Civil War and Reconstruction

Preparing for War: The North and the South

• Abraham Lincoln took the presidential oath of office on March 4, 1861

• Lincoln’s inaugural address: North and south were going to be joint together

Fort Sumter:

• As seceding states left, they seized the US’ arsenals, mints, and other public property within their borders. When Lincoln took office, only 2 significant forts in the South still flew the American flag (as opposed to the confederate flag)---the more important was Fort, Sumter in Charleston Harbor

• Stronghold had provisions that would last only a few weeks

• Lincoln notified South Carolinians that an expedition would be sent to provision the fort, not to reinforce it; he promised no effort to throw in men, arms and ammunition

• A union naval force was on its way to Fort Sumter—a move that the South regarded as an act of aggression

• On April 12, 1961, Carolinians fired a cannon on the fort

  • The 34 hours bombardment took no lives and the fort surrendered

• Fort was lost, but Union was saved

• Lincoln issued a call to the states for militia men and volunteers sprang up; On April 19 and 27, president proclaimed a leaky blockade of Southern seaports

• Calling for troops would mean that Lincoln was waging war---from Southern view—on Confederacy. Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee which voted against secession joined the confederacy, as did North Carolina.

Border States:

• Only slave states left were Border states: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware

• Ohio River was strategic

  • The River flowed along northern border of Kentucky and West Virginia

  • THe River tore itself from Virginia to become a free state in mid 1861.

• In dealing with Border States:

• In Maryland, Lincoln declared martial law where needed and sent in troops, because state threatened to cut off Washington from the North; Lincoln also deployed Union soldiers in western Virginia and in Missouri

• Lincoln was obliged to declare that he was not fighting to free blacks; antislavery declaration would drive Border States toward the South

• War began not as fight against slavery but for the Union

• In Native territory most of Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles—sided with Confederacy (some owned salves)

• Confederate gov. Agreed to take over federal payments to tribes and invited Native Americans to send delegates to Confederate congress; tribes supplied troops to Confederate Army

• Rivals of Cherokees and Plains Natives sided with Union, only to be rewarded after war with a relentless military campaign to put them onto reservations

Balance of Forces

When war broke out, South seemed to have great advantages

• Confederacy would fight defensively behind interior lines; North had to invade vast territory of Confederacy, conquer it, and drag bit back into the Union

• Confederate soldiers fought for self-determination and preservation of their way of life

• Military:

• General Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant Thomas J. “Stonewall”Jackson

• Ordinary southerners were made to fight

• South disadvantaged by lack of factories; they seized federal weapons, ran Union blockades, and developed own ironworks

• Shortages of shoes, uniforms, and blankets disabled the South

• Had a lot of food and civilians

  • Soldiers went hungry because of supply problems

  • The Economy was the South’s weakness and North strength

• North also controlled sea and had superior navy; est. blockade that choked off Southern supplies and ruined Southern morale

• Sea power enabled North to exchange huge quantities of grain for munitions and supplies from Europe, thus aiding output from factories of Europe to its own

• Union also had a lot of manpower (22 million)---also had immigrants from Europe

• Northern boys were much less prepared than Southern for military life, but they adjusted themselves

• North did not have as good commanders until Ulysses S. Grant

Foreign intervention

• Working people of Britain and France sympathized w/North—many read Uncle Tom’s Cabin; they were hopping for extinguishing slavery

• Restrained British and French aid from piercing Union blockade

• British textile depended on American South for their cotton supplies

• In Prewar years, enormous exports of cotton in those years had piled up surpluses in British warehouses, so the cotton famine in Britain was relieved

• Americans sent cargoes of food; Union armies penetrated South and captured/bought considerable supplies of cotton and shipped them to Britain; Confederates also ran limited quantity through blockade

• Cotton growers of Egypt and India increased output and got share of world’s cotton market

• Booming war industries in England, relieved unemployment (supplied both north and south)

• During war years the north had a lot of corn and Britain had bad harvests

• They were Forced to import huge quantities of grain from America

Major Crisis W/British official:

• Trent Affair:

• A union warship near Cuba stopped British steamer, the Trent, and forcibly removed two confederate diplomats for Europe

• Britons were outraged

• slow communications gave both sides change to cool down

• Lincoln released Trent crisis

Another major crisis: The Alabama

• These vessels were not warships w/in British law because shipyards were unarmed and picked up guns elsewhere. The Alabama escaped and manned by Britons and represented Confederates and never entered Confederate port

• Alabama was defeated by union cruiser in France

• Britain perceived that allowing ships built for Confederates might be used against them; despite Britain’s efforts to remain neutral, Confederate ships were British built and captured Union ships, severely crippling American merchant marines

Third Major Crisis: Laird rams- two Confederate warships being constructed in shipyard of John Laird and Sons in Great Britain. Designed to destroy Union navy w/iron rams and guns;

• If delivered to South, they would have destroyed Northern ships and cities

• North would invade Canada and have war with Britain

London gov. Bought two ships for Royal Navy

Americans’ anger was directed toward Canada; Southerners wanted to burn Northern cities

