620,000 died, which is about 2% of the population.
Many more were seriously wounded.
50,000 civilians died though modern figures estimate civilian deaths closer to 750,000
Comparative fatalities:
Confederate deaths: ~260,000
Union deaths: ~364,511
Total U.S. population in 1860: ~31 Million
During Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864, the Union army burned everything, leaving entire cities in ruins.
Two-thirds of Southern railroads were destroyed.
One-third of livestock was killed or disappeared.
The South was in dire straits.
The Process of Reconstruction:
Key questions:
How would 4 million former slaves be re-incorporated into American society?
What was the political and legal status of the former Confederate states who fought against the U.S.A.?
How should the nation rebuild the war-torn South?
The initial government focus was on the readmission of the South to the Union.
Presidential Reconstruction - Lincoln:
Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan:
Even before the war ended, Lincoln devised a plan for Reconstruction.
On December 8, 1863, he issued the “Ten Percent Plan”.
All Southerners could reinstate themselves as U.S. citizens by taking a simple loyalty oath.
When 10% of those who voted in the 1860 election had taken the oath, they could set up a state government.
The governments must:
Be republican in form (representative democracy).
Recognize the “permanent freedom” of slaves.
Provide an education for freed blacks.
Congress's Response - Wade-Davis Bill:
Radical Republicans in Congress disliked Lincoln’s 10% Plan, viewing it as too moderate.
Even before the war ended, the occupied states of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas had reestablished loyal governments meeting Lincoln’s criteria.
Radical Republicans in Congress refused to admit representatives from these states into Congress.
Thus, in July 1864, they passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which required a majority of Southerners in a given state to take the loyalty oath.
Confederate officials and anyone who had “voluntarily borne arms against the United States” were barred from voting
This bill was pocket vetoed by Lincoln (left unsigned until it expired).
Lincoln's Assassination:
On April 5, 1865, Lincoln visited the captured city of Richmond.
A few days later, on April 9th, the South surrendered.
On the evening of April 14th, Lincoln was watching a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater.
Actor John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president’s box and fired a single shot into the back of his head with a small pistol (timed so the audience’s laughter would mask the sound)
Booth and his co-conspirators believed Lincoln was determined to overthrow the Constitution and destroy the South, as supporters of slavery.
He was upset about a speech where Lincoln floated the possibility of voting rights for African American veterans.
Booth fled Ford Theater, aided by Confederate sympathizers, and was captured almost 2 weeks later after an extensive manhunt.
Early the next morning, Lincoln died.
His Vice President, former Democratic Tennessee Governor Andrew Johnson, became president.
Working class, hated planters, but was a white supremacist.
Presidential Reconstruction - Johnson:
Andrew Johnson believed that Reconstruction was an executive branch matter, seeking the rapid restoration of the former Confederate states.
Johnson took the oath of office when Congress was in recess, putting him in charge of Reconstruction from April to December.
Johnson revealed his Reconstruction Plan—or “Restoration” as he called it—soon after he took office.
Implemented it in the summer of 1865 (Congress still in recess).
Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan, similar to Lincoln’s, called for Southern states to:
Withdraw their orders of secession
Swear allegiance to the Union (with a higher threshold than Lincoln’s 10%)
The President could grant individual pardons, which allowed many leaders to vote and hold office again.
He wanted them to grovel!
Ratify the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery
Eventually, Johnson pardoned more than 13,000 former Confederates, which angered Radical Republicans.
By December 1865, when Congress reconvened, all seceded states had formed new governments under this lenient plan and awaited Congressional approval.
Congressional Reconstruction:
Congress's Turn:
When Congress reconvened on December 4th, 1865, the Republican Congressional clerk refused to read the names of any of the southern delegates.
The Radical Republican Congress was asserting its control over Reconstruction.
February 1866, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866
Declared that Blacks were citizens and could not have their rights to property restricted.
“Put teeth” in the 13th Amendment, which had been ratified in 1865
Johnson vetoed the act, then was overridden by Congress with a two-thirds veto on April 9th, 1866.
First major piece of legislation that became law over the veto of a president.
Importantly, the passage of this bill effectively announced that the national government had the responsibility of protecting the rights of citizens, not states.
Massacre in Memphis:
Racial violence broke out in the South because of growing political, social, and racial tensions (May 1st to May 3rd)
White mobs in Memphis, including most of the city’s police force, began to roam the street, hunting Black people
Three months later, in August, forty more were killed in a similar massacre in New Orleans.
This southern violence sparked a push for the creation and passage of the 14th amendment.
