RECONSTRUCTION

The aftermath of a long, hard war can be as arduous as the fighting itself. Such is the case with Reconstruction, one of the most volatile peacetime periods in American history. Rebel armies may have surrendered, but the Confederate people did not. The Republican Party in the North may have triumphed, but its power was not unrivaled. Black slaves may have gained their freedom, but they did not enjoy equality. The often violent political, social, and economic struggles that came to characterize Reconstruction should compel any student to consider it an extension of the Civil War. The effects of Reconstruction contributed to segregation (Jim Crow laws) and intense race conflict through most of the twentieth century. Reconstruction, like the Civil War, left a deep imprint on American society and culture.

Reconstruction scholarship exemplifies the period's restlessness. Historians have gone from condemning Reconstruction as a harsh form of punishment to praising it as a noble, albeit failed, experiment in racial justice. In the early 2000s, scholars usually took the middle road, seeing Reconstruction as the product of countless participants whose motives reveal a complex mixture of idealism and self-interest.

Regardless of the various schools of thought, the general purpose of Reconstruction was twofold: The establishment of loyal governments in the former Confederacy, and the assimilation of over four million freed black slaves into American society. Achieving these objectives was no easy task. Republican politicians disagreed over means, while ex-Confederates in the South and Democrats in the North denounced the goals altogether. Power struggles between the president and Congress, between state and Federal authority, between whites and blacks, threatened to sabotage Reconstruction at every turn.

presidential reconstruction

An inchoate form of Reconstruction began shortly after the Civil War started. As Federal troops occupied Confederate territory, Unionists emerged to reorganize their states politically. On December 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln unveiled a more comprehensive plan for Reconstruction, the so-called Ten Percent Plan. Once ten percent of a rebellious state's prewar voting population had taken an oath of loyalty, then civil government could be restored. Radicals in Congress, however, considered Lincoln's plan too lenient and they insisted, via the Wade-Davis bill, that reorganization be contingent on the loyalty of no less than fifty percent of a state's electorate. Lincoln pocket-vetoed the Radical plan, and no definitive Reconstruction policy existed at the time of his assassination.

While the politicians wrangled over the scope of Reconstruction, southern blacks began to initiate their own reconstruction. Some freedmen volunteered their military services to the Union after emancipation. In 1865 many freed blacks sought to reunite their families or form their own churches. Aided by the Freedmen's Bureau, blacks throughout the South also pursued opportunities for education and land. For blacks, Reconstruction was a time of hope; behind them lay the shackles of slavery; before them lay the allure of citizenship and economic independence.

Under Andrew Johnson's presidency (1865–1869), Reconstruction took a less optimistic turn. Johnson always believed his Reconstruction policy was in keeping with Lincoln's concept of reunification, but where Lincoln was pragmatic, Johnson was dogmatic. An ardent foe of the southern planter class and slavery, Johnson was also a rigid states rights politician and white supremacist. In the summer of 1865, with Congress out of session, Johnson decided to effect Reconstruction on his own with a conciliatory plan. Ex-Confederates, save a select few, received general amnesty in exchange for an oath of loyalty. Once pardoned, Johnson required the former Rebel states to merely ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and to renounce their ordinances of secession. In a few states, such as Tennessee, Unionists controlled Reconstruction, but in most cases ex-Confederates seized political power and turned Reconstruction to their own ends. The new "Rebel" governments carried out Johnson's decrees, but they also elected former wartime leaders to Congress and organized militias comprised of rearmed Confederate soldiers. Moreover, they instigated an ominous program for race order, one embodied in Black Codes that were special laws designed to regulate the life and labor of the freedmen.

Many northerners were disappointed with Johnson's apparent mismanagement of Reconstruction. When Congress reconvened in December 1865, the Republican majority refused to seat the southern delegation and, instead, formed a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to consider alternatives to Johnson's approach. In effect, Congress assumed control over Reconstruction.

congressional reconstruction

An enduring myth about Reconstruction is that Radical Republicans dominated the process. To be sure, the Radicals, most notably Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, were dynamic personalities, but moderate Republicans, such as Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, exercised greater influence. The moderates shelved Radical demands to treat the South like a conquered territory and to seize and then redistribute plantation lands in behalf of the freedmen. Instead, they formulated what they thought were reasonable conditions for readmission. To counteract the Black Codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act (1866), which established racial equality before the law. When President Johnson vetoed this measure on the grounds that it overstepped the authority of the Federal government, Republicans were stunned.