• There was Hatred of England amongst Irish

• So the Irish went after Canada

Dominion of Canada in 1867: British Parliament est.; partly designed to bolster Canadians politically against possible vengeance of the US

• Emperor Napoleon III of France took advantage of America’s preoccupation with its own internal problems and dispatched A French army to occupy Mexico City in 1863

• Installed Austrian archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico

• Violations of Monroe Doctrine—Napoleon thought Union would collapse and be too weak to enforce Monroe Doctrine

• Washington gave aid to Mexico’s national hero Benito Juarez; when war ended in 1865—Secretary of State Seward prepared to march in Mexico; Napoleon left and Maximilian died before Mexican firing squad

President Jefferson Davis (Confederacy) vs. President Lincoln (Union)

• Confederate gov. Had constitution (borrowed from Union)

• Created by succession—could deny future secession to its constituent states; States’ right damaged unity in Confederacy

• North had long est. gov, financially stable, and recognized at home and abroad

Limitations on Wartime Liberties

• Congress was not in session when civil war began, so Lincoln proclaimed blockade (action was later upheld by Supreme Court) and increased size of Federal Army—Congress can only do this under Constitution; directed secretary of Treasury to advance $2 million to three private citizens for military purposes—-contradicts Constitution

• Suspended privilege of writ of habeas corpus: petition requiring law enforcement officers to present detained individuals before the court to examine the legality of the arrest; protects individuals from arbitrary state action

• Arranged for supervised voting in Border States (army intimidation)

• Fed. officials ordered suspension of certain newspapers and arrested editors on grounds of obstructing war

Volunteers and Draftees:

• Northern armies were at first manned solely by volunteers, with each state assigned a quota based on population

• In 1863, after volunteering had slackened, Congress passed a federal conscription law for first time on a nationwide scale in the US

• Provisions were unfair to the poor; rich boys could hire people to go to war in their places or purchase an exemption right by paying $300

• Draft was hated by the North

• New York Draft Riots:

• Riot broke out in 1863, started by underprivileged and racist Irish Americans; rampaging, pillaging mob; lives were lost, lynches

• Union volunteers had social and patriotic pressures to enlist

• Volunteers were also persuaded by being paid good prices

• South at first relied on many volunteers; standards for who could join were low (South did not have a huge population)---forced to resort to conscription earlier than Union

• Confederate draft regulations went against poor as well

Economic Stresses of War:

• North had less trouble financially in comparison to South

• Excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol was increased by Congress

• Income taxes were levied for first time in nation and rates were low by later standards, it gave the government Millions of dollars

• Early in 1861, Congress passed Morrill Tariff act: superseded Tariff of 1857; it increased existing duties some 5-10 percent; rates were soon increased because of war necessities

• Raised additional revenue and to provide protection for prosperous manufacturers who were being affected new internal taxes

• A protective tariff was identified with the republican party as american industrialists were Republicans

• Washington Treasury also issued green-backed paper money, totaling nearly $450 million at face value; this printing-press currency was inadequately supported by gold, and its value was determined by nation’s credit. Greenbacks fluctuated w/ Union’s fortunes. Holders of notes, victims of inflation, were indirectly taxed as value of currency kept rising

• Federal Treasury raised money through sale of bonds

• The Bonds bore interest and were payable at a later date

• The treasury was forced to market its bonds through private banking—bankers succeeded in making effective appeals to citizen purchasers

• National Banking System: authorized by Congress in 1863; launched partly as stimulant to sale of gov. Bonds, it was also designed to est. a standard bank-note currency. Banks that joined National Banking System could buy gov. Bonds and issue paper money backed by them

• This was the First significant step taken toward a unified banking network since 1836, when Andrew Jackson killed the Bank of the united states (until replaced by Federal Reserve System in 1913 during Wilson’s presidency)

• South had problems financially

• Customs duties were choked off because of Union blockade

• Issues of confederate bonds were sold at home and abroad—$400 million

• Richmond regime increased taxes and imposed 10% levy on farm produce; states’ rights Southerners opposed to heavy direct taxation by central authority

• As revenue decreased, Confederate government was forced to print blue-backed paper money—-”runaway inflation” occurred as Southern presses continued to grind out poorly backed treasury notes

North’s Economic Boom

• Wartime prosperity; new factories sheltered by new protective tariffs prospered

• Soaring prices, resulting from inflation, were detrimental  to day laborer; manufacturers and businesses were fortuitous during war

• Civil War bred millionaire class for first time in American history—extravagant living

• Some manufacturers were greedy and supplied crappy supplies to soldiers for a profit

• Newly invented labor saving machinery enabled North to expand economically, even though manpower was drained at fighting front—-sewing machine fabricated uniforms and shoes

• Standard measurements for clothing were introduced

• Mechanized agriculture contributed to North’ s prosperity

  • More farm boys for army

  • fed army rations

  • The agriculture produced grain to send abroad—helped suppress South; provided profits which North used to buy munitions and supplies from abroad

• Discovery of Petroleum

• Homestead Act of 1862: federal law that sold settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for five years and improved it (Ex. built a house); act helped make land accessible to thousands of westward-moving settlers, but many people were disappointed when their land was infertile or  speculators were  grabbing best land

