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Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff | |||||
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Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff | |||||
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The Civil War resolved several longstanding problems in the Republic. For one, the threat of secession had been laid to rest; the Union was perpetual, as Andrew Jackson had proclaimed in 1832. Slavery had also been destroyed, and with it the most "peculiar" feature of the culture of the Old South. With the agrarian South vanquished and impoverished, the industrial North was now the dominant section politically and economically, and the nation's course toward full industrialization established. But the war had also created new problems. What rights the former slaves would have and what their place would be in American society was unclear. Similarly, the process by which the former states of the Confederacy would regain their previous rights was uncertain.
Yet if the potential for far reaching change existed at the end of the war, key elements of the American political tradition continued to hold sway and exerted a restraining influence. For example, Americans remained committed to the federal system. Although the federal government exercised greater power after the war than before, most Americans continued to believe that protecting individual rights was the responsibility of the states. In addition, the fear of a standing army, a heritage of the Revolution, remained undiminished. Not only had the Union army been quickly demobilized, but Northerners were uncomfortable at the thought of a prolonged military occupation of the South or the active intervention of the army in domestic affairs. Finally, bolstered by the market revolution, Americans remained wedded to the doctrines of private property, self-reliance, and individual achievement, values that worked against any program of government assistance to the freed people. It was within this mix of change and tradition--of the possibility to overthrow the past and the desire to conserve it--that Reconstruction would take shape and eventually unravel.
The chapter begins by examining the saga of Benjamin Montgomery, an extraordinary ex-slave who after the war purchased the plantation of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Through energy and hard work, Montgomery became a leading planter in the postwar South during the period of Reconstruction, when the South was in the process of resuming its place in the Union. Montgomery's hopes and aspirations, as well as his ultimate failure, symbolized both the possibilities for radical change in the South and the ultimate tragedy of Reconstruction for black Americans.
Presidential Reconstruction
The problem of Reconstruction forced consideration even during the war, as Lincoln formulated plans for the restoration of the Union once the fighting was over. Lincoln favored a less stringent plan than Congress did, since he was eager to bring states back into the Union and wanted to build up a Republican party in the South. Radical Republicans in Congress doubted southern whites' loyalty, wanted to punish the South, and saw blacks as the only sizable loyal group in the region. Lincoln vetoed the Radicals' plan in 1864, but by war's end he seemed to be moving in the direction of the Radicals.
Lincoln's assassination elevated Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from Tennessee, to the presidency. It was crucial in this critical moment, with southerners bewildered and looking for guidance, that the president make clear what was required of them. Johnson moved in the summer of 1865 to enact Lincoln's program, but in so doing he changed its terms and lessened its requirements. Under Johnson's guidelines, all the former states of the Confederacy established new state governments in 1865. Yet southern whites refused to give blacks many civil rights enjoyed by whites, instead passing a series of black codes. These laws applied only to blacks, and were designed to keep them an uneducated, propertyless, agricultural laboring class. Equally disturbing to northerners, white southerners defiantly elected prominent former Confederates to office.
Congress repudiated Johnson's program in December 1865 and refused to seat the senators and members of Congress from the former Confederate states. Instead, it extended the life of the Freedmen's Bureau over Johnson's veto in order to provide assistance to freed people (former slaves) and passed the Fourteenth Amendment, sending it to the states for ratification. This amendment made blacks citizens, extended basic civil rights to all citizens, required prominent Confederates to be pardoned by Congress, and by indirection provided for black male suffrage in the South. Only Tennessee of the Confederate states ratified the amendment. It was promptly readmitted to the Union. The remaining 10 states still lacked congressional representation and were under military rule. Breaking with Congress, Johnson took his case to the northern people in the fall elections of 1866. To his dismay, Republicans won a sweeping victory, including more than a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress (thus allowing them to override any presidential veto).
Congressional Reconstruction
Given a popular mandate, Republicans in Congress proceeded to enact their own program of Reconstruction, requiring the unreconstructed states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and adopt black suffrage. States that delayed the process were required to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, which also forbid racial tests for voting. Congress refused, however, to redistribute land to the freedmen, believing that giving blacks the ballot and civil rights was sufficient.
Johnson remained at odds with Congress and tried to obstruct the will of the legislative branch by interpreting laws as narrowly as possible and removing army generals in the South who sympathized with Congress on Reconstruction. When the president attempted to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Radical, in violation of the new Tenure of Office Act, the House finally impeached Johnson. Despite his obstructionism, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. Those Republican Senators who voted for acquittal believed that Johnson had not committed any crime, only political errors, and they were uneasy about using the impeachment process to resolve a political dispute between the two branches of government. Johnson served out the remainder of his term, but the power of the Radicals had peaked.
