “poverty, the inability of the states to collect taxes, and inefficiency and corruption in many places prevented successful operation of the schools.”

Numerous private academies and colleges for Freedmen were established by northern missionaries. Every state created state colleges for Freedmen, such as Alcorn State University in Mississippi. The state colleges created generations of teachers who were critical in the education of African American children.

In 1890, the black state colleges started receiving federal funds as land grant schools. They received state funds after Reconstruction ended because, as Lynch explains, “there are very many liberal, fair-minded and influential Democrats in the State who are strongly in favor of having the State provide for the liberal education of both races.” Before this period, however, planters had opposed public education for freedmen and underfunded schools.

Every Southern state subsidized railroads, which modernizers felt could haul the South out of isolation and poverty. Millions of dollars in bonds and subsidies were fraudulently pocketed. One ring in North Carolina spent $200,000 in bribing the legislature and obtained millions in state money for its railroads. Instead of building new track, however, it used the funds to speculate in bonds, reward friends with extravagant fees, and enjoy lavish trips to Europe. Taxes were quadrupled across the South to pay off the railroad bonds and the school costs. There were complaints among taxpayers, because taxes had historically been very low, since there was so little commitment to public works or public education. Taxes historically had been much lower than in the North, reflecting a lack of public investment in the communities. Nevertheless thousands of miles of lines were built as the Southern system expanded from 11,000 miles (17,700 km) in 1870 to 29,000 miles (46,700 km) in 1890. The lines were owned and directed overwhelmingly by Northerners. Railroads helped create a mechanically skilled group of craftsmen and indeed broke the isolation of much of the region. Passengers were few, however, and apart from hauling the cotton crop when it was harvested, there was little freight traffic. As Franklin explains, “numerous railroads fed at the public trough by bribing legislators…and through the use and misuse of state funds.” The effect, according to one businessman, “was to drive capital from the State, paralyze industry, and demoralize labor.”

(WordPress is limited in the length of article I can publish – read Part 2 HERE.)

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