• Only major Northern industry that crippled was marine trade

Crushed South:

• Suffocation from blockade, destruction from Union

• Transportation collapsed

• Crippled south; capitalistic North worked with high tariffs and other benefits

• Manufacturing increased dominance over American economy

• Cotton capitalism lost out to industrial capitalism

Bull Run:

• Union army of 30,000 men drilled near Washington in the summer of 1861, it was ill-prepared for battle, but public wanted action. Lincoln concluded that an attack on a smaller Confederate force at Bull Rock (Manassas Junction) was worth it. If successful, it would demonstrate the superiority of Union arms. It might even lead to the capture of the confederate capital at Richmond. If Richmond fell, secession would be discredit, and Union would be restored w/o damage to economic and social system of South.

• Union went to Bull Run on July 21, 1861. At fit, battle was going well for Union, but Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson’ s confederate reinforcement’ s arrived unexpectedly. Union troops panicked and fled. Confederates were too exhausted/disorganized to pursue.

• Victory was bad for South because their confidence overinflated

• Southern enlistments fell sharply and preparations for future conflicts slackened

• Set the stage for war, not only for cause of reuniting Union but also for emancipation of slave s

Peninsula Campaign:

• Union General George B. McClellan was given command of the Army for the Potomac, as the major Union force near Washington was now called.

• McClellan decided upon a waterborne approach to Richmond, which lies at a western base of a narrow peninsula formed by the James and York River—The Peninsula Campaign

• McClellan inched toward the Confederate capital in the spring of 1862 w/100,000

• He captured Yorktown and finally came to Richmond; Lincoln diverted McClellan’ s anticipated reinforcements to chase Stonewall Jackson; stalled McClellan’ s forces. Robert E. Lee launched a counterattack. The Confederates slowly drove McClellan back to sea; Union forces abandoned the Peninsula Campaign and Lincoln temporarily abandoned McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac

• Lee’s army had more casualties than McClellan’s

• If Union took Richmond and ended the war in 1862, then there would have been minimal disruption the institution of slavery’

  Union Strategy

• Suffocate South by blockading its coasts

• Liberate slaves and undermine the economic foundations of the Old South

• Cut the confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi Riber backbone

• Chop the confederacy top pieces by sending troops through Georgia and the Carolina

• Capture its capital at Richmond

• Try everywhere to engage enemy’s main strength and make them submit

War At Sea:

• Blockading was extended by degrees instead of being clamped down all at once

• Blockading was simplified by concentrating

• Ordinarily, rest of the world would have defied the blockade, but Britain didn’t want to ties its hands in a future war by insisting that Lincoln maintain impossibly high blockading standards

• Blockade was risky but profitable

  • growing scarcity of Southern goods drove prices skyward

• Northern navy enforced blockade w/high-handed practices

• Union Captains would seize British fighters on the sea, if they were transporting war supplies for Nassau and other halfway stations—-justification is that munitions were ultimately for Confederates

• London wasn’t happy but acquiesced with this

• Southerners raised a former wooden US warship (The Merrimack) and plated its sides with old iron railroad rails. They destroyed Union navy in the Virginia waters of the Chesapeake Bay and also threatened entire Union blockading fleet

• Union ironclad:  **The Monitor—**fought Merrimack to a standstill; Confederates later destroyed Merrimack to keep it from grasp of advancing Union troops

Second Battle of Bull run:

• Robert E. Lee having broken McClellan’s  assault on Richmond; at second battle of  bull run, he encountered a federal force under John Pope and Lee defeated Pope’s troops

• Lee went into Maryland and hoped to strike a blow to encourage foreign intervention but also persuade still-wavering Border State and other states from the Union

Antietam Creek, Maryland

• Lincoln restored McClellan to active command of the main Northern army; two Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s battle plans wrapped around a packet of three cigars dropped by a Confederate officer

• McClellan halted Lee at Antietam on September

• Antietam was a draw militarily; Lee retired across Potomac—McClellan was removed from his field command because he was critiqued for not going against Lee even further

• Jefferson Davis was near victory; British and French govs. Were on verge of diplomatic mediation—but they didn’t  when Union displayed unexpected power at Antietam

• Emancipation Proclamation: Abolitionists have been waiting for action; Border States were neutral—Lincoln was hesitant and Antietam was a needed instigator for emancipation. On September 23, 1862, the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The Document announced that on January 23, 1863, the president would issue a final proclamation.

Emancipation Proclamation

• Declared forever free the slaves in those Confederate areas; salves in Border states were not affected; many slaves ran from their Southern camps

• By issuing proclamation, Lincoln addressed refugees’ plight and strengthened moral cause of the Union at home and abroad; also foreshadowed doom of slavery.

• Legally achieved by action of the individual states and their ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, 8 month after Civil War had ended.