Although Congress overrode the veto, members realized that lasting civil rights protection required a constitutional safeguard. The Fourteenth Amendment followed, which made the federal government, not the states, the final protector of a citizen's rights and due process of law. This amendment, which included other provisions that temporarily disfranchised certain Rebels and repudiated the Confederate war debt, became the centerpiece of the Congressional plan for Reconstruction in 1866; a state's readmission was contingent on ratification.

The Fourteenth Amendment triggered a bellicose response from the white South. Emboldened by President Johnson's defiance, every former Confederate state, except Tennessee, spurned the amendment as an affront to their sovereignty, their race, and their honor. Exacerbating the situation were summertime race riots in Memphis and New Orleans. To many observers, these events were indicative of a persistent sectional hostility. Consequently, in 1867 Congress gravitated toward a more forceful Reconstruction.

Convinced that only direct Federal intervention could properly reconstruct the South, Congress passed the first of four Reconstruction Acts in March 1867. These laws required the ten remaining Confederate states to reorganize their governments and rewrite their constitutions to include universal male suffrage; therefore, black men received the right the vote. To enforce these unprecedented measures, Congress placed the South under military jurisdiction, vesting army generals with discretionary powers to keep any ex-Confederate interference in check.

U.S. CONSTITUTION

amendment xiii.

SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

amendment xiv.

SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

amendment xv.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

This extraordinary process of military Reconstruction did not go unchallenged. While white southerners protested, President Johnson embarked on a course of action that produced a dramatic showdown with Congress. Johnson exercised his authority as commander in chief to remove personnel whom he felt executed Reconstruction policy too aggressively. In response, claiming that Johnson was deliberately obstructing Reconstruction in violation of the law, Republicans in the U.S. House impeached the president in 1868. Johnson avoided conviction in the U.S. Senate by a single vote, but his trial ushered in an era of congressional supremacy.

Ultimately, the radicalism of Congressional Reconstruction proved too much for most northerners, many of whom were disturbed by the advent of black suffrage. The election of the popular Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 signaled a return to moderation. By 1870, readmission of Southern states was complete and the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade disfranchisement on matters of race, went into effect. Reconstruction appeared to be over.

reconstruction in the south

Although each state experienced a unique Reconstruction, several general developments apply to them all. Politically, Reconstruction constituted a major realignment of power in the South. The new state governments initially bore the stamp of the Republican party. Grassroots political clubs (Union Leagues) arose to indoctrinate blacks into the party and mobilize them as voters. Eventually, in states where their numbers were large, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, blacks achieved considerable political success. Sixteen blacks served in Congress, while the freedmen in South Carolina briefly commanded a majority in the state legislature. Despite their crucial participation, blacks never dominated the party or Reconstruction. Instead, northern whites, known as Carpetbaggers, and southern whites, pejoratively referred to as Scalawags, tended to dictate Reconstruction policy. In competing for leadership and taking black support for granted, however, white Republicans engaged in factional quarrels which undermined effective government.

Economically, Reconstruction produced a compromise between white landowners and black farm laborers, a system known as sharecropping. Blacks never received the proverbial "forty acres and mule," but they did display noticeable savvy in labor negotiations. In exchange for farming plantation land on the tenuous promise of receiving a share of the crop, blacks enjoyed unsupervised labor and obtained the use of a small, private plot of land. Unfortunately, bad harvests coupled with exploitative creditors reduced most black farmers to a vicious cycle of debt peonage.

Socially, Reconstruction inaugurated a revolution in race relations. The Republican administrations enacted a great deal of progressive legislation, most notably programs for public education open to both races, the first in southern history. Other significant racial reforms included black access to public transportation and the right of black men to sit on juries. Interestingly, with the exception of politics, both races voluntarily segregated themselves in most social settings. Schools, churches, saloons, and other gathering places remained all-white or all-black.

white counter-reconstruction

For most white southerners, Reconstruction was little more than despotism. Repudiating the Republican administrations as illegitimate and insisting that blacks were unfit for citizenship, the ex-Confederate populace unleashed a campaign of counter-Reconstruction. The goals were simple (home rule and white supremacy) while the means took two forms: political and paramilitary. Politically, most southern whites marched under the banner of the Democratic party. In states where whites were in the majority, such as in Virginia, the Democrats were able to regain power legally at the polls. More often than not, however, counter-Reconstruction entailed substantial violence.

