CWR - Reconstruction (Lesson)
Reconstruction
Upon the conclusion of the fighting of the Civil War, a period known as Reconstruction began. Reconstruction was the rebuilding of the United States from emotional, political, economic and physical despair. As the war came to a conclusion, President Abraham Lincoln wished to reunite the United States without punishing those states and people who had rebelled. However, many Northerners wanted to punish those people who had rebelled. What would be the treatment of former Confederate States and people? What would become of slavery? How would the nation move forward?
Reconstruction Approaches
There were two approaches towards Reconstruction following the Civil War. Presidential Reconstruction was the plan of Abraham Lincoln and later his successor Andrew Johnson and could best be summed up with the word “lenient.” Under Presidential Reconstruction, Lincoln hoped to peacefully return the states in rebellion to the union. He did not wish to place Confederate leaders on trial or punish the citizens of those states. The policy was almost immediately evident as Lincoln ordered Ulysses S. Grant to allow Robert E. Lee and his men return to their homes with their horses, supplies and weapons following his surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.
In contrast, Congressional Reconstruction can most likely be summed up by the word “punish.” Congressional Reconstruction, also known as Radical Reconstruction, for the Radical Republican members of Congress who sought revenge for the Civil War and to punish Confederate leaders and governments. These members of Congress and those who concurred with their approach blamed Southern secessionist states for the war and the moral evil of slavery.
Lincoln’s Presidential Reconstruction called for Southern states to agree to three terms for readmission to the United States.
- They were to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.
- The Southern states had to denounce the practice of slavery.
- Ten percent of a state’s voting population took an oath of allegiance.
Upon completion of these terms, each state would return to United States and its citizens would return to their former status as citizens.
Radical Republicans were in opposition to Lincoln’s proposal. In response, they passed the Wade-Davis Bill. While the bill also called for the Southern states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, the Wade-Davis Bill called for fifty percent of a state’s voting population to take an oath of an allegiance. Given the fresh wounds of the Civil War and the addition to the end of slavery, the conditions of the Wade-Davis Bill were seen as vengeful and unlikely to be accomplished. With the understanding that Southern states either could not or would not reach this level of allegiance, then the Northern states and the Northern-controlled Congress would be able to enact and enforce legislation on Southern states in retribution. While the Wade-Davis Bill passed, Lincoln vetoed the bill at his desk.
Lincoln's Assassination
Within days of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed while attending a play with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was an actor and Confederate sympathizer. Booth gained access to the balcony where the Lincolns were watching the play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., shot Lincoln in the head behind the left ear, then jumped from the balcony to the stage where he proclaimed in Latin “sic semper tyrannis” or “thus always to tyrants” before his escape. Booth was later found and killed in a barn in Virginia in the days following Lincoln’s assassination.
Johnson's Impeachment
Upon Lincoln’s death, Vice President Andrew Johnson became president of the United States. With his succession, Johnson took on the impossible role of following Lincoln’s leadership. While Lincoln had vetoed the Radical Republican Wade-Davis Bill which sought to punish the South during Reconstruction, he was not able to push his agenda for the South’s lenient return to the United States. Johnson wished to continue the Presidential Reconstruction ideals of Lincoln.
As a southerner and a Democrat, Lincoln’s choice of Johnson demonstrated his wish to reconcile the North and South amicably in the Election of 1864. The Republicans never considered he might become president when he ran with Lincoln in the 1864 election. So they didn’t investigate him and in so doing didn’t fully grasp Johnson’s Southern sympathies.
The chaos of Lincoln’s murder did not help Johnson’s administration. He tried to readmit the Southern states quickly. However, the Radical Republican-controlled Congress pushed numerous bills through to slow Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction plan. In response, Johnson vetoed the bills which sought to punish the South and tested the relationship between the president and Congress. As a Democrat Johnson also used his office to rid his administration of Republicans who worked under Lincoln.