• Emancipation Proclamation changed nature of war because it effectively removed any change of a negotiated settlement

• Public though Lincoln did the right thing, Abolitionists wanted him to do more, the Northwest and Border States felt that he had gone too far; South was angered

• North now had much stronger moral cause; in addition to preserving Union, had committed itself to freeing salves. Moral position of South was diminished

Slaves Battle Bondage

• Lincoln moved to emancipate the slaves, and also took steps to enlist blacks in the armed forces; War Dept. refused to accept those free Northern blacks who tired to volunteer (The Union navy enrolled many blacks as cooks, stewards, and firemen)

• Manpower ran low and emancipation was proclaimed, black enlistees were accepted (which some Northerners protested against as well)

• Black fighters had were fighting against slavery ; service offered them a chance to prove their manhood and to strengthen their claim to full citizenship at war’ s end; they received 22 Congressional Medals of Honor; Casualties were extremely heavy whether from battle, sickness, or reprisals from captors

• Many, when captured, were put to death as slaves in revolt, not until 1864 did South recognize them as prisoners of war

• Confederacy did not enlist black fighters because of prejudice, until a month before the war ended, but it was too late; slaves were farming and feeding soldiers while white men fought

• Everyday forms of slave resistance—-slowdowns, strikes, open defiance—-diminished productivity and undermined discipline

• When Union troops neared, slave assertiveness increased

• Many who remained after Civil War, especially in urban south, negotiated new working conditions in factories and on farms;slaves contributed powerfully to the collapse of slave and disintegration of the antebellum Southern way of life

Gettysburg:

• Lincoln replaced McClellan as commander of Army of the Potomac with General A.E> Burnside; Burnside launched a frontal attack on Lee’ s strong position at Fredericksburg—Union loss

• Burnside yielded his command to Joseph Hooker; At Virginia on May 2-4 1863, Lee divided his inferior force and sent Stonewall Jackson to attack the Union flank, strategy worked, Hooker was beaten but not crushed

• Jackson was accidentally shot by his own men

• Lee prepared to invade North again; Three days before intervention, George G. Mead was told he would replace Hooker

• Meade took his stand at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

• Outcome was in doubt until very end; failure of General George Pickett’s charge broke Confederate attack and broke Confederate cause

• Victory at Gettysburg belonged to Lincoln, who refused to allow Confederate peace mission to pass through Union lines

• There, Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address to dedicate the cemetery

War in the West

• Ulysses S. Grant

• Grant’s first signal success came into northern Tennessee Theater; after heavy fighting, he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donnelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in February 1862

• Grant’s triumph in Tennessee was crucial—Kentucky was more secure to Union and opened gateway to strategically important region of Tennessee

• Grant next attempted to exploit his victory by Captured Corinth. Mississippi. But Confederate forces foiled his plans at Shiloh,

Battle of Vicksburg:

• IN spring of 1862, a flotilla commanded by David Farragut joined with a Northern army to strike the South a blow by seizing New Orleans. With Union gunboats ascending and descending the Mississippi, the eastern part of the Confederacy was jeopardized; they had a narrow entrance between Vicksburg, Mississippi, and port Hudson, Louisiana, which flowed cattle and other provisions from Louisiana and Teas. The Fortress of Vicksburg, was the South’s  lifeline to the western source of supply. General grant was given command of the Union forces attacking Vicksburg; siege of Vicksburg led to the Confederacy to surrender

• Union victory at Vicksburg came the day after Confederate defeat at Gettysburg. The Political significance of these back-to-back military successes was monumental. Reopening the Mississippi helped to quell Northern Peace agitation of Ohio River Valley. Confederate control of the Mississippi had cut off region’ s usual trade routes down Ohio Mississippi River to New Orleans, thus adding economic pain to that border’ s section support for the Union; both victories tipped diplomatic scales in favor of the North, as Britain stopped delivery of the Laird rams to the Confederates and France killed a deal for the sale of 6 naval vessels to the Confederate gov

• By end of 1863, Confederate hopes for foreign help  were lost

Sherman Scorches Georgia

• General Grant, victor of Vicksburg, was now transferred to the east Tennessee theater, where Confederates had driven Union forces from battle of Chickasaw into city of Chattanooga

• Grant won series of engagements there

• The state was cleared of Confederates

• Georgia’s conquest was entrusted to General William Tecumseh Sherman. He burned buildings,  tore up railroad rails; one of the major purposes of Sherman’s march was to destroy supplies destined for the Confederate army and to weaken moral of the men at front by waging war on their homes

• Practicing total war was successful because of increased numbers of Confederate desertions; After seizing Savannah, Sherman’ s army veered north into South Carolina, where destruction was more vicious. The capital city, Columbia fell

Politics of War:

• Presidential Election of 1864

• Political infighting in the North added greatly to Confederates

• Factions within his own party, distrusting his ability or doubting his commitment to abolition, sought to tie his hands or even remove him from office—-led by secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase

• Creation of **Congressional Committee on the Conduct of War—**dominated by “radical” Republicans who resented expansion of presidential power in wartime and pressed Lincoln on emancipation; most dangerous to the Union cause were the Northern Democrats—-democrats leader—Stephen a. Douglas died after war began. Lacking a leader, the Democrats divided; war democrats supported Lincoln administration but peace democrats did not; **Copperheads—-**openly obstructed the war through attacks against the draft, against Lincoln, and against emancipation. They commanded considerable political strength in southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

