Chapter Notes: Reconstruction
The period following the Civil War, known as Reconstruction, lasted from 1865 to 1877 and represented one of the most challenging times in American history. After four years of brutal conflict that killed more than 600,000 Americans, the nation faced enormous questions: How would the South rebuild? What would happen to the nearly four million formerly enslaved people? How would Confederate states rejoin the Union? The answers to these questions shaped American society for generations to come.
The Challenges Facing the Nation
When the Civil War ended in April 1865, the United States confronted problems unlike any it had faced before. The challenges fell into several major categories, each requiring urgent attention from political leaders.
Physical Destruction in the South
The Civil War had devastated the Southern states. Most battles had been fought on Southern soil, leaving cities, farms, and railroads in ruins. Atlanta, Georgia, had been burned during General Sherman's March to the Sea. Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, lay in ashes. Railroads were torn up, bridges destroyed, and farm fields left unplanted. The South's economy, which had been based almost entirely on cotton cultivation using enslaved labor, had completely collapsed. Banks failed, Confederate money became worthless, and many white Southerners faced poverty for the first time.
The Future of Formerly Enslaved People
The most important question facing the nation concerned the status of the four million African Americans who had been freed by the war and the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the United States in December 1865. These freedpeople (the term historians use for formerly enslaved individuals) needed land, education, jobs, and legal protection. Most had no property, no formal education, and few resources. Yet they possessed remarkable determination to build new lives in freedom.
The Thirteenth Amendment states: "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."
This amendment permanently ended slavery in America, but it did not answer how formerly enslaved people would participate in American society or whether they would have the same rights as white citizens.
Readmitting Confederate States
During the war, eleven Southern states had left the Union to form the Confederacy. Now that the war was over, these states needed to be brought back into the United States. But under what conditions? Would former Confederate leaders be punished or pardoned? Would the states simply return as if nothing had happened, or would they need to meet certain requirements? Different political leaders had very different answers to these questions.
Presidential Reconstruction: Lincoln and Johnson
Even before the war ended, President Abraham Lincoln had begun planning for Reconstruction. His approach became known as Presidential Reconstruction because it was directed by the executive branch rather than Congress.
Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan
In 1863, Lincoln announced his Ten Percent Plan. Under this plan, a Southern state could form a new government and rejoin the Union once ten percent of its voters from the 1860 election took an oath of loyalty to the United States. The state also had to accept the end of slavery. Lincoln's plan was relatively lenient, meaning it was not harsh or demanding. He wanted to make it easy for Southern states to return, believing this would help heal the nation's wounds quickly.
Many members of Congress, especially Radical Republicans, believed Lincoln's plan was too forgiving. These lawmakers wanted to ensure that the South could never start another rebellion and that freedpeople received full rights as citizens. However, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, just days after the war ended, so his approach was never fully tested.
Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction
Andrew Johnson, who became president after Lincoln's death, was a Democrat from Tennessee who had remained loyal to the Union during the war. Johnson continued a lenient approach to Reconstruction, issuing pardons to thousands of former Confederates and allowing Southern states to form new governments with few restrictions. He required states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment and nullify their secession ordinances (the official acts by which they had left the Union), but little else.
Johnson's policies quickly led to problems. Southern states elected many former Confederate leaders to office, including the former vice president of the Confederacy. Even more troubling, these new Southern state governments began passing laws called Black Codes.
The Black Codes
The Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866 designed to restrict the freedom of African Americans. While the laws varied from state to state, they shared common features:
- African Americans could be arrested for vagrancy (not having a job) and forced to work for white employers
- Black workers who left their jobs before their contracts ended could be arrested
- African Americans could not own guns, serve on juries, or testify against white people in court
- Black people needed special permits to work in jobs other than farming or domestic service
- Orphaned African American children could be forced to work for white employers without pay
The Black Codes essentially attempted to recreate slavery under a different name. Imagine being told you were free, only to discover that you still could not leave your employer, own property, or have the same legal rights as other citizens. This was the reality many freedpeople faced under Presidential Reconstruction. When news of these laws reached the North, many Americans were outraged. They had not fought a war to end slavery only to see it return in a new form.
Congressional Reconstruction
Frustrated with President Johnson's lenient policies and alarmed by the Black Codes, Congress took control of Reconstruction in 1867. This phase is called Congressional Reconstruction or Radical Reconstruction.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
Congress first responded by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that all people born in the United States (except Native Americans on reservations) were citizens with equal rights under the law. This was the first time the federal government had defined citizenship. President Johnson vetoed the bill, arguing that it gave too much power to the federal government, but Congress overrode his veto-the first time in American history that Congress had overridden a presidential veto on an important piece of legislation.
The Fourteenth Amendment
Concerned that a future Congress might repeal the Civil Rights Act, Republicans pushed for a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of freedpeople permanently. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, became one of the most important additions to the Constitution:
"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."