Reconstruction in the South
Under Congress' program, radical governments assumed power in the South. Despite the complaints and allegations of unreconstructed southerners, none of these governments was controlled by black southerners. Only in South Carolina, where a majority of the voters were African-Americans, did black officeholders approximate their proportion of the population. Black officeholders, who ranged widely in ability, generally came from the top rungs of African-American society.
In most southern states, black voters were not sufficient to form a majority. The party needed white support as well. Native white southerners who joined the Republican party were called scalawags; they were often Unionists from the hill counties or former Whigs attracted by the party's economic nationalism. Northerners who came to the South after the war and held public office were derisively referred to as Carpetbaggers. Contrary to their image, they were not all poor and self-interested. They were much more sympathetic to black rights than were southern-born white Republicans and disproportionately held office, and especially the highest offices, in the Republican regimes.
The new southern state constitutions adopted some important reforms, most notably the establishment of public schools. But they were cautious on the issue of racial equality and did not forbid segregation.
The southern Republican governments confronted the problem of rebuilding the war-ravaged South. They sought to encourage industrialization and expand the railroad network. Taxes went up with expenditures, and these governments came under heavy attack for corruption. Corruption certainly existed--indeed, it was a nationwide problem--but opponents exaggerated its extent for partisan purposes. In truth, the major objection of opponents to these governments was that they shared power with blacks.
Black Aspirations
Initially, black southerners thought of freedom largely as a contrast to slavery: the freedom to move about, the right to choose their employer, and freedom from physical punishment and the breakup of families. In freedom, blacks moved to protect the black family and gain educational rights. The Freedmen's Bureau initially established black schools in the South, and thousands of adults as well as children enrolled, even though they were not free. Blacks also left the white-controlled churches and established their own churches with black ministers. They negotiated new working conditions with white landlords, refusing to live in the old slave quarters or work in gangs under the supervision of an overseer. Eventually the system of sharecropping evolved as the way to organize black agricultural labor. The Freedmen's Bureau supervised the contracts between white landlords and black workers and special Freedmen's Courts adjudicated disputes. The Bureau's record in protecting blacks varied considerably, but in general it had only limited success in getting them fair compensation for their labor.
Planters responded to emancipation by seeking physical and psychological separation from former slaves. They discarded the old paternalist ideal in favor of segregation. Less prosperous than before the war, they developed a new way of life based on segregation and sharecropping.
The Abandonment of Reconstruction
In 1868 the Republicans rejected all their experienced leaders and nominated Ulysses S. Grant for president, who was elected. The enforcement and maintenance of Reconstruction thus rested in Grant's hands. Republicans tried to make Reconstruction more secure by passing the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade a state from denying the right to vote on grounds of race. Efforts to include women's suffrage by forbidding discrimination based on gender failed.
Grant lacked the skill or commitment to make Reconstruction succeed. A series of scandals rocked his administration, creating widespread popular disenchantment and fostering the Liberal Republican revolt in 1872. As charges of corruption swelled and public disorder continued unabated in the South, northern public opinion, which never had much faith in the abilities of former slaves, became increasingly disillusioned with Reconstruction. Many decided that erecting the program on black suffrage was a mistake. In addition, the beginning of a severe depression in 1874 directed public attention closer to home and gave Democrats control of the House for the first time since 1861.
With the northern commitment weakening, white southerners stepped up their assault on the radical governments in the South. They used social ostracism, economic pressure, and racist appeals to undermine Republican support. Their most effective weapon, however, was terror and violence directed against Republican leaders and black voters. The constant violence in the South during elections further weakened the northern commitment to Reconstruction. Grant acted decisively to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, a leading terrorist organization, but the tide of violence could not be stemmed.
In the end, racism in the form of southern white terror and northern white indifference combined to end Reconstruction. The 1876 election failed to produce a clear winner, as both parties claimed to have carried South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the three southern states still under Republican control. In the end, a special electoral commission by a straight party vote declared Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the winner. In private negotiations Republicans had already agreed to restore home rule in the South in exchange for Hayes's election. This deal became known as the Compromise of 1877. Once in office, Hayes withdrew support for the remaining radical governments in the South and they collapsed. Every southern state had been "redeemed" by 1877 and Reconstruction was at an end. Thus the dreams of so many African-Americans for equal rights were bitterly disappointed. The courts soon overturned the racial legacy of Reconstruction. By both weakening northern resolve and stimulating southern white resistance, racism played a major role in the failure of Reconstruction.
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