• As election of 1864 approached, Lincoln’s  authority depended on his retaining Republican support while spiking threat from Peace Democrats and Copperheads; Republican party joined with War Democrats and proclaimed itself to be the Union party—the Republican party was temporarily out of existence

• People were hostile to Lincoln’ s renomination—running mate was Andrew Jackson, a War Democrat from from Tennessee

• Northern democrats—regular and Copperhead—nominated General McClellan

• Succession of Northern victories: Admiral Farragut captured Mobile, Alabama; Sheridan laid waste to Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

• One of the most crushing losses suffered by South was the defeat of the Southern Democrats in 1864

• The removal of Lincoln was the only hope for confederate

Grant Outlasts Lee

• After Gettysburg, Grant was brought in from the West over Meade, who was blamed for failing to pursue Lee

• Lincoln needed a general who would pursue

• Grant struck toward Richmond and engaged Lee in battles in the Wilderness of Virginia, during May and June of 1864; in this Wilderness Campaign, Lee had many casualties

• Grant ordered frontal assault on Cold Harbor; Union soldiers advanced;

• Lee lost to Grant

• With fewer men, Lee could no longer seize the offensive.

• In February 1865, the Confederates tried to negotiate for peace, but Lincoln could accept nothing short of Union and emancipation, and Southerners could accept short of independence

• End came w/suddenness; Rapidly advancing Northern troops captured Richmond and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia in April 1865; Grant met with Lee and granted generous terms of Surrender. Among other concessions, Confederates were allowed to keep their horses;

Lincoln’s death

• On April 14, 1865 in Ford’ s Theater in Washington, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln, who died the following morning

• His death helped to erase the memory of his shortcomings and caused his nobler qualities to stand out in clearer relief

• Confederates cheered; Southerners perceived later that Lincoln’ s death was a calamity for them—they recognized that his kindness and moderation would have been most effective shields between them and vindictive treatment by the victors; assassination increased bitterness in the North

Aftermath:

• Civil War was the bloodiest war in America and it took grisly toll

• Direct monetary costs of conflict: $15 billion—did not include continuing expenses such as pensions and interest on national debt; intangible costs—dislocations, a disunited country, wasted energies, lowered ethics, death, bitter memories, hatred—couldn’t be calculated

• Greatest constitutional decision was at the Appomattox Courthouse near which Lee surrendered

  • The extreme states’ righters were crushed, national gov. was broke

• Victory for Union also provided inspiration to the champions of democracy and liberalism; The Great English reform Bill of 1867, under which Britain became a true political democracy, was passed two years after the Civil War Ended.

• Slavery was gone

Reconstruction:

• Problems of Peace:

• Cities were ruined

• Civilization had collapsed—economic and social structure of South

• Economic life stopped—> Banks and businesses were ruined by runaway inflation

• Factories were dismantled

• Transportation systems were broken down

• Agriculture crippled

• Aristocrats were also crippled

Freedmen define freedom

• Confusion about freedom for blacks

• Emancipation was effected unevenly in dif. Parts of Confederacy

• Union armies marched in and out of various localities, many blacks found themselves emancipated and then re-slaved

• Prodded by Union armies, captors were forced to recognize their slaves’  permanent freedom; though some blacks initially responded to emancipation w/uncertainty, they soon celebrated their newfound freedom

• Many took new names in place of the ones given by their white captors

• Others abandoned their only clothing as slaves and sought finery

• Tens of thousands of emancipated blacks took to the roads—-to search for lost family members and to test their freedom

• Strengthened the black family and many newly freedmen and women formalized their marriages

• Other blacks left their former captors to work in towns and cities, where existing black communities provided protection and mutual assistance; communities sometimes moved together in search of opportunity

• From 1878 to 1880, some 25,000 blacks from Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi surged into Kansas; stemmed only when steamboat captains refused to transport more black migrants across Mississippi River

• Church became focus of black community life in years following emancipation; blacks formed their own churches pastored by their own ministers and black churches grew robustly

• Emancipation also meant education for many blacks and now they were learning to read and write; est. societies for self-improvement, which undertook to raise funds to purchase land, build schoolhouses and hire teachers

• Southern blacks soon found that the demand outstripped the supply of qualified black teachers—accepted aid of Northern white women sent by American Missionary Association, who volunteered their services as teachers; they also turned to fed. Gov for help

Freedmen’s Bureau

• Abolitionists preached that slavery was a terrible institution

• Emancipators were faced w/reality that freedmen were unskilled, unlettered,  w/o property or money, and w/little knowledge of how to survive as free people

• To cope with this problem throughout the conquered South, Congress created the Freedmen’ s Bureau

• Bureau was intended to be a kind of primitive welfare agency; it was to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education both to freedmen and to white refugees

• Heading the bureau was Union general Oliver Howard who later founded and served president of Howard University in Washington DC

• Bureau achieved its greatest successes in education

• Taught 200,000 blacks how to read; many former slaves had passion for learning because they wanted to close gap btwn themselves and whites and because they wanted to read the Bible