This amendment established that African Americans were citizens and that states could not take away their rights. The phrases "due process of law" and "equal protection of the laws" became foundations for civil rights protections that continue to this day.
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867
When most Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress passed a series of Reconstruction Acts in 1867. These laws represented a dramatic change in approach:
- Tennessee, which had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, was readmitted to the Union
- The other ten former Confederate states were divided into five military districts, each governed by a Union general
- To rejoin the Union, states had to write new constitutions guaranteeing African American men the right to vote
- States had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
- Former Confederate leaders were temporarily banned from voting or holding office
President Johnson vetoed these acts, but Congress again overrode his vetoes. The conflict between Johnson and Congress became so intense that the House of Representatives impeached Johnson in 1868, charging him with violating the law. The Senate tried him and came within one vote of removing him from office-he was acquitted by a margin of 35 to 19, just one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.
The Fifteenth Amendment
In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, stating that the right to vote could not be denied based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This amendment aimed to protect African American voting rights permanently. Together, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments are called the Reconstruction Amendments, and they fundamentally changed the Constitution by expanding federal protection of individual rights.
The Freedmen's Bureau
To help formerly enslaved people transition to freedom, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. This was the first federal agency created to provide social welfare services.
The Freedmen's Bureau accomplished important work during its existence:
- Distributed food, clothing, and medical care to both freedpeople and poor whites in the South
- Established more than 4,000 schools for African Americans, including several colleges and universities that still exist today, such as Howard University and Fisk University
- Helped freedpeople negotiate labor contracts with white employers
- Legalized marriages between African Americans that had not been recognized under slavery
- Provided legal assistance when freedpeople were treated unfairly
The bureau faced enormous challenges. It was understaffed, underfunded, and opposed by many white Southerners. President Johnson tried to shut it down, but Congress kept it operating until 1872. Despite its limitations, the Freedmen's Bureau represented the federal government's first major effort to promote racial equality.
African American Life During Reconstruction
For African Americans, Reconstruction was a time of both tremendous hope and significant danger. Freedpeople worked to build new lives while facing violent opposition from many white Southerners.
Political Participation
For the first time in American history, African American men could vote and hold office in the South. The results were remarkable. Between 1869 and 1877:
- Two African Americans served in the U.S. Senate: Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both from Mississippi
- Fourteen African Americans served in the U.S. House of Representatives
- Hundreds of African Americans served in state legislatures across the South
- African Americans held positions as lieutenant governors, state treasurers, superintendents of education, and local officials
These African American politicians worked to establish public schools, rebuild infrastructure, and protect civil rights. Many were educated and experienced leaders. For example, Francis Cardozo of South Carolina had been educated at universities in Scotland and England before serving as his state's secretary of state and treasurer.
Education and Community Building
Freedpeople placed enormous value on education, which had been illegal for enslaved people in most Southern states. African American communities pooled their resources to build schools and hire teachers. Both children and adults attended classes, often after long days of work. By 1870, approximately 250,000 African Americans were attending schools in the South.
African Americans also established their own churches, which became centers of community life. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and Baptist churches grew rapidly, providing not just religious services but also schools, mutual aid societies, and political organizing spaces.
Economic Challenges: Sharecropping
Despite their political gains, most freedpeople remained economically dependent on white landowners. Many had hoped for "forty acres and a mule"-a rumor had spread that the government would give each freedman family land confiscated from former slaveholders. While General Sherman had temporarily set aside coastal lands in Georgia and South Carolina for freedpeople, President Johnson returned most of this land to its former Confederate owners.
Without land of their own, most freedpeople became sharecroppers. Under the sharecropping system, a farmer worked land owned by someone else and paid the landowner with a share of the crop, usually one-half to two-thirds. The landowner also provided seeds, tools, and other supplies.
Sharecropping had serious disadvantages:
- Sharecroppers went into debt to the landowner for supplies
- Landowners often cheated sharecroppers when calculating what they owed
- Sharecroppers could rarely save money or escape poverty
- The system tied workers to the land almost as firmly as slavery had
Imagine working all year in the hot sun, then at harvest time being told that after the landowner takes his share and you pay for your supplies, you actually owe money rather than earning any. This was the reality for many sharecroppers, both Black and white. The sharecropping system kept the South poor and agricultural while the North industrialized and grew wealthy.
Southern White Resistance
Many white Southerners bitterly opposed Reconstruction and worked to restore white supremacy through both legal and violent means.
The Ku Klux Klan and Violent Opposition
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Tennessee in 1866 by former Confederate soldiers. The Klan was a terrorist organization that used violence and intimidation to prevent African Americans from exercising their rights. Wearing white robes and hoods to hide their identities, Klan members:
- Murdered African American political leaders and white Republicans who supported Reconstruction
- Burned schools and churches built by freedpeople
- Whipped and beat African Americans who tried to vote or who were considered "uppity"
- Conducted nighttime raids designed to terrorize entire communities
The Klan and similar groups, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, murdered thousands of people during Reconstruction. In some areas, they effectively prevented African Americans from voting through sheer terror.
