Summary: Postwar plans for assimilating the South back into the Union provoked strong resentment among many white Southerners. In addition, the plans of President Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans in the Congress, and President Andrew Johnson all contained significant differences. Policies enacted that improved the political and economic position of former slaves were opposed by many Southern whites. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson demonstrated the disagreements over Reconstruction policy between Johnson and the Radical Republicans. Congressional passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments outlawed slavery, established the rights of blacks, and defined the framework by which Southern states could rejoin the Union. Passage of these amendments, profits made by carpetbaggers and scalawags, and the increased economic and political power held by some Southern blacks all caused some elements of traditional Southern society to feel long-lasting anger and resentment. The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction, bringing another reordering of the political, economic, and social structures of the South.
Keywords
Reconstruction Era (1865-1877): period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union; Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century.
Radical Republicans: congressional group that wished to punish the South for its secession from the Union; pushed for measures that gave economic and political rights to newly freed blacks in the South and that made it difficult for former Confederate states to rejoin the Union.
Reconstruction Act (1867): act placing Southern states under military rule and barring former supporters of the Confederacy from voting.
Carpetbaggers: northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction Era; traditional elements of Southern society were deeply resentful of profits made by carpetbaggers during this period.
Scalawags: term of derision used in the South during the Reconstruction Era for white Southern Republicans.
Ku Klux Klan: this group was founded in Tennessee in 1866; its oftentimes violent actions during the Reconstruction Era represented the resentments felt by many Southern whites toward the changing political, social, and economic conditions of the Reconstruction Era.
Compromise of 1877: political compromise ending the disputed presidential election of 1876; by the terms of this compromise Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, thus giving him the presidency; in return, all federal troops were removed from the South and the Congress promised to stop enforcing much Reconstruction Era legislation concerning the South.
"Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and others lived during the Reconstruction period." Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1903
LINCOLN'S PLANS FOR RECONSTRUCTION
The preceding quote perfectly expresses the frustrations felt by many Americans during the Reconstruction Era. During this period, political leaders in the North had to decide how the former states of the Confederacy would be assimilated back into the Union. What should be done with the former Confederate leaders? What should be done with former slaves? How much punishment (if any) should the former states of the Confederacy be made to endure? These were obviously incredibly complicated questions, and the results had to be imperfect in some manner.
Other factors increased the difficulty of Southern assimilation after the Civil War. It was only when defeated Confederate soldiers returned to their homes that the extent of the devastation of the South during the war became widely known. Virtually the entire Southern railway system and many farms and cities were destroyed by the war. In addition, nearly one-third of all adult males residing in Confederate states died or were wounded during the war. For those plantation owners whose plantations were not destroyed, laborers now had to be hired; many of these owners were now strapped for cash. Many freed blacks wandered the countryside looking for work, while many poorer white men with jobs lived in fear of being replaced by freed black men.
The problems of Reconstruction were compounded by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the very end of the Civil War. Lincoln had begun giving shape to a Reconstruction plan as early as mid-1863. Lincoln devised a plan for former Confederates to rejoin the Union, entitled the Ten Percent Plan. By the provisions of this plan, citizens of former Confederate states would be given the opportunity to swear allegiance to the government in Washington (high-ranking Confederate military and civilian authorities would not be offered this opportunity). When 10 percent of the registered voters in the state signed this pledge, the state was afforded the chance to form its own state government, which obviously had to be loyal to Washington.
Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas all went through the appropriate procedures to form loyal state governments, yet their applications for renewed participation in the Union were not approved by the Radical Republicans who dominated the Congress. These men were determined to punish the Southern states in any way possible for their "betrayal" of the Union. This group, led by Thaddeus Stevens, included several who had been ardent abolitionists in the years before the Civil War. They believed that power in the Southern states had to be totally reorganized in order for blacks to achieve equality. The Radical Republicans also saw the creation of Reconstruction policy as a constitutional issue, stating that it was the job of the Congress and not the president to create this policy.
Radical Republicans felt that action was needed to counter the Black Codes, which had been passed by all Southern state legislatures in 1866. These sets of regulations limited movement by blacks, prohibited interracial marriage, and insisted that blacks obtain special certificates to hold certain jobs.
The Radical Republicans were insistent on immediate voting rights for blacks in the South; this desire was behind the Wade-Davis Act, which was passed by Congress in the summer of 1864. This bill stated that Congress would only authorize a state government in former Confederate states when the majority of voters took an "ironclad" oath, stating that they were not now disloyal to the Union nor had they ever been disloyal. Under these provisions, it would be impossible for any state to reenter the Union without a large number of black voters. President Lincoln killed this bill by a pocket veto.