• In other areas, bureau’s accomplishments were meager

• Although bureau was authorized to settle former slave son forty-acre tracts confiscated from Confederates, little land made into blacks’ hands; local administrators often collaborated w/planters in expelling blacks from towns and making them sign labor contracts to work for former captors

• White south resented bureau; President Andrew Johnson—shared white supremacist views of most white southerners—-tried to kill it and it expired in 1872

Andrew Johnson was president during Reconstruction

Presidential Reconstruction

• Even before civil war ended, political war over Reconstruction had begun; Lincoln in 1863, proclaimed his “10 percent” Reconstruction Plan: decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when the equivalent of a least 10% of it total voters in the presidential election of 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the US and pledged to abide by emancipation; next stop was the formal erection of a state gov.

  • Lincoln would then recognize the regime

• Lincoln’s proclamation proved reactions in Congress, where Republicans feared the restoration of the planter aristocracy to power and possible re-enslavement of blacks

• republicans rammed through Congress in 1864, the wade-Davis bill

• the bill required that 50% of states voters take oath of allegiance demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation than Lincoln’ s price of readmission to the Union

• Lincoln vetoed  this bill by refusing to sign it after Congress had adjourned

• The Republicans were outraged; they refused to send delegates from Louisiana after that state had reorganized its gov. In accordance with Lincoln’ s 10% plan in 1864.

• Controversy surrounding Wade-Davis Bill had revealed deep differences between president and Congress; while Lincoln thought south’s s recession was not a legal withdrawal, Congress believed it was; also, further revealed differences among Republicans

• two factions were emerging

  • moderate group tended to agree w/Lincoln that seceded states should be restored to Union—though on Congress’s  terms not the president’ s

• Minority radical group said that South should have more repercussions

  • Before South should be restored, radicals wanted South’ s social structure to be uprooted, the planters punished, and the newly emancipated blacks protected by federal power

• Johnson agreed w/ Lincoln that seceded states never legally had been outside the Union

  • Johnson quickly recognized several of Lincoln’s 10% govs. And on May 29, 1865, he issued his own Reconstruction proclamation:

    • The proclamation disenfranchised certain leading Confederates, including those w/taxable property worth more than $20,000; ti called for special state conventions, which were required to repeal ordinances of secession, repudiate all Confederate debts, and ratify the slave-freeing 13th amendment. States that complied with these conditions would be readmitted to the Union. Aristocrats granted pardons in abundance

Black codes

• First acts of Southern regime sanctioned by Johnson was the passage of the Black Codes: these laws were designed to regulate the affairs of the emancipated blacks, much as the slave statutes had done in pre-Civil war days. Black codes varied in severity from state to state (Mississippi had the harshest and Georgia had the most lenient); Black Codes aimed to ensure a stable and subservient labor force; Crushed south wanted to make sure that they retained control over black people

• Dire penalties were imposed on black codes

• Those who jumped their labor contracts, which usually committed them to work for same employer for one year and generally at bad wages; violators could be made to forfeit back wages or be forcibly dragged back to work by a paid “ catcher”

• In Mississippi, captured freedmen could be fined and then hired out to pay their fines

• Codes sought to restore as possible the pre-emancipation system of race relations; freedom were legally recognized, as were other privileges such as the right to marry

• All codes forbade a black to serve on a jury; nowhere were black allowed to vote

• Oppressive laws mocked ideal of freedom recently achieved by blacks

• The worst features of Black codes would eventually be liberated, but revocation could not by itself lift the liberated blacks into economic independence

• Lacking capital, with little to offer by labor, thousands of impoverished former slaves slipped into status of sharecropper farmers, as did many landless whites. Luckless sharecroppers remained there for generations

• Planter aristocracy resented freedom

• Black codes gave an ugly impression in North

Congressional Reconstruction

• To the Republican’ s dismay, many confederates were handed back their seats

• Voters of the South, seeking able representatives, had turned to their experienced statesmen, but most of the Southern leaders were trained by active association with the lost cause

• Among them were former Confederate generals, colonels, and members of the Richmond cabinet and Congress

• Presence of them infuriated Republicans in Congress

• war had been fought to restore the Union but not on these terms

  • Republicans were in no hurry to embrace their former enemies—virtually all of them Democrats—in the chambers of the Capitol

• While the South had been out 1861-1865, Republicans enjoyed having a relatively free hand and they had pass much legislation that favored the North, such as the Morrill Tarriff, the Pacific Railroad Act (helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad w/use of land grants and gov. bonds), and Homestead Act

• They closed congress off to newly elected Southern delegations

• Republicans were alarmed to realize that a restored South would be stronger than ever in national politics; before the war a black salve counted as ⅗ a person for congressional repression; now blacks were counted as a whole person. Eleven Southern states had seceded and subdued by force of arms. Now, owing to full counting of free blacks, the rebel states were entitled to twelve more votes in Congress and 12 more presidential electoral votes