Dismayed and frustrated with President Johnson, the Republican Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 to secure Republican control of administrative positions. The Tenure of Office Act required Senate approval before the president could remove a federal official or military officer from their position. President Johnson refuted their stance and fired opponent and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Congress countered by impeaching Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act. The impeachment process slowed Reconstruction while it amplified the chasm between Congress and the president. Ultimately, Johnson was saved from removal from office by one vote. The Radical Republicans chose to wait his term out and Johnson was stripped of his influence for the remainder of his term.
The First Reconstruction Act was passed after Johnson’s veto in 1867. This act required that the South be divided into military districts and controlled by military leaders acting as governors. Under these governors’ leadership, the Southern states passed the Reconstruction Amendments (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments) in new state constitutions. Furthermore, Southern states were held to enforce Reconstruction policies and former slaves were protected by the presence of federal troops remaining in Southern districts. Eventually, the act withered in strength as Congress and the president battled over Reconstruction policies, the economy slowed and as Southern politicians regained their power in state and local governments.
The Freedmen's Bureau
In 1865 Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands or the “Freedmen’s Bureau” to provide short-term help for former slaves and poor white farmers. The Bureau served as a social program established to provide for basic needs, training, education and relief for those under its oversight. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided direct relief to those in need but also provided thousands of jobs for freed slaves and poor whites negatively impacted by the war. The bureau also served as an extension of the enforcement of the Reconstruction Amendments, helping former slaves with legal issues with landowners and local governments.
During the period of slavery many states made it illegal to teach slaves how to read and write. Truly reflecting the adage of “knowledge is power,” these states and their leaders wished to keep slaves uninformed and illiterate to limit their mobility and their opportunities. Therefore, one of the major tasks of the Freedmen’s Bureau was to educate former slaves to understand basic rights and protections afforded to them under the law but also to be competent as they established their new lives. The Freedmen’s Bureau built schools and educated thousands of former slaves. (The former slaves were more interested in their children’s education than in their own education because they knew that their children’s lives depended on education.)
The Freedmen’s Bureau had no control over privately held land. The discriminatory practices of tenant farming and sharecropping were able to emerge. Disguised as a more equitable opportunity for former slaves, these practices only continued the discrimination towards former slaves. Having no control over land, the Freedmen’s Bureau could only help to educate and support sharecroppers and tenant farmers as much as possible. The Bureau further struggled to protect former slaves as federal troops withdrew from the South. The Bureau was never able to gain support from Southern leaders. Moreover, the increasing level of public opposition to continued Reconstruction efforts in the South caused Northern leaders to become agitated by the continual expensive costs to maintain the Bureau and its objectives. Eventually, all of these issues led to the end of Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The End to Reconstruction
While Reconstruction policies provided new rights and protections for former slaves, those rights and protections were dependent on the security of federal troops and federal oversight. As the years after the Civil War passed, former Southern leaders emerged as leaders in new roles politically to combat Reconstruction policies and oversight. Southern white political leaders enacted oppressive laws and regulations, and federal elections became more contested. In the Presidential Election of 1876 Democrat Samuel J. Tilden faced off against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Former Confederate states were now able to impact the presidential election for the first time since the Civil War began. With the election, some electoral votes were in question—many from Southern states. Democratic leaders, from both the South and North, argued their candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, should win the election. A special commission, however, ruled that Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had won. The Democrats protested the results and the Compromise of 1877 was enacted. Southern Democrats were able to negotiate for Southern infrastructure improvements with federal funds, the removal of federal troops from Southern states, and the appointment of a Southern Democrat to the presidential cabinet. In exchange for these conditions, the Democrats conceded the presidential election to the Republicans and Rutherford B. Hayes. Keeping the promise of the Compromise of 1877, Hayes removed the federal troops and the protections for former slaves essentially left with them. Thus, the Compromise of 1877 is seen as the end of Reconstruction.
A Closer Look - Freedmen's Bureau
The map below shows locations of field offices, camps and schools created by the Freedmen's Bureau.
Explore the map on the the Freedmen's Bureau website. Links to an external site.