ANDREW JOHNSON'S PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION
Much to the disappointment of the Radical Republicans, the Reconstruction plan announced by Andrew Johnson was also a relatively lenient one. Johnson stated that the United States should offer "amnesty and pardon" to any Southerner who would swear allegiance to the Union and the Constitution. Like Lincoln, Johnson felt that ex-Confederate leaders should not be eligible for amnesty; he also opposed amnesty for individuals (almost always plantation owners) whose property was worth over $20,000. Johnson had been a small farmer from Tennessee before he entered politics, and he possessed the typical hatred that small farmers had for plantation owners. Johnson also created a fairly simple plan for Confederate states to reenter the Union.
All of the former Confederate states followed the proscribed procedures and elected members to Congress of the United States that met in December 1865. However, the "loyalty" of the former Confederate states was still questioned by some in the North. Many former Confederate officials and military officers were elected in local and even congressional elections. The issue of blacks getting the vote or education for former slaves were not even considered in any state legislature in the months following the Civil War. The Radical Republicans of the North found this totally unacceptable.
THE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS OF THE RADICAL REPUBLICANS
The Radical Republicans soon began to implement their own program for Reconstruction in the South. Although they differed on tactics, all agreed that their main goal in the South should be to advance the political, economic, and social position of the freedmen, or former slaves. In early 1865, Congress passed legislation creating the Freedmen's Bureau, which was designed to help ex-slaves get employment, education, and general assistance as they adjusted to their new lives. By 1866, large numbers of freedmen were back on their original plantations (often against the advice of the Freedmen's Bureau), working as tenant farmers. Under programs established by the Freedmen's Bureau, ex-slaves could receive "40 acres and a mule."
Some Radical Republicans, such as Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, stated that the ex-slave's position would improve the quickest in the South if they were given the vote. Thaddeus Stevens felt that black voters would be strongly influenced by wealthy landowners who oftentimes employed them, and stated that the first goal of the federal government should be to take land from former Confederate leaders and give it to the freedmen. A Joint Committee on Reconstruction first met in January 1866.
The Joint Committee proposed, and the Congress passed, a bill authorizing the continuation of the Freedmen's Bureau and a Civil Rights bill early in 1866. Johnson immediately vetoed both, stating they were unconstitutional and emphasizing the need to allow former Confederates to have more of a say in affairs in the South. It is at this point that tensions between Congress and the president began to increase severely. Johnson gave a Washington's Birthday speech where he claimed the Radical Republicans were traitors and actually wanted to kill him.
Congress eventually overrode the presidential veto of both of these bills. Johnson's actions and demeanor were causing many moderate Republicans to join forces with the radical branch of the party. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted freedmen all the benefits of federal citizenship and promised that federal courts would uphold these rights. In cases where these rights were violated, federal troops would be used for enforcement. The Civil Rights Act also helped to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which had been ratified in December 1865 and outlawed slavery and other forms of involuntary servitude.
The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The amendment declared that citizenship would be the same in all states, that states did not give freedmen the vote would have reduced representation in Congress, and that former Confederate officials could not hold public office. Anti-black riots in New Orleans and Memphis in early 1866 caused the Radical Republicans to push for the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment even more forcefully. President Johnson publicly opposed the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, Radical Republicans won by large margins in the 1866 congressional elections. After these elections, the Radical Republicans began to dictate the course of Reconstruction in the South.
A PERIOD OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION
With many Democrats and even moderate Republicans swept out of office in the 1866 congressional elections, Radical Republicans immediately put their plans for Reconstruction into action. The 1867 Reconstruction Act actually placed the Southern states under military rule, with the South being divided into five regions and a military general in control of each region. Former Confederate states were ordered to hold new constitutional conventions to form state constitutions that allowed qualified blacks to vote and provided them with equal rights. The legislation barred former supporters of the Confederacy from voting and required that the Fourteenth Amendment be passed in all former Confederate states. To guarantee the assistance of the United States Army in these efforts, Congress also passed the Army Act, which reduced the control of the president over the army. To ensure that Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton (an ally of the Radical Republicans) would not be dismissed, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which stated that the president could not dismiss any Cabinet member without the approval of the Senate.
THE IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON
In the fall of 1867, President Johnson tried to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war. Radical Republicans loudly proclaimed that Johnson had flouted the United States Constitution by directly violating the Tenure of Office Act, and began impeachment proceedings against him. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson on February 24, 1868, making him the first president of the United States to be impeached (Bill Clinton was the second). The trial of Johnson in the Senate began in May. By the Constitution, two-thirds of the Senate had to vote to convict the president for him to be removed. Andrew Johnson escaped conviction by one vote (the deciding vote was a Republican from Kansas by the name of Edmund Ross, who was opposed to Johnson but felt there was insufficient evidence to actually remove him from office).
Johnson served the remainder of his term without incident. In the 1868 presidential election, Ulysses S. Grant, a hero of the Civil War with little political knowledge and few stated political opinions, led the Republican party to victory.