• Republicans were valid in their fear because the Southerners might join hands with Democrats in the North and win control of Congress or maybe even the White house; If this happened, they couple perpetuate the Black Codes, virtually re-enslaving blacks; they could dismantle the economic program of the Republican party by lowering tariffs, rerouting the transcontinental railroad, repealing the Homestead Act, and possibly even repudiate the national debt

• President Johnson disturbed the congressional Republicans when he announced on December 6, 1865, that recently rebellious states had satisfied conditions and that in his view the Union was now restored

Johnson Clashes with Congress

• Clash between president and Congress:

  • February 1866, when president vetoed a bill (later re-passed) extending the life of the freedmen’ s bureau

• The Republicans passed the Civil Rights Bill, which conferred on blacks the privilege of American citizenship and struck at the Black Codes—President Johnson vetoed this measure on constitutional grounds but congressmen steamrolled it over his veto, something they repeatedly did henceforth.

• Congress increasingly assumed the dominant rule in running the gov. Republicans feared that the Southerners might one day win control of the congress and repeal the civil rights law; the lawmakers undertook the principles of the Civil Rights Bill into the constitution as the 14th amendment

  • The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868 and was a pillar of constitutional law. It conferred civil rights, including citizenship but excluding a specific guarantee of the franchise, on the the freedom, reduced proportionately the representation of a state in Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied blacks the ballot, thereby abolishing the original Constitution’s notorious 3/5ths clause but stopping short of a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote; disqualified from federal and state office former Confederates who as fed. Officeholders had once sworn to support the constitution of the United states; and guaranteed the fed. Debt while repudiating all Confederate debts

• Republican faction was disappointed that 14th amendment did not gain the right to vote, but all Republicans were agreed that no state should be welcomed back into the Union fold without first ratifying the 14th amendment

• Johnson advised the Southern states to reject it, except Tennessee ratified it

• As 1866 lengthened, the battle grew between Congress and president; root of controversy was Johnson’ s 10% govs. That had passed the Black Codes; Congress tried to temper worst features of the codes by extending the life of the Freedmen’ s Bureau and passing the Civil Rights Bill; both measures Johnson vetoed—now the issue was Southern acceptance of the principles enshrined in the 14th amendment

• Congressional elections of 1866 were approaching

• Republicans now had a veto-proof Congress and virtually unlimited control of Reconstruction policy; Radicals in the Senate were led by Charles Sumner; in the house the most powerful radical was Thaddeus Stevens—defended runaway slaves in court w/o fee—

• Radicals wanted to keep them out as long as possible and apply fed. Power to bring about drastic social and economic transformation in the South; but moderate Republicans, invoking principles of states’ rights and self-gov.

• They preferred policies that restrained the states from citizens’ rights, rather than policies that directly involved the fed. Gov. in individual lives

Reconstruction

• Congress passed the Reconstruction bill : supplemented by later measures, this legislation divided the South into five military districts, each commanded by Union general and policed; The act also temporarily disfranchised thousands of former Confederates

• Congress laid down stringent conditions for readmission of seceded states

• States were required to ratify the 14th amendment, giving former states their rights; white Southerners needed to guarantee their state constitutions full suffrage for their former adult male slaves—-yet the act stopped giving freedmen land or education at fed. expense —The overriding purpose of the moderates was to create an electorate in southern states that would vote those states back into the Union on acceptable terms and thus free the fed. Gov. from direct responsibility for the protection of black rates —-this was an inadequate to the cause of justice for blacks

• Radical Republicans were worried that once the confederate states were readmitted; Congress sought to provide constitutional protection for the suffrage provisions in the Reconstruction Act. This goal was achieved by the Fifteenth Amendment,

• Military Reconstruction of the South not only usurped certain functions of the president as commander in chief but set up a martial regime of dubious legality. The Supreme Court had already ruled in the case Ex part Milligan, that military tribunals could not try civilians even during wartime, in areas where the civil courts were open. Peacetime military rule seemed starkly contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

• Prodded into line by fed. Bayonets, the Southern states got on with the task of constitution making. By 1870 all of them had reorganized their govs. And had been accorded full rights. When the fed. Troops finally left a state, its gov. Swiftly passed back into the hands of white Redeemers, which were Democrats. In 1877, the last federal union troopers were removed from state politics.

No women voters

• The passage of the 13, 14, and 15 amendment delighted former abolitionists but deeply disappointed advocates of women’ s rights; women had played a prominent part in the prewar abolitionist movement and had often pointed out that both women and blacks lacked basic Civil rights, especially the crucial right to vote. The struggle for black freedom and the crusade fro women’ s rights; During the war, feminist leader such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had suspended their own demands and worked for the cause of black emancipation. The Woman’ s Loyal League had gathered nearly 4000,000 signatures on petitions asking Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery

• Feminist leaders believed that their time had come; Stanton and Anthony campaigned against the 14th amendment despite the pleas of Frederick Douglass, who had long supported woman suffrage but believed that this was the Negro’s hour. When the 15th Amendment proposed to prohibit denial of the vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, Stanton and Anthony wanted the word sex added to the list. They lost this battle too. Fifty years would pass before the Constitution granted women the right to vote.