Early Reconstruction Amendments:
13th Amendment (1865):
The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, had been ratified in December 1865, by the time Congress had reconvened.
14th Amendment (1868):
The 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to anyone, regardless of race, born in the United States.
This amendment effectively overturned the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision.
Moreover, it struck at discriminatory legislation like the Black Codes, stating that no law can “abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”
It was first passed by Congress in June 1866, after Congress heard testimony from victims in the Memphis Massacre.
However, according to the Constitution, three-fourths of the states need to ratify the amendment for it to go into effect.
Every southern state at the time had an all-white state legislature. And every such government—except for Tennessee—refused to ratify the amendment.
Military Reconstruction:
The Structure:
In 1866, every former CSA state, except Tennessee, remained out of the Union with no say in federal elections.
1866 midterms resulted in significant majorities for Republicans (173 seats in the House of Representatives, only 47 for the Democrats)
Significance: Gave Congress the two-thirds majority to overrule any presidential veto, neutralizing Johnson’s power.
By the spring of 1867, the Radical Republicans were firmly in control.
On March 2nd, 1867, Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act (over Johnson's veto).
Separated the southern states into 5 military districts, each overseen by a Union military general.
Congress then laid out strict new terms to reenter the Union:
The states that had rebelled had to adopt new constitutions
They had to give black men the right to vote (even though many northern states hypocritically did not grant this right to black men at this point)
They had to elect new state governments
And they had to ratify the 14th Amendment
Due to the aggressive terms and enforcement of these terms, Southerners at the time called this “bayonet rule”.
Enforcement:
Congress then proceeded to add Supplementary Reconstruction Acts, which directed the military commanders to begin the enrollment of voters.
In the South, the provisional governments established by Johnson were swept away, and the registration of blacks and whites who had not supported secession began.
Activists and army officers spread out across the South registering freedmen to vote as martial law was declared in the southern states.
Northern whites who traveled into the military districts to advance the Radical cause were called “carpetbaggers”.
White southerners who cooperated with Radical Reconstruction in this period were labeled “scalawags”.
At the beginning of 1867, fewer than 1% of all Black men in the U.S. could vote. By the end of 1867, that number was higher than 80%. The vast majority of registered Black voters were Republican.
By June 1868, six of the former Confederate states were admitted, having met Congress’s requirements.
By July of 1868, the 14th Amendment was officially ratified, with the three-fourths vote necessary by the state legislatures.
Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives and escaped removal by a single vote in the Senate after a dubious violation of the Tenure of Office Act.
1868 Presidential Election:
By the Election of 1868, all Confederate states except Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas had met the requirements under Military Reconstruction and reentered the Union in time for the election.
White gangs terrorized black voters in New Orleans and other major southern cities
Republicans in Georgia and Louisiana had to abandon campaigning altogether
However, more than 500,000 Black men cast their votes.
Every southern state except Georgia and Louisiana voted for the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant.
15th Amendment:
Context:
Following the election of 1868, Radical Republicans had more strength and determination.
Congress blossomed with suffrage amendments.
After considerable bickering, the 15th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification in February 1869.
15th Amendment forbade all states the denial of the right to vote to anyone “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Did not apply to women.
The remaining unreconstructed states—Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas—had to ratify the 15th amendment before they could be considered for readmission into the Union.
Women's Suffrage:
The 15th Amendment said nothing about denial of the vote on the basis of sex, which caused feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony significant frustration.
Men protected their own rights, they argued, but not the rights of women.
This and the 14th amendment – parts of which only protected “males” – split the women’s suffrage movement into two, leading to decades of bitter partisanship between the two wings.
The same year, more conservative activists created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)
Favored a state-by-state effort at securing women’s suffrage
This group supported the 15th amendment and accepted both men and women members
In 1869, some activists formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and admitted only women
Favored a federal solution to women’s suffrage (an amendment)
This group opposed the 15th Amendment, which they believed should include women
Ratification:
Virginia ratified the 15th Amendment in January 1870, Mississippi in February, and Texas in March.
The 15th Amendment was ratified on March 30th, 1870, and all states were officially readmitted into the Union.
Key Takeaways:
Reconstruction altered relationships between the states and the federal government and led to debates over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans, women, and other minorities.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th and 15th amendments granted African Americans citizenship, equal protection under the laws, and voting rights.
The women’s rights movement was both emboldened and divided over the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to change the balance of power between Congress and the presidency and to reorder race relations in the defeated South yielded some short-term successes.