Paramilitary resistance was perhaps the most decisive factor in Reconstruction's demise. Disgruntled whites harassed freedmen throughout the post-war period, but following Congressional Reconstruction, southern violence became political as well as racial. The most notorious paramilitary challenge to Reconstruction was the Ku Klux Klan. A decentralized organization of Rebel vigilantes, the Klan conducted an erratic campaign of terror, roughly from 1867 to 1871. Indiscriminately attacking blacks and white Republicans, the Klan did much damage to Reconstruction at the grassroots level. While a few Republican governors managed to suppress the Klan with biracial militias, night-riding did not cease until Congress passed a series of Enforcement Acts that enabled President Grant to use the army against it. By 1872, the Klan was finally eradicated.

In the 1870s, southern paramilitary activity became more sophisticated. Ex-Confederate officers enrolled virtually every white man into new, extra-legal militias and then instilled the kind of discipline lacking in the Klan. Combining public intimidation with shocking acts of violence, organizations such as the White League in Louisiana and the Redshirts in South Carolina gave the Democratic Party a powerful edge at election time. President Grant tried to punish the worst abuses, but his application of force was inconsistent. In 1874, he used troops to thwart White League usurpation in New Orleans, but in 1875, the president ignored the widespread political violence in Mississippi that helped bring down the Republican administration in that state. By 1877, every southern state had been recaptured by the Democrats. The Rebels, more so than the Republicans, understood that the politics of Reconstruction was the politics of force.

the end of reconstruction

Following the official readmission of southern states, the North's commitment to Reconstruction gradually waned. Given that southern black men had the right to vote, white northerners expected them to stand on their own. Other post-war issues began taking on greater importance, including industrialization and westward expansion. Problems arising from labor unrest, immigration, and American Indian warfare seemed more urgent than perpetuating the Reconstruction process. In 1873, the nation succumbed to a severe economic depression. In 1874, Democrats won control of the U.S. House, thereby breaking Republican control over Reconstruction policy. During these years, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the new Reconstruction amendments conservatively, returning national protection of citizens' rights to the states.

The traditional end of Reconstruction came with the so-called Compromise of 1877. During the presidential election of 1876, paramilitary fraud and violence left in dispute the electoral votes of three southern states. A bipartisan Federal investigation ruled in favor of the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. The new president soon appeased the white South by permanently withdrawing the army. Political-economic stability, even under ex-Confederate leadership, had become preferable to ensuring social justice at the point of a bayonet. By 1900, the South may have lost the Civil War, but in certain respects, Confederates won the peace by disempowering black citizens through Jim Crow laws that legalized segregation and by laws barring blacks from voting.

In evaluating Reconstruction, the failures are more obvious than the successes. The Republicans failed to establish a viable two-party system and blacks failed to achieve equality. This outcome suggests that Reconstruction was too mild. Perhaps the Federal government should have confiscated land for the freedmen, or punished Confederate leaders for treason, or maintained indefinitely a standing army over the South. But America in the nineteenth century was a white man's country where property rights were sacrosanct and where notions of federalism (strong state's rights and a weak national government) still prevailed.

In the long run, however, Reconstruction should be viewed as a success. Blacks did exercise their freedom and, regardless of how that freedom is qualified, the post war world for black Americans was a more promising place than slavery. Furthermore, with the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, the nation did "reconstruct" its constitution so as to reflect its highest ideals. The new amendments may have been trampled on for many years after Reconstruction, but they provided the legal foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

bibliography

Benedict, Michael Les. The Fruits of Victory: Alternatives in Restoring the Union, 1865–1877. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

Olsen, Otto H. ed. Reconstruction and Redemption in the South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

Perman, Michael; Franklin, John H., ed.; and Eisenstadt, Abraham S., ed. Emancipation and Reconstruction, 1862–1879. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1987.

Rable, George C. But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984.

Simpson, Brooks D. The Reconstruction Presidents. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Trefousse, Hans L. Reconstruction: America's First Effort at Racial Democracy. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971.

Ben H. Severance

See also:Constitutional Amendments and Changes; Education; Freedmen's Bureau; Grant, Ulysses S.; Johnson, Andrew; Ku Klux Klan; Occupation of the South.