Realities of Radical Reconstruction in the South

• By 1867, hesitation had given way to hard determination to enfranchise the former slaves wholesale, while white Southerners were being denied the vote

• Having gained their right to suffrage, Southern black men seized the initiative and began to organize politically. Their primary vehicle became the Union League, originally a pro-Union org. Based in the North. Assisted by Northern blacks, freedmen turned the league into a network of political clubs that educated members in their civil duties and campaigned for Republican candidates. The league’ s mission soon expanded to include building black churches and schools, presenting black grievances before local employers and gov. And recruiting militias to protect black communities from white retaliation. Though African American women did not obtain the right to vote, they too assumed new political roles. Black women faithfully attended the parades and rallies common in black communities during the early years of Reconstruction and helped assemble mass meetings in the newly constructed black churches. They even showed up at the constitutional convention held throughout the South in 186, monitoring the proceedings and participating in informal votes outside the convention halls.

• But black men elected as delegates to the state constitutional conventions held the greater political authority. They formed the backbone of the black political community. At the conventions, they sat down whites to hammer out new state constitutions, which most importantly provided for universal male suffrage. Though the subsequent elections produced no black governors or majorities in state senates, black political participation expanded exponentially during Reconstruction—Hiram Revels, Blanche K. Bruce

• Sight of former slaves holding office offended their former captors, who lashed out at the freedmen’ s white allies, labeling them scalawags and carpetbaggers. The scalawags were Southerners and carpetbaggers were Unionists and Whigs.

• Radical legislatures passed much desirable legislation and introduced many sorely needed reforms. For the first time in southern history, steps were taken toward establishing adequate public schools. Tax systems were streamlined; public workers were launched; and property rights were guaranteed to women . Many  reforms were retained by all-white redeemer govs. That later returned to power

• Despite these achievements—corruption ran in many radical govs.

• Promoters used political inexperienced blacks as pawns

• corruption was by no means confined to South in these postwar years

Klu Klux Klan:

• founded in Tennessee

• Ex bondsmen and white carpetbaggers were targets of terrorists

• Force ACts of 1870/1871: Fed. troops were able to stamp out much of the lash law, but Klu Klux Clan was Built from intimidation

• White Resistance undermined attempts to empower blacks politically; white South openly flouted 14th and 15th amendments—disenfranchisement of blacks started around 1890 through intimidation, fraud, and trickery—some schemes were literacy tests, unfairly administered by whites to the advantage of illiterate whites—-goal of white supremacy fully “justified” dishonorable devices

Radicals wanted to remove Andrew Johnson unconstitutionally

• Congress passed the Tenure Of Office Act over Johnson’s veto. The new law required the president to secure the consent of the Senate before he could remove his appointees once they had been approved by that body. One purpose was to freeze into cabinet the secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton—secretly informer for radicals

• Johnson provided radicals with a pretext to begin impeachment proceedings when he dismissed Stanton early in 1868

• HOR majority voted to impeach Johnson

• The House conducted the prosecution

• His attorneys argued that the prescient, convinced that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional, had fired Stanton merely to put a test case before the Supreme Court (tribunal ruled directly in Johnson’s favor 58 years later)

• By margin of only one vote, radicals failed to muster ⅔ majority for Johnson’s removal

• Several Factors:

• Fears of creating a destabilizing precedent

• Principled opposition to abusing constitutional mechanism of checks and balances

• Political considerations also figured conspicuously

• Vice president position was vacant under Johnson, his successor would have been radical Republican Benjamin Wade –Wade was disliked by many members of the business community for his high-tariff, soft-money, pro-labor views and was distrusted by moderate Republicans

• Johnson indicated through his attorney that he would stop obstructing Republican policies in return for remaining in the office

• Radicals were infuriated by their failure to muster a ⅔ majority for Johnson’s removal

• The Nation accepted verdict

  • The nation narrowly avoided a dangerous precedent that would have weakened one of the three branches of the fed. Gov

• Johnson’s biggest flaw was his inflexibility

*purchase of Alaska on other notes

Heritage of Reconstruction (last page)
- White southerners resented upending of social and racial system, political empowerment of blacks, and insult of federal inteervention in their local affairs

• Was reconstruction really taht radical?

• Lincol, Johnson, and most REpublicans had no clear picture at war’s  end of what federal policy toward South should be

• Policymakers wanted the right policies, influenced by Southern responses to defeat and emancipation as by any plans of their own to impose a specific program on the South

• Republcicans acted from idealism and political expoediencey

• Wanted to protect freed slaves and promot fortune of the Republican praty

• Efforts backfired

• Reconstruction conferred only little benefits on blacks and extinguished the Republican party in the South for 100 yeasr

• Moderate republicans never fully appreciated the extensive effort necessary to make the freed slaves completely independent citizens, nor the lengths to which Southern whites would go to  preserve their system of racial dominance

• Had Thadeus Steven’s  radical program of drastic economic reforms and protection of political rigths had been enacted, the outcome would have been different

• But ingrained racism, American resistance to tampering with property rights, and loyalty to the principle of autonomy resulted in a spreading indifference in the North to the plight of blocks, formed too formidable an obstacle