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION REINFORCED
With the election of Grant, Radical Republicans finally had an ally in the White House. In March 1870, the final Reconstruction amendment was ratified. The Fifteenth Amendment stated that no American could be denied the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Elections in the South in 1870 were regulated by federal troops stationed there. In these elections, thousands of Southern blacks voted for the first time; predictably, many Southern whites did not vote in these elections and viewed the entire process with disgust.
In the 1870 elections, nearly 630 blacks were elected as representatives in Southern state legislatures. Sixteen blacks were elected to Congress, one to the United States Senate, and a black, P. B. S. Pinchback, was elected governor of Louisiana.
It would be impossible to overstate the resentment with which many Southern whites viewed the entire Reconstruction process. Reconstruction was oftentimes blamed on carpetbaggers, who were Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction period, or on scalawags, a Southern term for white Southern Republicans.
Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (founded in Tennessee in 1866) fueled white resentment into violence against blacks and their "outside" supporters in the South. The Klan's activities ranged from trying to intimidate blacks at polling places, to the burning of crosses, to torture and murder. Various federal laws were passed to limit the activities of the Klan, with thousands of members being arrested. The group and its activities persisted, however. In the 1920s, the Klan would reemerge as a major political force in several states.
THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION
Grant won reelection in 1872, yet during his second term, federal and Northern interest in the affairs of the South began to wane. The reasons for this were numerous. By this time in history, many of the original Radical Republicans had died or no longer were active in government. There were numerous corruption scandals in the second Grant administration (some historians state that this was the most corrupt administration in American history). A recession in 1873 turned the interests of many Northerners to economic and not political and social issues. As a result, Northern troops were gradually removed from the South, allowing whites in Southern states to regain control of Southern governments. Many Reconstruction-style reforms made by earlier state legislatures were overturned.
The political event that "officially" ended Reconstruction was the Compromise of 1877. In the presidential election of 1876, Samuel Tilden, governor of New York, was the Democratic party candidate, running against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden won the popular vote and was leading in the electoral vote, but he needed the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, all still occupied by federal troops and under Republican control. Both sides claimed victory in these three states. A special congressional commission was created to resolve this situation. The commission had more Republicans than Democrats on it and was ready to hand the election to Hayes, even though evidence indicated that Tilden had won enough electoral votes to win. When Democrats in Congress stated that they would loudly and publicly protest the Commission's findings, the Compromise of 1877 was worked out. Hayes was named president; in return, the new president promised to remove all federal troops from the South and to stop the enforcement of much Reconstruction Era legislation concerning the South. As a result, blacks in the South were again reduced to the status of second-class citizens. In addition, Southern hatred of Reconstruction Era Republican policies would make the South solidly Democratic; white Southern support of the Democratic policy would last for nearly 100 years. It should be noted that whites who returned to power in state legislatures in the South in 1878 were called "the redeemers."
CHAPTER REVIEW
To achieve the perfect 5, you should be able to explain the following:
~Any plan to assimilate the Southern states back into the Union after the Civil War would have major difficulties; a problem was determining the appropriate post-war status of former supporters of the Confederacy.
~The plans for Reconstruction proposed by Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans, and Andrew Johnson all varied dramatically.
~Radical Republicans instituted policies to improve the political and economic status of former slaves; this created great resentment in other segments of Southern society.
~The impeachment of Andrew Johnson went forward because of major disagreements over policy between Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress.
~The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments outlawed slavery, established the rights of blacks, and established the framework by which Southern states could rejoin the union.
~Profits made by carpetbaggers and scalawags further angered the traditional elements of Southern society; many in the South, including members of the Ku Klux Klan, felt great resentment toward the carpetbaggers and scalawags and toward the political and economic power now held by some Southern blacks.
~The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the South; as Union troops left, blacks were again reduced to the status of second-class citizens.
Time Line
1865: Andrew Johnson institutes liberal Reconstruction plan / Whites in Southern legislatures pass Black Codes / Thirteenth Amendment ratified
1866: Civil Rights Act, Freedmen's Bureau Act approved by Congress (vetoed by Johnson) / Fourteenth Amendment passes Congress (fails to be ratified in Southern states) / Antiblack riots in New Orleans, Memphis / Republicans who favor Radical Reconstruction win congressional elections, in essence ending Johnson's Reconstruction plan / Ku Klux Klan founded
1867: Tenure of Office Act approved by Congress (Congress had to approve presidential appointments, dismissals) / Reconstruction Act approved by Congress (Southern states placed under military rule) / Constitutional conventions called by former Confederate states / Johnson tries to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, leading to cries for his impeachment
1868: Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Johnson impeached in the House of Representatives, not convicted in the Senate / Southern states return to Union under policies established by Radical Republicans / Final ratification of Fourteenth Amendment / Former Civil War general U. S. Grant elected president
1870: Fifteenth Amendment ratified / Many blacks elected in Southern legislatures
1872: Confederates allowed to hold office / U. S. Grant reelected
1876: Disputed presidential election between Tilden, Hayes
1877: Compromise of 1877 awards election to Hayes, ends Reconstruction in the South