Congress responded by passing the Enforcement Acts (1870-1871), also called the Ku Klux Klan Acts, which made it a federal crime to interfere with voting rights and allowed the president to use military force against terrorist organizations. President Ulysses S. Grant sent federal troops to South Carolina and other states, arrested Klan members, and temporarily reduced the violence. However, the federal government lacked the resources and, eventually, the political will to maintain this level of enforcement.
Redeemers and the Return of Democratic Control
White Southerners who wanted to end Reconstruction and restore Democratic Party control called themselves Redeemers. They claimed they would "redeem" the South from Republican rule and Black political participation. Using a combination of violence, voting fraud, and economic pressure, Redeemers gradually took back control of Southern state governments. By 1877, only three states-South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana-still had Republican governments supported by federal troops.
The End of Reconstruction
By the mid-1870s, support for Reconstruction was declining in the North. Several factors contributed to this change:
- Northerners grew tired of the struggle and wanted to focus on other issues
- An economic depression called the Panic of 1873 shifted attention to financial problems
- Racist attitudes remained common even in the North; many white Northerners accepted the idea that African Americans were not ready for full equality
- Corruption scandals during the Grant administration damaged Republicans' credibility
- Northern business interests wanted to invest in the South and saw Reconstruction policies as obstacles
The Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877
The presidential election of 1876 resulted in a crisis that ended Reconstruction. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes ran against Democrat Samuel Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, but the electoral vote was disputed in three Southern states-South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana-the last states under Republican control with federal troops present.
Both parties claimed victory in these states, and the nation faced a potential constitutional crisis. To resolve the dispute, congressional leaders from both parties negotiated the Compromise of 1877:
| Republicans Received | Democrats Received |
|---|---|
| Hayes became president | Federal troops withdrawn from the South |
| Republican governments in disputed states were recognized | A Southerner appointed to Hayes's cabinet |
| Federal funding for Southern railroads and internal improvements | |
| End of federal enforcement of Reconstruction policies |
President Hayes removed federal troops from the South in April 1877. Without federal protection, the remaining Republican governments quickly collapsed, and Reconstruction ended. For African Americans, this marked the beginning of a long period of oppression and discrimination.
The Legacy of Reconstruction
Reconstruction had mixed results that shaped American history for more than a century afterward.
Achievements of Reconstruction
Despite its ultimate failure to protect African American rights, Reconstruction accomplished significant goals:
- The Thirteenth Amendment permanently ended slavery
- The Fourteenth Amendment established citizenship rights and equal protection under the law
- The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting
- Public school systems were established throughout the South for the first time
- African Americans demonstrated their capabilities as voters, office-holders, and citizens
- The federal government established the principle that it has a responsibility to protect individual rights
The Failures of Reconstruction
Reconstruction also had serious failures that allowed racial oppression to continue:
- The federal government did not give freedpeople land, leaving them economically dependent
- Federal commitment to protecting African American rights proved temporary
- White terrorist violence succeeded in overthrowing Reconstruction governments
- Racist attitudes remained widespread in both the North and South
The Jim Crow Era
After Reconstruction ended, Southern states passed Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation (separation of races) and denied African Americans their rights. These laws:
- Required separate schools, railroads cars, restaurants, and other facilities for Black and white people
- Used poll taxes, literacy tests, and other devices to prevent African Americans from voting
- Created a system of legal inequality that lasted until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was constitutional as long as facilities were "separate but equal." This decision remained law until 1954, giving legal approval to discrimination for nearly 60 years.
The Unfinished Work
Reconstruction raised fundamental questions about American democracy: Would the United States truly be a nation where "all men are created equal"? Would the federal government protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of race? The Reconstruction Amendments provided a constitutional framework for answering "yes" to these questions, but American society struggled to fulfill these promises for generations.
The Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century is sometimes called the "Second Reconstruction" because it returned to the unfinished work of the first Reconstruction. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, largely ignored for decades, became the legal foundation for ending segregation and protecting voting rights in the 1950s and 1960s. In this way, Reconstruction's most important legacy may be that it established constitutional principles that future generations could use to continue the struggle for equality and justice.
Understanding Reconstruction helps us recognize that expanding rights and equality has always required sustained effort and courage. The period showed both the possibilities of democratic change and the powerful forces that resist it. The freedpeople who built schools, exercised their right to vote, and fought for their families despite tremendous obstacles demonstrated remarkable resilience. Their story, along with the story of those who supported and opposed them, reveals essential truths about American history and the ongoing work of creating a more just society.
